Harry's unfair advantage is that he does not post about his podcast
He runs one of tech's biggest media businesses. His best LinkedIn posts are about his mother.
Harry Stebbings founded 20VC from a bedroom in London at 18 with no money and no venture contacts. A decade later he has recorded thousands of episodes, raised a fund, and built one of the most listened-to shows in technology. Across the 100 posts we analyzed, published between March and July 2026, he posted 5.2 times a week and averaged 579 reactions. The striking thing is where the reach sits: his 8 posts mentioning his mother average roughly double the account-wide 579, while his 15 podcast agenda posts average 215, well under half of it.
That inversion is the lesson. Proximity content is when a founder earns attention by showing the person behind the business rather than promoting the business itself, and treats the company as the backdrop instead of the subject. Harry has a media company with enormous distribution, and the posts that carry his LinkedIn are the ones where the media company barely appears.
'The BIGGEST news in tech this week' plus an agenda of five bullets. Averages 215 reactions.
The story of his mother remaking a ruined birthday cake overnight. 2,785 reactions.
“When the alternative to selling is doing what you would already do, never sell. Bet on yourself. Go long.”
— On turning down £18M for 20VC at 22 (1,720 reactions)
Five findings that repeated across 100 posts
- This is a debate account. He averages 104 comments against 579 reactions, an 18% comment-to-reaction ratio, roughly three times the 6% LinkedIn norm.
- Provocation drives the comments. His post arguing that working from home on Friday is a disguised four-day week drew 581 comments on 1,341 reactions.
- Nobody forwards him. He averages just 9 reposts a post, with a maximum of 41. His content is built to be argued with, not shared.
- He uses eight hashtags on most posts. 62 of 100 carry the same block, which contradicts most current LinkedIn advice and evidently has not hurt him.
- Thursday is the anchor. 30 of his 100 posts land on Thursday, nearly a third of his output on one day.
The numbers behind the account
Two separate engines are running here, and they optimise for different things.
Harry's median post earns 429 reactions and his mean is 579, with 15 of 100 clearing 1,000 and none reaching 5,000. By pure reach this is a mid-sized account for 273,000 followers. The number that reframes it is comments: a mean of 104, a median of 78, and a maximum of 581. At 18%, his comment-to-reaction ratio is the strongest signal in the account and roughly triple the platform norm.
Reposts tell the opposite story: a mean of 9 and a peak of 41. Compare that with an account built for forwarding and the contrast is stark. He is not writing things people send to a colleague, he is writing things people reply to in public. For why that still compounds, see our guide to how the LinkedIn algorithm works.
When he posts
The content-type mix
The top posts
| # | Post | Reactions | Comments | Reposts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | My mother remade the ruined birthday cake | 2,785 | 177 | 5 |
| 2 | The intern, the coffee, and karma 10 years later | 2,466 | 162 | 21 |
| 3 | I started 20VC from a bedroom at 18 | 2,045 | 129 | 12 |
| 4 | I was offered £18M at 22 and said no | 1,720 | 120 | 10 |
| 5 | Today is my 30th birthday | 1,666 | 212 | 4 |
| 6 | Send me three deals a day for 90 days | 1,532 | 119 | 4 |
Curious whether your own promo posts are quietly dragging your average down? Run your profile through our free LinkedIn analyzer.
The six content pillars
Five of them work hard. The sixth is the one his business makes him post, and the data is unkind to it.
A recurring character across the account. Illness, marathons, advice on walks, the front row.
The bedroom, the 18-year-old, the £18M he turned down. Retold at every new milestone.
Deliberately unpopular opinions about work, hiring, and founders, posted to be argued with.
Why he wrote a specific check, with the number, the founder, and the reasoning.
Numbers as narrative: episodes, downloads, unicorns, dollars raised, birthdays.
The weekly agenda post. His lowest-performing format by a wide margin.
Pillar 1: The mother thread (the reach engine)
Why it works: His biggest post has nothing to do with venture capital. It works because it is a specific detail, the second cake, rather than a general sentiment about mothers. Recurring characters also compound: eight posts mention her, and the audience now knows her story.
Pillar 2: The origin story (the permission to advise)
Why it works: He attaches the origin story to a fresh win rather than telling it in isolation. That is what keeps a decade-old anecdote publishable: the bedroom detail is the setup, and booking Marc Andreessen is the new news that justifies retelling it.
