 |
|
|
|||||
This year alone, companies have announced over 740,000 job cuts so far, a high since 2020. And thats just in the US. But for a growing number of professionals (even before 2025), the solution hasn’t been in polishing their résumés, but in building personal brands that create true job security for them. Building a personal brand can let you: Showcase your talents Create an audience/network Get people to know who you are, what you do, and what to come to you for When done well, a strong personal brand attracts job offers before roles are even posted, leads to consulting or speaking opportunities, and opens the door to new networks that cant be accessed with a résumé alone. For me, building my personal brand over the past 10+ years has meant creating content online (mostly on LinkedIn & Twitter), and writing for publications like Entrepreneur, Inc., The Next Web, and many others. All these efforts have opened a lot of doorsfrom starting out as a freelance writer to running a six-figure content marketing agency, and then eventually becoming the cofounder of Leaps (an AI platform that helps people and teams turn their raw expertise and experience into content that builds their personal brands). For this article, I spoke with four professionals whove used their personal brands to turn their careers around. Andres Vourakis, a data scientist, built a safety net of opportunities and extra income after layoffs shook his early career. Ana Calin left a 15-year executive role and became the creator of one of Substacks fastest-growing newsletters, giving her complete freedom and a thriving business. Paul O’Brien, a veteran marketer, leveraged his reputation to evolve from the SEO guy into a thought leader on startup economics and public policy. And Joei Chan, once a content marketing leader, turned unemployment into a creative rebrand that now draws clients who want her to tell their truth, show up fully, and build their brand with authenticity. We got into fears, breakthroughs, identity work, and how building a personal brand is transforming not just their careers, but their lives. From layoffs to lightbulbs What made you realize you needed a personal brand, and how did that moment spark your journey? Andres Vourakis: I was unfortunately laid off early in my career, and that experience opened my eyes to the real meaning of job security. I realized that job security wasn’t about working hard to become an essential worker, because at any moment, a business could decide to let you go. And over the past few years, I’ve seen many talented friends become victims of massive layoffs in tech. Thats when it really clicked for me: real job security is staying future-proof. Building my personal brand is not only allowing me to grow, share my data science expertise, and connect with lots of great people, but its also helping me generate extra income. It helps me sleep better at night knowing that my livelihood wont be decided by a business that may no longer find my work valuable tomorrow. Ana Calin: I didnt set out to “build a personal brand.” I just wanted freedom. I had just left my 15-year executive role; big title, global travel, the whole you made it package. And yet, I felt done, ready for something that felt mine. I remember staring at a blank LinkedIn post, wondering what to say. I had no niche, no strategy, no idea what people would care about. But I wrote anyway, about quitting, about reinvention, about starting from scratch. And people listened and responded. That was the spark. From that one post came DMs, leads, and ultimately a real business. The first step: finding the confidence to show up What was your very first step in building your personal brand, and what gave you the courage to share it publicly? Joei Chan: The first real step was launching Brand New, my Substack newsletter. I was freshly unemployed, creatively raw, unsure of my next chapter. But I had this deep urge to tell the truth. To turn my mess into a message. So I started writing. When I started posting online after being fired, there was definitely hesitation. I worried about looking unprofessional, scaring off future employers, or being labeled as emotional or difficult. But now I see vulnerability as a creative strategy. Its not oversharing, its storytelling that names the deeper truth and helps others feel less alone. From there, I started a video series called “Rebranding My Life After Losing My 9 to 5.” It was scrappy and personal, just me, documenting the messy middle. Paul O’Brien: Having come from Yahoo! and then helping HP take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) and Google, it just clicked and made sense to kick off my personal brand and start sharing my expertise in public. What gave me confidence was that in 2002, very few people knew how to do SEO. Confidence to put yourself out there often comes from knowing that people will find value in what you have to offer. Ana Calin: I stopped trying to sound smart and started sounding like myself. I didnt have a niche, and I wasnt selling anything. But I had real stories about quitting, reinventing, and failing forward. I wrote a post on LinkedIn about walking away from my executive role. And it wasnt the highlight reel; the actual messy version. No strategy or call to action, but just truth. That one post brought in over 50,000 views. And that gave me the nudge I needed. The unexpected rewards of showing up authentically Looking back, whats one surprising way your life or career has improved because of your personal brand? Ana Calin: I thought I was building a brand. Turns out, I was building a life. One with no boss, no Sunday scaries, no pretending. I found my voice, the one I had buried under professionalism for 15 years. And when you find your voice, everything shifts. And you stop chasing opportunities, you start choosing the ones to accept as they come, thanks to your personal