Hey there!

It’s Sparsh here!👋 

Every founder markets themselves a little. That's the game. But somewhere along the way, a chunk of the startup world swapped building for performing, and the difference between the two is getting harder to spot on a first scroll. 📱 

Hubert Thieblot recently laid out a sharp checklist for spotting the pattern, and it's worth unpacking. 👇

Let’s dive in to know more.🚀

🚩 What LARPing actually looks like

Founder LARPing isn't lying exactly. It's optimizing for the appearance of momentum instead of the thing itself. A few patterns show up again and again. 🎢

🌱 Why it's become so common

Three forces are pushing founders toward performance over progress. 🎯

1. Distribution got cheaper than building. A good thread can reach more people in a day than a product can reach in a quarter. The incentive to post outpaces the incentive to ship. 📱

2. Funding rounds became content too. A raise announcement gets more engagement than a product update, so the raise becomes the milestone people optimize for. 💰

3. The founder persona sells on its own. Investors, talent, and press all respond to confidence and narrative before they respond to traction, so narrative gets built first. 🎤

🔍 Builder vs performer, side by side

💸 The real cost of the act

The cost isn't just personal. Every hour spent optimizing a personal brand instead of a product is an hour the market doesn't get evidence on whether the idea works. That gap tends to close all at once, usually at fundraising time. ⏳

🕵️ How to spot it if you're on the other side

Whether you're an investor, a co-founder, or a prospective hire, a few quick checks cut through the performance fast. 🔦

💡 Why the difference matters

None of this means founders should stop building in public or courting investors early. That's healthy. The problem is when the performance becomes a substitute for progress rather than a record of it. Markets are usually slow to notice the gap, but they do notice. Eventually the deck needs a product behind it. 🚀