Pillar 3: The provocation (the comment engine)
Why it works: 581 comments on 39 words, a 43% comment ratio. He states an unpopular position without hedging and does not invite discussion, which is precisely what generates it. Worth noting the trade-off: this is his most-argued post and one of his least-forwarded.
Pillar 4: The deal memo (the credibility)
Why it works: The deal memos work because they open with a number and a contradiction: a large check into a company with nothing. Founders read these as a window into how the decision was actually made, which is far more valuable to them than generic fundraising advice.
Pillar 5: The milestone ledger (the proof)
Why it works: A personal occasion is the socially acceptable wrapper for a list of achievements that would read as bragging on its own. The birthday is the permission structure. Five numbers, one line each, no explanation, and it earned 212 comments of congratulation.
Pillar 6: The show promo (and how to fix it)
Why it works: This is the promo format that works, and it earned his highest repost count at 41. He gives away eight distilled lessons in the post itself rather than listing an agenda and asking you to go listen. His agenda-style promos average 215 reactions; this one earned 1,463.
The hooks that earned the argument
He opens either with a scene you can picture or a claim you want to fight.
Start inside a moment. 'Last night my mother threw me a surprise 30th birthday party.'
Set up a payoff a decade later. '10 years ago I was an intern at a fund.'
Signal the unpopular take. 'I am sorry but work from home Friday is just an excuse to have a 4 day work week.'
'We just wrote a $4.5M check to lead a round in a company with no product, no revenue.'
Rank what you have seen. 'I have just interviewed the most hardcore founder I have ever interviewed.'
Open on the loss. 'April 13, 2023. On this day, I made a $500M mistake.'
The pre-apology hook is the one worth studying. 'I am sorry but' and 'I am going to get in trouble for this' both flag a fight without softening the claim that follows. For the mechanics of openers like these, our guide to writing LinkedIn hooks goes deeper, and you can pressure-test your own first line in the free hook generator.
Comments versus reach, by hook type
| Hook type | Opening line | Reactions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-apology provocation | 'I am sorry but work from home Friday...' | 1,341 | 581 |
| Superlative claim | 'I have just interviewed the most hardcore founder...' | 1,492 | 480 |
| Domestic scene | 'Last night my mother threw me a surprise 30th birthday party.' | 2,785 | 177 |
| Milestone ledger | 'Today is my 30th birthday' | 1,666 | 212 |
A voice that writes the way it talks
Fragmentary, fast, occasionally ungrammatical, and completely unpolished on purpose.
- Writes in fragments. 'Toast. You are toast.' Sentences break where a speaking voice would break, not where grammar says they should.
- Uses real numbers constantly. £18M, $4.5M, 3,000 episodes, 110M downloads. The specificity is the credibility.
- Names people relentlessly. Founders, guests, colleagues, and the student who sent him three deals a day for 90 days.
- Leaves in the typos and the slang. 'ze moon', 'LFG', 'Mazel Tov baby'. A polished version of this account would be a worse one.
- Runs the same eight hashtags on 62 of 100 posts, which most current advice would call a mistake and which has evidently cost him nothing.
- Pre-empts the pushback in the post itself. One provocation ends with 'fully expect whining in the comments'.
The structure of his highest-reach personal posts is consistent enough to lift directly, whatever business you are in.
[The scene, with a time marker: 'Last night...' / '10 years ago...'] [The detail nobody would know: 'What you don't see in this picture...'] [What actually happened, in three or four short lines] [The one-sentence meaning: 'This to me summarises what our parents do for us.'] [The instruction to the reader: 'Please, call your mama today.']
What he does, and doesn't, do
- Put the person before the business
- State unpopular opinions without hedging
- Attach a real number to every claim
- Give away the lessons from the episode
- Retell the origin story at each new milestone
- Polished, edited corporate prose
- Softening a take to protect his network
- Vague claims without figures
- Pretending the show is the point
- Chasing reposts he is never going to get
The hard part is volume. Five posts a week, across personal stories, deal memos, provocations, and show notes, on top of recording, investing, and running a fund, is why most founder media operations quietly become a marketing intern posting agendas. CaptureFlow is an AI content agent that turns your expertise into weeks of on-brand content for every platform. You capture one idea in 5 minutes, a voice note walking out of a meeting, a photo from an event, and CaptureFlow, trained on your voice and your past posts, reshapes it into a LinkedIn post, an X thread, a carousel, or a short video. See how the AI content agent works.
The systems underneath the posts
A media business generates the raw material, and the personal account converts it into relationships.
