Investors Bet on People: Lessons for Central Asian Startups

Expert commentary by Alexander Likhtman, founder and CEO of PR agency ITCOMMS.

Central Asia now has more startups than it has money. In this environment, the product alone is no longer enough to succeed. Market size, early revenue, growth rates — all of that matters. But investors don't make decisions based on numbers alone. And impressive charts won't even get you in the room.

Amid the crowded field of competing projects, investors focus on the people behind the startup. A founder's personal brand becomes the lens through which the entire company is judged. In the end, teams are competing against people they probably know — for the attention of people who probably don't know them at all.

Why Personal Brand Matters for Startup Founders

The personal brands of a founder and key team members have become, if not the defining factor, then a critical one for startups in Central Asia. The math is simple: there are more startups than there is money. In Kazakhstan, many venture funds have already closed their investment rounds and access to capital is shrinking. In Uzbekistan the market is more dynamic, but competition there is growing too.

Personal brand may not be the single most important thing about a startup, but it is one of the most important complements to it. You need to be known, you need to be validated — by other market players, at events, by investors. People should already have a clear picture of what you've been through and what you've achieved before you ever walk in to pitch. Your reputation should arrive before you do.

It's a mistake to think investors evaluate nothing but numbers. In reality, they invest in people — and they have little interest in being misled. That means track record, industry experience validated by external sources, and reputation all come into play. This is why building a coherent public image matters — one with no associations with politics, scandal, or anything questionable.

For a while, every startup founder was obsessed with the elevator pitch — a 10-to-30-second self-presentation for the chance encounter with an investor in a lift. That still works, but the odds improve dramatically when the investor interrupts the founder at the 10-second mark and says: "Wait — weren't you the one on stage at Digital Bridge in Astana talking about your case?" Or: "Hold on, weren't you the winner of the Startup Battle? I've read about you."

Or imagine a very busy investor, moving from meeting to meeting, and an assistant mentions that three startups are requesting pitch sessions. There's only time for one. The assistant reads out the founders' names — and one of them rings a bell. That's the meeting that gets scheduled. (Provided, of course, that the name is associated with something positive, not a scandal.)

And don't forget scouts and analysts. Their job is to find strong startups and filter out the weak ones. Both groups work through their networks and through digital footprints. If you don't have a digital footprint, you simply don't exist. Background checks will easily confirm a clean record and other formal requirements. But if you can't be Googled, scouts will have to ask colleagues what they know about you — and that's a precarious position, because you have no control over what gets said. Through personal brand and earned visibility, however, you can shape what people find out about you.

Where to Start Building Your Personal Brand

Personal brand work has to start with strategy: what you want to achieve, who can help you get there, and how to communicate your value. Without that foundation, visibility becomes noise. Think about which investors matter most to you — who they are, what they invest in, and what they actually care about. If you're building a personal brand to attract top talent, that works too, but the strategy, channels, and content will look completely different. The most important thing is to define your goal before you start.

Many founders stall right at the starting line. Some aren't used to being in the spotlight and fear the backlash. Others struggle to notice and capture things worth sharing. We all carry a lot of fears — and founders with technical backgrounds tend to carry even more. Writing code at your laptop is not the same as putting yourself out there and telling the world what you've built. Shipping software is not the same as telling your story publicly. For this, I recommend a therapeutic exercise: start a private Telegram channel. It's similar to the well-known practice of journaling, but with a public dimension in mind. It trains you to create content regularly and share your thinking — at first, with a faceless machine.

But a Telegram channel isn't the only path. Some founders go straight to a column on their own website or on LinkedIn. Others write on user-generated content platforms — Reddit or Habr. What matters isn't where you start, but the process itself: consistency and the habit of recognizing and communicating your value.

There's no universal platform — it all depends on the audience you need to reach. If your investors and clients are on LinkedIn, be on LinkedIn. If they read newsletters, start one or find your way into an existing one. If you're selling a mass-market product, your platforms are Instagram and TikTok.

Meaningful visibility is rooted in expertise — when your public activity helps your audience understand something, learn something, or become better at what they do. That carries far more weight than posts about the gym, cars, or personal hobbies. But balance matters: you also need to show that you're a real person. If you're a triathlete, it's perfectly fine to talk about what sport has taught you about work. But if people know you only as a triathlete and not as an entrepreneur, something feels off — just as it does when someone posts nothing but expert content. The formula: expertise plus the human side.

Common Mistakes in Building a Personal Brand

A personal brand cannot be built on pretense. It's not about crafting an image for its own sake — it's about being consistent with what you actually project. If you're a hard-edged, high-pressure leader, build the image of someone who fights for results, not someone smiling at every flower in the frame.

A founder or executive is a human being — they can't spend 100% of their time focused solely on the startup. People buy from people, not from cardboard cutouts. Don't forget to share the personal side too — in measured doses, and always in line with your strategy. The most common misconception is: "Our product is so strong that people will eventually start talking about it on their own." But the world has billions of great products, and only thousands ever get talked about. If you don't put in the effort yourself, you'll be quietly competing against players who make noise — and in that game, the odds are rarely in your favor, unless you happen to be Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg. So even if your product truly is exceptional, don't neglect to highlight the who and the how behind its creation and growth.

How It Usually Goes

I went through this myself: I spoke at every conference attended by either PR professionals who could buy our services or tech people who might need them. I wrote on LinkedIn for an international audience and in Central Asian media for a local one. I built an audience from across the CIS into a Telegram channel. Through personal brand, ITCOMMS achieved in Central Asia within two years what took me 12 years to build in Russia.

There are cautionary examples too. One founder managed to raise a round almost entirely on PR: Forbes and other outlets wrote about him extensively. But the product turned out to be far weaker than the founder had claimed, and it all ended in scandal. The lesson is clear: personal brand accelerates the journey, but it cannot replace the business itself.

Conclusion

Personal brand isn't about likes or self-promotion. It's about strategy: what you want to achieve, who can help you get there, and what you're willing to show the world. In Central Asia, where the venture capital market is still taking shape, the founder's identity can matter more than the pitch deck itself. And if no one can find anything about you — or no one is looking — then, as far as the market is concerned, you simply don't exist.

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