Building a Founder-Led Brand with April Butten

Can you build a product brand in 2026 without putting the founder front and centre?

I’m joined by April Butten, founder and Creative Director of Boast Studio, to talk about why founder-forward marketing has gone from nice-to-have to one of the fastest ways to build trust, traction and demand. We consider the difference between simply being the face of a brand and having genuine authorship, obsession and skin in the game. And importantly, what to do if being on camera makes you want to quietly delete Instagram and disappear.

We also get into one of my favourite marketing bugbears: brands claiming they’ve built a “community” when what they actually have is an audience. April shares what real community looks like when the founder isn’t in the room, why participation matters more than broadcasting and how brands can give their customers a bigger role instead of saving all the fun stuff for influencers.

Then we tackle AI slop, culturally relevant brands and world building. We look at why replacing creative thinking with AI is a slippery slope, how brands like Fenty Beauty and The Ordinary changed consumer behaviour, and why strong brands build a recognisable world rather than jumping on every trend the algorithm throws at them. If you’re building a founder-led brand, this episode will help you think much more deliberately about visibility, community and the world you’re asking customers to step into.

Come say hi

If being the face of your brand has ever made you want to hide safely behind the logo, I want to hear about it.

Find me on Instagram → @campaign_del_mar

Extras

→ Explore The Village
→ Get Mia’s Mini Campaign Planner

References mentioned in this episode

This episode was produced by Laura McRae from Podcast Support Services

Building a Founder-Led Brand with April Butten

Come say hi

Extras

References mentioned in this episode

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