LinkedIn-Led Growth: A Tech Startup Story with LandingRabbit
Episode 5 of Season 2 of the Tech Startup Stories Podcast features Toni Hopponen, founder of LandingRabbit. In this episode, Toni explains why LinkedIn has become central to his Go-to-Market strategy, how posting regularly built a small but powerful audience, and why founder visibility can replace cold outreach.
Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Toni isn’t new to the startup game. He previously built Flockler, a social media aggregator that scaled through SEO and content marketing before being acquired by a US-backed company. After the sale, he promised himself time off, but quickly realised that building businesses was more than just a career, it was something he couldn’t walk away from. LandingRabbit was born out of the same curiosity and passion for solving problems he had faced as a founder himself.
From SEO to LinkedIn-led growth
At Flockler, growth came almost entirely from Google search and paid ads, and LinkedIn wasn’t even part of the playbook. With LandingRabbit, Toni decided to experiment, he began posting regularly, sharing personal experiences about marketing, entrepreneurship, and building in the AI era. Over time, those posts started to draw in a small but consistent audience, creating conversations and inbound opportunities, including this podcast!
For Toni, LinkedIn isn’t about polished content or flashy campaigns. It’s about showing up consistently, commenting on other people’s posts, and letting authenticity build trust. In his words, commenting is sometimes more powerful than posting itself, because it starts real conversations and drives genuine connections.
Building LandingRabbit from lessons learned
LandingRabbit’s mission is to help marketers, agencies, and sales teams turn existing content — notes, transcripts, slide decks — into landing pages at speed. Instead of waiting for designers, clients, or lengthy back-and-forth, the tool generates ready-made landing pages with content and design in place, which can then be refined.
The idea came from Toni’s own struggles as a founder trying to produce enough landing pages for different campaigns. He knew the pain point well and, drawing on lessons from his first company, shipped the earliest possible version quickly. By testing with agencies, CEOs, and sales teams, he discovered use cases he never would have predicted from interviews alone, including demand for a Figma plugin to streamline approvals.
The pace of AI and the funding question
One of the biggest challenges for early-stage founders today is speed. With AI advancing so quickly, bootstrapping feels riskier than it did a decade ago. Toni is committed to building LandingRabbit lean, but admits the rapid pace of change raises questions about whether to accelerate growth with funding. He’s less concerned about competitors than he is about how fast the market itself is evolving.
Advice from experience
Having built and sold one startup already, Toni’s advice is grounded in perspective. Don’t just rely on relationships and sales skills to get your first deals — build something truly scalable. Test early, even with imperfect versions, and let customers shape the product. And when it comes to go-to-market, don’t underestimate the power of visibility. In today’s world, your presence as a founder can be as valuable as your product.
Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Connect with Toni Hopponen and learn more about LandingRabbit.
