Gary V Says I Should Go Live on TikTok Every Day… I Have Questions.

I saw a post from Gary V yesterday saying that one of the fastest ways to build your brand and stay relevant in 2027 is to go live on TikTok every single day for 30 minutes.

Now, full disclosure, I have a complicated relationship with Gary V. I actually agree with a lot of what he says, but for some reason, I also find him mildly exhausting. Maybe it’s the New York accent. Maybe it’s the intensity. Maybe it’s because he has roughly 100 people working for him while telling the rest of us we should simply produce more content.

Gary, if you’re reading this, I’d like to borrow 97 of them.

Anyway, rather than dismiss the idea outright, I figured I should at least go look at TikTok.

Ten minutes later, I felt like I had done cocaine in a casino while six televisions were playing different channels and somebody kept asking me to buy something.

Holy shit.

To Be Fair, Gary May Be Right

I know that sounds like I’m 94 years old, but I’m not anti-TikTok, and I’m not even saying Gary is wrong.

In fact, he may be completely right.

If you went live every single day, talked about something useful, answered questions, built relationships with people in real time, and did it consistently for a year, there is a pretty good chance something interesting would happen.

My problem is with the assumption underneath the advice.

Most founders and CEOs are already running a company. There are employees, customers, sales, operations, cash flow, hiring, and problems nobody warned you about at 7:13 on a Tuesday morning.

Somewhere between all of that, apparently we are now supposed to become daily TikTok hosts too.

Creators and CEOs Are Not the Same Job

This is where I think a lot of modern brand advice starts breaking down.

It is increasingly written for creators, then handed to CEOs as though those are the same job.

They aren’t.

A creator can organize a large part of the business around attention. For most CEOs, attention is one input into a much larger machine, and that changes the equation.

The theoretically best content strategy means absolutely nothing if the person responsible for implementing it cannot sustain it.

THE QUESTION I ASK

Have we started confusing what the algorithm rewards with what a founder should actually spend their time doing?

Those are very different questions.

If TikTok wants you to live seven days a week because that increases engagement on TikTok, wonderful.

TikTok has its agenda, but you should probably have your own.

What Is the Attention Actually Doing?

For a founder, the question becomes less about squeezing every possible impression out of an algorithm and more about deciding where visibility actually creates business value.

• Does it help the right people understand what you do?

• Does it create conversations?

• Does it make your expertise easier to trust?

• Does it deepen relationships?

• Does it create opportunities?

• Does it give people a reason to remember you when they finally have the problem you solve?

That’s the kind of attention I care about.

I don’t think most founders need millions of people to know who they are. Well, actually, I know a few who want that. They need enough of the right people to understand what they do, how they think, why it matters, and why they might want them in the room when something important needs solving.

Some of This Is Still Pretty Old-Fashioned

That may happen on TikTok.

It may happen through LinkedIn, a newsletter, a podcast, a dinner, a conference, a thoughtful email to somebody you haven’t spoken with in six months, a cup of coffee, or, God forbid, an actual telephone call.

Remember those?

A TRUE STORY

I regularly DM people I find interesting

One guy responded by sending me his sales deck and asking for help.

I replied, “Bro, let’s chat. Here’s my cell/Zoom, there’s a lot here to absorb, and I’d rather understand the context so I can figure out how I can actually help.”

His response: “The deck should tell you everything you need to know. No thank you.”

Fair enough. You cannot automate your way around every human conversation.

Content Is Supposed to Support the Business

I also think founders make content harder than it needs to be because we treat it like another job.

Now they need a content calendar, a hook library, seven pillars, twenty-three formats, an algorithm strategy, a ring light, and a microphone with a magnetic binder.

All of a sudden they are spending more time running their content business than the actual business the content was supposed to support.

I think there is a much simpler place to start.

Pay attention to the work you are already doing, the question a client asked yesterday, something you noticed in a sales conversation, a decision you got wrong, something changing inside your industry, a belief you no longer agree with, or a problem you keep watching smart people solve badly.

and that my friend is usually where the useful content is.

Build a Rhythm You Can Actually Live With

Then choose a rhythm you can sustain.

Maybe Gary’s right and your rhythm is 30 minutes on TikTok every day.

Mine probably isn’t.

I would rather publish something thoughtful, have a handful of useful conversations, make a few introductions, spend time with clients, and continue getting better at explaining the value of the work I actually do.

That may produce less content.

I’m okay with that.

Because I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the future of founder branding is not about becoming omnipresent.

It is about becoming unmistakable.

There is already more content than any of us could consume in ten lifetimes.

More noise is probably not a scarce resource.

What is scarce is a recognizable point of view, good judgment, trust, and enough consistency that people know what you stand for before they ever need what you sell.

So yes, maybe go live on TikTok.

Try it. Experiment. Pay attention to what happens.

Just don’t outsource the strategy for your life or your business to an algorithm because somebody with 100 employees told you it works.

And Gary, the offer still stands.

Send me a few staff members and I’ll reconsider my daily Lives.

About Deevo

Deevo Tindall is a founder, strategic advisor, speaker, photographer, podcast host, and professional pattern-noticer who has spent most of his career trying to figure out why smart people make weird decisions and why good businesses make things so unnecessarily complicated.

After 15 years inside a Fortune 50 company, where he became an officer, he went on to build and exit businesses of his own. Today, through The Brand Storyteller, he works with founders and executives to sort through the mess, find the thread, and build brands and businesses people actually understand, trust, and want to buy from.

He has been described as having a bit of a Sixth Sense. Unfortunately, instead of seeing dead people, he tends to see dead ideas, broken systems, missed opportunities, weak positioning, and the thing everyone else in the room somehow walked past.

When he is not doing that, he is usually behind a camera, recording a podcast, reading something mildly existential, arguing with an algorithm, or sending unsolicited “have you thought about this?” texts to people he likes.

Find the thread. Build what moves.