The proximity flywheel
- 1He interviews a world-class operatorThousands of episodes across a decade.
- 2The interview becomes a personal takeNot an agenda, but 'here are my eight biggest lessons'.
- 3Founders read the lessons freeThat post earned 1,463 reactions against a 215 average for agenda posts.
- 4They bring him dealsThe account is his top-of-funnel for dealflow, not his podcast's ad unit.
- 5The deals become the next memo'We just wrote a $4.5M check' starts the loop again.
The dealflow funnel
One post describes writing a $15M check into a company that was not fundraising and had no deck. The account is what makes that speed possible: founders already know who he is and how he thinks.
That Elena Verna episode is worth a detour: we mapped her own account in the Elena Verna playbook. And if you are running an investing firm, this is the clearest template we have found for VCs who want dealflow from content rather than applause.
Your 30-day challenge
Twenty posts. Most of them about you, a few designed to start a fight, and none of them an agenda.
- Days 1-2: Write your origin story, with the specific detail nobody knows
- Days 3-4: Introduce one recurring character from your real life
- Days 5-7: Tell the story of a decision you nearly got wrong, with the number attached
- Days 8-10: Write the opinion you have been softening in meetings, and do not soften it
- Days 11-12: Reply to every disagreement in the comments, in your own voice
- Days 13-14: Post the superlative: the best thing you have seen in your field this year
- Days 15-17: Publish how you made one real decision, with the actual criteria
- Days 18-19: Publish the mistake that changed how you decide
- Days 20-21: Give away the lessons from your best piece of owned content
- Days 22-24: Find every agenda-style promo post you have written and check its average
- Days 25-27: Rewrite the next one as a lessons post with the link as a footnote
- Days 28-30: Compare comments per post before and after, not just reactions
The stop-doing list
| Stop doing | Do this instead |
|---|---|
| Posting the agenda for your own content | Giving away the lessons and linking underneath |
| Hedging an opinion to protect your network | Saying it plainly and replying to the pushback |
| Keeping your family and history out of it | Introducing recurring characters people remember |
| Vague claims about your judgement | One real decision, with the real number |
| Chasing reposts on a debate account | Measuring comments, which is what you actually earn |
| Polishing your prose | Writing the way you talk, typos included |
The metrics to track weekly
| Metric | Benchmark to aim for |
|---|---|
| Comment-to-reaction ratio | 15%+ (Harry sits at 18%) |
| Comments per post | 100+ |
| Share of posts that are personal | 50%+ |
| Share of posts that are pure promo | Under 10% |
| Provocations per month | 2 to 4, no more |
| Posts per week | 5, anchored on one heavy day |
The takeaways
- 01Put the person before the business. Harry Stebbings' 8 posts mentioning his mother average roughly double his account-wide 579 reactions.
- 02Promos are the leak. His 15 podcast agenda posts average 215 reactions, well under half his account average.
- 03Give the lessons away. Reframing an episode as eight distilled lessons earned 1,463 reactions and his highest repost count.
- 04Provocation buys comments, not shares. His work-from-home post drew 581 comments on 1,341 reactions, and just 17 reposts.
- 05Track the right currency. At an 18% comment-to-reaction ratio he is roughly triple the LinkedIn norm, while averaging only 9 reposts.
- 06Retell your origin at every new milestone, so a decade-old story stays publishable.
Frequently asked questions
- How did Harry Stebbings grow his LinkedIn following?
- By writing personal stories rather than promoting 20VC. Across 100 recent posts he averaged 579 reactions and 104 comments each, posting 5.2 times a week, and his posts about his mother averaged roughly double that, against 215 for his podcast agenda posts.
- What kind of post performs best for Harry Stebbings?
- Personal stories with a specific detail. His top post, about his mother staying up all night to remake a ruined birthday cake, earned 2,785 reactions. None of his six biggest posts is about a podcast episode.
- Why does Harry Stebbings get so many comments?
- He posts deliberately unpopular opinions without hedging. His post arguing that working from home on Friday is a disguised four-day week drew 581 comments on 1,341 reactions, and his account-wide comment-to-reaction ratio is 18%, roughly triple the norm.
- How do you keep a five-post-a-week cadence while running a business?
- Batch-capture the personal material in the gaps: a voice note in the car, a photo at an event. CaptureFlow turns one 5-minute capture into a week of native posts across platforms, so a heavy week never collapses into promo posts.
