Alicia turned her own leap into the content
She was a LinkedIn employee advising billion-dollar brands who had never posted herself. Then she quit, went all in, and made the journey itself the product.
Alicia Teltz spent 15 years in B2B tech sales at SAP, Mastercard, Gartner, and LinkedIn. A year ago she quit a $250k Global Client Executive role at LinkedIn to build a business about LinkedIn. Since then she has grown past 53K followers, launched a paid Substack, run workshops for Google and Amazon, and been featured in Forbes. We read 100 of her most recent posts to map how documenting the leap became a full-time business.
Her method is the opposite of polished thought leadership. Build-in-public content is sharing the real milestones and the messy backstory as they happen, money and fear included, so the audience is invested in the journey, not just the advice. Alicia posts the 50k celebration, the first paid dollar, the psychiatric unit at 17, all of it, and the honesty is what earns the room.
Waits until the win is safe and impressive, posts the polished version, and blends into the feed of experts.
Posts the leap in real time, the fear, the numbers, the mess, and lets people follow along and root for her.
Small audience, enormous engagement
Alicia is not the biggest account we have torn down. She might be the most engaged one for her size, and the comments prove it.
Across the 100 posts we analyzed, Alicia averages 410 reactions and 162 comments on a 53K-follower account, a comment-to-reaction ratio of 39%. The typical LinkedIn post sits near 6%. Hers is roughly seven times that. Seven posts cleared 1,000 reactions. For an audience her size, that is a relationship, not just reach.
Two things drive that ratio. First, her posts are emotional, milestones and comebacks people want to react to. Second, she replies to everyone, including 200-follower accounts, so the comments compound instead of dying. Want to see your own engagement rate? Run your profile through our free linkedin analyzer.
| # | Post | Reactions | Comments | Reposts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I've just hit 50,000 followers | 1,692 | 523 | 9 |
| 2 | 365 days ago I quit my $250k job at LinkedIn | 1,652 | 375 | 9 |
| 3 | I'll forever be engaging with 'small' creators | 1,570 | 626 | 5 |
| 4 | I'm Alicia. 36. German. And just hit 50k | 1,569 | 337 | 5 |
| 5 | I am a paid writer | 1,532 | 249 | 10 |
| 6 | Someone with 700,000 followers subscribed to my Substack | 1,366 | 318 | 5 |
Six pillars, from milestone to mindset
Alicia's feed rotates through six repeating pillars, each doing a different job for the same reader: the person who wants to bet on themselves but is scared to start.
The wins in real time: 50k followers, first paid dollar, Forbes.
The messy backstory, from a psychiatric unit to a corporate exit.
How the algorithm and profiles really work, from the inside.
The mindset unlock: visible-and-good beats invisible-and-excellent.
Autism, ADHD, and refusing to shrink to fit the norm.
Warm Sunday reminders that keep her audience coming back.
1. Build-in-public milestones
Why it works: Why it works: a real, specific, dated money milestone shared with unfiltered joy. People root for a number they watched happen.
2. The comeback story
Why it works: Why it works: a raw age-by-age timeline that earns trust before it asks for anything. The lows make the wins believable.
3. Ex-LinkedIn insider strategy
Why it works: Why it works: the 'ex-LinkedIn employee' credential turns a generic tip into insider knowledge. Authority plus utility gets saved and shared.
4. Get over the cringe
Why it works: Why it works: she names the exact fear stopping her audience (cringe), then proves the payoff with a real logo. Permission plus proof.
5. Neurodivergence and self-acceptance
Why it works: Why it works: she takes a clear side on an identity topic her audience feels deeply. Conviction on a real issue is comment fuel.
6. Encouragement and rest
Why it works: Why it works: a short, warm, shareable reminder that costs nothing to read. These gentle posts keep her audience emotionally attached between the big stories.
Hooks that read like a friend texting you
Alicia's openers are loud, specific, and human. She literally teaches hooks, then proves the lesson with her own milestones.
Stop doing [...] -> contrarian, demands attention The truth about [...] -> promises insider knowledge Here's the secret I learnt the hard way -> vulnerability plus exclusivity But her biggest posts break the formula: they are raw milestones and confessions, not clever tips.
The pattern under all of them is emotion and specificity. Her repeating shapes:
- The all-caps milestone: 'I'VE JUST HIT 50,000 FOLLOWERS!!!!'
- The anniversary: 'Today, exactly 365 days ago: I quit my $250k job at LinkedIn.'
- The money reveal: 'I've just made my first $10k on Substack!!'