brand. Joei Chan: I feel more me than I have in years. What began as a career crisis became the greatest rebrand of my life. It led me back to my voice, my creativity, and a deeper truth: The branding and creative work I love isnt just strategic, its spiritual. And unexpectedly, this is the work people now come to me for: helping them reclaim their own story and show up fully as themselves. Paul OBrien: Being out there lets you evolve over time, as we all do. I started out known for SEO; I even leaned int it with the nickname SEOBrien, thanks to my early work at Yahoo! and HP. But as I kept writing and sharing, my interests shifted toward startups, economic development, and innovation. Over time, the content I created followed that shift, and so did my audience. Now, instead of being known for search, Im sought out for my work as a startup economist and my perspectives on public policy for entrepreneurs. That evolution wouldnt have happened without a personal brand that allowed me to grow in public. Andres Vourakis: Its improved my confidence, my ability to communicate ideas, and even how effectively I do my work as a data scientist. Ive spent so much time reflecting on what I do and why I do it, especially when creating content, that I now have way more clarity in how I approach problems and explain my thinking. Your story is your safety net Traditional job security is fading away fast. I cant count how many top performers Ive seen with impressive résumés who are finding themselves out of work with little warning. But what does exist, and is increasingly powerful, is the ability to position your skills and experience in a way that makes people want to work with you. Thats what a personal brand does. It makes you visible, builds trust, and shows not just what you do, but how you think. And that combination attracts new opportunities (job offers, clients, collaborators, even investors) often before roles are ever publicly posted. Personal brands are the new, real job securitythe safety net that ensures people know who you are, what you bring to the table, and why youre worth betting on. So start now. Start sharing your expertise, your story, your perspective. The earlier you build your brand, the more protected, and in demand, youll be.
Category:
E-Commerce
Holding a patent could be a lot costlier for businesses and founders in the years to come. The Trump administration is reportedly considering a substantial change to the patent process, which would raise trillions of dollars for the government but could substantially increase fees for patent holders. The Wall Street Journal reports the Commerce Department is considering charging patent holders between 1% and 5% of their overall patent value. It’s unclear if that will replace the current model, where companies and individuals pay up to three flat maintenance fees over a series of years (which typically works out to a few thousand dollars), or be in addition to those charges. Draft proposals and financial models are being worked on now, The Journal reports. If the change goes through, it could be especially onerous for Big Tech firms like Apple or Amazon, which file for thousands of patents per year, the vast majority of which are filed for defensive purposes and never utilized. The money raised from the fees would be used to pay down the $37 trillion national deficit and possibly other unidentified tasks. The Commerce Department did not reply to Fast Company‘s request for comment about the possible changes. No other country charges patent holders a percentage of a patent’s value. In the U.S., utility patent holders currently pay maintenance fees at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after issuance. The 11.5-year feethe largest of the threeis $8,280, and roughly half of all patents are abandoned before reaching that point, placing the innovation into the public domain. (Design patents are exempt from maintenance fees.) The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a self-funded agency that covers its costs by collecting fees for the application for and issuance of patents and trademarks. Last year, it took in just under $4 billion in patent fees and $583 million in trademark feesand it maintains operational reserves to cover any financial shortfalls. A radical change to the 235-year-old office could bring about significant pushback from businesses, both domestic and international. Many would likely cut back on their patent filings, perhaps instead publishing information about innovations, which would prevent others from claiming a patent on that creation. Another potential hurdle is assigning valuations to patentssomething the USPTO has never done. Developing a reliable method would take time and money, and policymakers would also need to decide how to handle patents with little or no value (i.e., when the cost of obtaining the patent exceeds the products market value). The post-DOGE USPTO The potential changes to patent fees come just four months after the USPTO was the focus of a review by the Department of Government Efficiency. While it’s still unclear how many workers might have been laid off or taken early retirement, the department was ordered to halt its plans to recruit approximately 800 new employees, primarily patent examiners. In addition, Vaishali Udupa, the agency’s commissioner for patents, resigned in Februaryand people who work regularly with the department say theyve heard of other, lower-level departures. The wait time today to patent a product averages 30 months. (Trademarks take about 10 months to process.) Without the new employees, that could significantly extend those timesand adding a new patent process into the mix could stretch it out further. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick oversees the USPTO and pledged during his confirmation hearing to tackle the application backlog, which he called unacceptable.
