At 19, Sam Winsbury couldn't get anyone to take him seriously. So he stopped pitching and started publishing. Six years later he's built Kurogo into a London personal branding agency with 370+ clients.

In this episode of Hacking Great Minds With LeeroyDotUK, Sam breaks down the exact positioning system his agency runs on, why templated LinkedIn content has stopped working, and the January morning he decided to shut the business down.

This is a proper founder conversation. No polish, no highlight reel. Sam talks openly about the 100k to 1 million grind, hiring people better than him, getting in his own team's way, and the hire who accidentally saved the company before he'd even started.

WHAT WE COVER

• The psychology blog Sam started at sixth form, and the marketing education he got by accident
• Why cold outreach failed at 19, and how LinkedIn content solved the credibility problem
• The £200 first client that turned into a personal branding agency
• Using lockdown as a "free trial" to build a business
• Why he rebranded from Brandly to Kurogo, and who forced it
• The brutal jump from 100k to 500k to 1 million in revenue
• Losing a third of the business in one week, and the hire that stopped him quitting
• How Kurogo hires: why CVs are worthless and self-starter signals are everything
• Deep-end onboarding vs a structured 12 week process, and why he still defends the deep end
• The hardest part of scaling: letting senior people do it their way
• What's changed on LinkedIn since 2020, and why templated content is dying
• Why most content problems are actually positioning problems
• The Promise, Proof and Packaging framework Kurogo uses with every client
• Why your profile gets judged in three seconds, and how to engineer that judgement

ABOUT SAM WINSBURY

Sam G Winsbury is the founder of Kurogo, a London-based personal branding agency working with founders and executives on LinkedIn positioning, profile strategy and content. Kurogo has worked with over 370 clients and is built on a reputation over reach thesis: credibility and positioning beat volume and vanity metrics. Sam also advises multiple companies on brand and growth. He started out running a psychology blog at sixth form, went on to study psychology at university, and built his first agency clients while still a student.

Work with Sam: https://kurogo.co.uk
Free personal brand scorecard: https://kurogo.co.uk

ABOUT LEEROY

Leeroy Powell is a serial founder based in Sheffield, running a portfolio of AI, search and publishing businesses. He runs MarGen, an AI visibility agency helping brands get found and cited inside AI search, and The CAIO, a fractional Chief AI Officer practice. Hacking Great Minds is where he digs into the minds of leaders pushing the needle in business, economics and the psychology that drives it all.

CONNECT WITH LEEROY

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeroydotuk
X: https://www.x.com/leeroydotuk
AI Visibility Strategies: https://www.margen.net

Subscribe for new episodes of Hacking Great Minds With LeeroyDotUK.

#PersonalBranding #LinkedInStrategy #FounderBrand #B2BMarketing #AgencyGrowth #Positioning #HackingGreatMinds

personal branding agency, LinkedIn personal brand, LinkedIn strategy 2026, founder personal brand, B2B LinkedIn content, positioning strategy, Sam Winsbury, Kurogo, building an agency, scaling an agency, hiring for startups, founder podcast UK

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