- The self-introduction: 'I'm Alicia. 36. German. And just hit 50k LinkedIn followers.'
- The raw confession: 'Age 17: Spent 3 months locked up in a psychiatric unit.'
Every hook is a real, specific moment. To draft openers in this style, try our free hook generator, and if you want the mechanics she teaches, our guide on how the LinkedIn algorithm works covers the same ground.
The document-the-journey flywheel
Every pillar feeds one loop that turns Alicia's real life into an audience, and that audience into a full-time income.
- 1Share the raw milestoneA 50k celebration, a first paid dollar, a comeback story. No polish.
- 2Reply to everyoneShe engages with 'small' creators too, so the comments compound.
- 3Point to the next stepA paid Substack, a LinkedIn Live, her first-ever cohort.
- 4Turn the audience into incomePaid subscriptions, workshops for Google and Amazon, brand deals.
Underneath it is a habit worth copying: she turns one real moment into a LinkedIn post, a Substack article, and a live session, the same story reshaped for each place her audience lives. That is exactly the job CaptureFlow automates. CaptureFlow is an AI content agent that turns your expertise into weeks of on-brand content for every platform, trained on your voice and your past posts, so one story becomes a LinkedIn post, an X thread, a carousel, and a short video without losing the personality that makes people follow you.
The unfiltered friend: her voice rules
Alicia writes the way she talks: loud, warm, and completely unafraid to look uncool. The lack of polish is the point.
- Writes with raw, exclamation-heavy honesty
- Shares the real milestone, money and fear included
- Replies to everyone, including 200-follower accounts
- Puts the messy backstory before the win
- Ends warm: a heart, a thank-you, a nudge to be bold
- Waits for a polished, 'professional' version
- Hides the failures, the redundancy, the low points
- Pretends the leap was safe (no backup plan, no savings)
- Talks down to beginners or ignores small creators
- Sounds like a corporate LinkedIn thought leader
It is a voice built for the full-time creator and anyone building one in public. It is the same self-made, document-everything lane that carried Steven Bartlett, whose account we break down in our Steven Bartlett teardown, a founder she has been proud to be listed alongside.
Steal Alicia's build-in-public playbook in 30 days
You do not need to quit your job or hit a milestone first. You need one real thing you are working toward and the nerve to narrate it.
- Pick one real thing you are working toward
- Post it publicly, the goal and the fear, out loud
- Get over the cringe. Post before you feel ready.
- Tell the messy story that led you here, lows included
- Be specific: real dates, real numbers, real feelings
- Let the vulnerability come before any advice
- Answer every comment, even from tiny accounts
- Go engage on small creators' posts too
- Treat the comments as the relationship, not the reach
- Share the first small win the moment it happens
- Point followers to your next step or offer
- Reshape the story for another platform you own
Alicia reshapes one story across LinkedIn, Substack, and live sessions by hand. If you want the same one-idea-everywhere reach without the manual work, that is what CaptureFlow automates. See pricing to start turning your own journey into weeks of content.
The takeaways
- 01Alicia Teltz quit a $250k job at LinkedIn and, in about a year, built a 53K-follower personal brand and a full-time creator business.
- 02Her engagement is exceptional for her size: a 39% comment-to-reaction ratio, roughly seven times the typical LinkedIn norm of around 6%.
- 03She documents everything in public, the milestones, the money, and the messy backstory, which is what turns readers into fans.
- 04Her plain-text posts outperform her images and videos, proof that a raw, honest story beats production value.
- 05She replies to everyone, including 200-follower accounts, and that generosity is a big reason her comments compound.
- 06Her core message: get over the cringe and post anyway, because visible-and-good beats invisible-and-excellent.
Frequently asked questions
- Who is Alicia Teltz?
- Alicia Teltz is a former LinkedIn Global Client Executive who quit her $250k corporate job to become a full-time LinkedIn creator and personal-branding coach. She has grown past 53K followers and runs a paid Substack, workshops, and her first LinkedIn cohort.
- Why is Alicia Teltz's LinkedIn so effective?
- She documents her journey in public with raw honesty and replies to everyone. Across 100 recent posts she runs a 39% comment-to-reaction ratio, about seven times the norm, which is exceptional for a 53K account.
- What is Alicia Teltz's content strategy?
- Share the real milestone or story, money and mess included, then engage generously in the comments. Her plain-text posts outperform her images and videos, because the honesty is the point.
- How did Alicia Teltz grow on LinkedIn so fast?
- As an ex-LinkedIn employee she understood the algorithm, but the growth came from getting over the cringe and posting consistently. She went from about 2K to over 53K followers in roughly a year.