Category:
E-Commerce
If youve proven your product on a pilot line, and its time to turn up real-world production, beware because many companies stumble on their first large-scale build. Before you pour concrete or sign any equipment orders, look at the full landscape of challenges: engineering, supply chain, utilities, and the human relationships that hold it all together. Scaling up isnt as simple as adding another shift. Its multiplying everything you do by orders of magnitude. Moving from pilot lots to commercial volumes often means a 1,000- to 10,000-fold jump in throughput, with megawatts of electrical load, and water usage that can rival a small town. Construction alone can run $300- to $950-per-square-foot before a single machine is installed on the floor. Miss the mark and the cost isnt just financial; its reputational. Schedule slips, lost customers, and bruised reputations follow fast. To move from pilot line to production line with confidence, follow these four steps for a successful scale-up. Master the process First, nail down the process by mapping the critical quality parameters like temperature, humidity, pressure, cycle time, purity, and set hard limits for each. Then, stress test them, and challenge your R&D team better. Run design-of-experiments on the pilot line or in a digital model to reveal where small shifts can trigger big cost savings. For instance, one client learned that relaxing humidity from 1% to 5% would half HVAC tonnage and save millions in capital expenditures and operating expendituresproof that tiny tweaks can save a budget. By truly grasping the process, you can size every supporting elementutilities, material flow, staffing, and automationas one integrated system rather than a patchwork of guesses. Capture the data, lock the findings into a concise process design package, and carry that document forward. When you know exactly what the process is, the next steps become simpler and cheaper. Dont underestimate planning Start with the end in mind by defining must-hit key performance metrics (KPIs) and assign a value to each. Look past day one, and sketch how the site should flex five, 10 or even 15 years out to ensure that any expansion wont require a new round of demolition. Build your budget around total cost of ownership because operating expenses usually eclipse capital expenses within the first few years. Early in design, run what-if scenarios on power, water, logistics, and labor to see where small changes may unlock big lifetime savings. A solid plan also links directly to the process data you just captured, allowing you to size utilities, floor space, and headcount as one coherent ecosystem instead of a series of isolated line items. Always remember that good planning can overcome poor execution, but poor planning cant be overcome by the best project execution. Find the right team Scaling up succeeds or fails on people. Name a dedicated project leader with the authority to make fast decisions and free that person from the distractions of their current day job. Build a core owners team that blends operations, engineering, finance, with environmental, health, and safety, so that key decisions are vetted through multiple lenses in real time. When selecting outside partners, look for firms with proven scale-up experience and incentives that align with yours. Create mutually beneficial contracts that keep everyone rowing in the same direction. Onboard partners early, regularly co-locate them physically or in a virtual war room, and encourage short, recurring stand-ups to surface issues before they become costly delays. A well-constructed, well-aligned team will turn your solid plan into an on-time, on-budget reality. The wrong team will burn through schedule, cash, and goodwill faster than any technical misstep. Implement strong management Once ground is broken, disciple becomes the differentiator. Put a seasoned program manager at the helm to own the master schedule, budget, and KPI dashboard. Resist the temptation to micromanage the process, rather schedule regular data-driven reviews that spotlight variances early while they are still cheap to fix. Pair that oversight with a formal management-of-change process, changes to scope, design, or materials routes through a single, transparent workflow that weights cost, timeline, safety, and regulatory impact before approval. Finally, capture lessons learned in real-time, not at project closeout, so improvements feed straight back into construction and into future scale-ups. Strong, visible management turns a good team and a good plan into a plant that starts up on time and performs from day one. Do these four things well, and your new facility wont merely open on schedule, it will deliver the throughput, quality, and cost profile that turns a promising idea into a market-shaping reality. Mike Sewell is director of innovation at Gresham Smith.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||