At every startup I’ve worked with, the Founders haven’t used social media enough.

But being active on social media wasn’t the dealbreaker for any of them. At each one we managed to find a distribution channel and, in some cases, product-market fit. The Founders having an audience wouldn’t really have changed whether the business worked or not.

However, an audience makes the starting phase easier. The beginning of any startup is a grind. You have no social proof, no distribution and sometimes no budget. It’s the beginning where having an existing audience accelerates the process. An audience makes it easier to get your product in front of people. It makes people more likely to buy from you, because followers add legitimacy. It makes it easier to get to proof of concept, so you can double down or pivot more quickly. It means you’re further ahead and can negotiate better terms with VCs.

Startups are a race against time. Money, energy and momentum are constantly decreasing. The faster you can move, the faster you can replenish them, and the better everything else becomes.

So Founders should post more on social media.

The problem is when you’re running a business and you’re not a natural tweeter, posting on social media is never the priority. There is literally always something that takes precedent.

But when you view entrepreneurship through the lens of it being a long game, then it is a priority. You want the thing you’re working on right now to be the thing that works. But most startups fail, so yours probably will too. Better that you make it easier for your next one, or your fourth one to succeed.

Because if you succeed then nobody cares if you failed before. If anything, it becomes part of your hero’s journey.

What’s great about launching a product or starting a business is that it’s one of the sure-fire ways to build an audience. You don’t have to be funny or clever or game the algorithms (although all of those help). You can just share your journey. People like business-inspo, the ups and the downs. You can build an audience around tackling interesting problems, whether you solve them or not.

And by posting, you’ll get better at it. You’ll learn how to be funny, clever and to game the algorithms.

Then each time you launch a new product or business, the starting phase will get easier. An easier starting phase makes everything else easier. Each time you swing, you’re more likely to hit a home run.

So post more.