The Founder Brand Playbook Behind Recall.ai’s $38M Series B

Amanda Zhu is the co-founder of Recall.ai, the API that lets SaaS tools access data from Zoom, Meet, Teams, and more.In just 8 months, Amanda grew her LinkedIn following to 40,000+ and turned content into a serious GTM channel, helping Recall land customers like HubSpot, Calendly, Apollo, and Datadog, while scaling past $20M ARR.In this episode, Amanda walks through her full playbook, from getting lucky with her first viral post, to building a structured, repeatable system for consistent growth. We also break down Recall’s content ops, audience targeting, and why Amanda believes credibility is earned in public, not in your pitch deck.Topics that we will cover in this episode: - The 2-week LinkedIn experiment that changed Recall’s GTM strategy- How Amanda and her marketer co-write 6 posts every week- Building a Notion database of content ideas, voice notes & pillars- Why “hook + value” is still the core formula for going viral- How to keep content fresh by varying tone, depth, and topic- What they’ve learned about the LinkedIn algorithm (and how it’s changing)- The real ROI: 20M+ impressions and customers that “already know her”- Why Amanda briefly added PS product pitches and why she removed them againConnect with Amanda: - Amanda’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhu-amanda/- Recall.ai: https://www.recall.ai/Connect with me:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/Website: https://www.project33.io/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03CXzsZp7wdqIRVDcqPTFH Chapters00:00 Amanda’s Background & What Recall.ai Does02:10 Why LinkedIn Became Their Top GTM Channel04:00 The First Posts: No Framework, Just Instinct06:15 Going Viral Early - Luck or Strategy?08:00 Reverse-Engineering What Works (And Building a System)10:00 Notion Board, Weekly Content Meetings, Hands-on Writing13:00 Voice Notes, Pillars, and Getting Granular16:00 Scheduling Posts vs. Posting Live17:45 Daily LinkedIn Routine & Why They Avoid Automation19:20 The Target Account List Strategy (Manual, Not Automated)20:45 What They Track Instead of Attribution22:00 The Unquantifiable ROI (Conferences, Familiarity, Warm Leads)24:30 Why Hooks Matter More Than Anything Else25:30 The Role of Founder Stories, Frameworks, and Granular Value27:30 Tradeoffs: Building for Founders vs. Selling to Product Leaders29:00 Why Content Only Works if You’ve Lived the Story30:30 Should Her Co-founder Post Too? Why Timing Matters32:00 Advice to YC Founders: Just Start Posting (Even If It Sucks)34:20 How to Build Your Own System36:15 The “PS Buy Our Product” Era (Why It Worked & Why They Paused It)Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03CXzsZp7wdqIRVDcqPTFHLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/Website: https://www.project33.io/#founderledmarketing #b2bmarketing #linkedin #saas #founderbranding #executivebranding #pr This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.executivebrand.org