TL;DR: The popular advice to "get famous on short-form video first, monetize later" is a dangerous strategic trap that leads most aspiring brands to burnout, not business success. A sustainable enterprise is built on three foundational principles that must come before you chase viral fame: establishing a clear business model, owning a product or service to convert attention into value, and building a defensible moat of deep trust that exists independently of any single platform.
I am James, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions.
I recently had a conversation with a seasoned brand strategist who has managed multiple digital properties with millions in traffic. I asked him a question that is on the mind of nearly every founder and marketer today: "In such a competitive market, is mastering short-form video the only way for a new brand to have a chance?"
I was expecting advice on scriptwriting or gaming the algorithm. Instead, he offered a stark and refreshingly honest dose of reality. His insights were so powerful that I believe they should be a prerequisite for any leader considering their digital strategy.
The Foundational Flaw: Confusing a Tactic with a Business
The strategist asked me a simple question: "What is the typical sequence for someone trying to build a brand on short-form video?"
I answered, "They make videos, chase trends, hope one goes viral, and then try to figure out how to make money."
"Exactly," he said. "And that's the core of the problem."
This approach is like opening a beautiful new store with no idea what you're going to sell. You can spend all day beating drums at the entrance to attract a crowd, but once the spectacle is over, they will leave, and you will have earned nothing. Successful entrepreneurs think in the reverse. They start with the hard questions first.
Three Strategic Truths for Building a Resilient Brand
1. Architect Your Business Model Before You Chase Traffic
A successful founder begins not with a video idea, but with a business model. They ask:
- What am I actually selling? (e.g., high-value consulting, an online course, a physical product?)
- Who is my ideal customer, and where do they spend their time?
- What is my ideal profit model?
Once you have clear answers to these questions, you realize that short-form video is just one of many potential marketing channels you could use—it is not the business itself. Most people get this sequence backward, and as a result, they remain perpetually busy but never build a real, profitable enterprise.
2. Own Your Value, Don't Rent Your Visibility
The strategist continued by explaining that creators who rely solely on platform ad revenue or brand sponsorships are, in essence, employees of the platform.
- When the algorithm changes, your income can vanish overnight.
- When a brand cuts its marketing budget, your revenue disappears.
The core function of traffic is to capture attention. But that attention is fleeting unless you have a "container" to hold it and convert it into a tangible, long-term asset. That container is your own product or service—something that provides real value and solves a genuine problem for your audience.
He then asked me a question that should be a wake-up call for every brand builder: "If the platform you're on disappeared tomorrow, what would your business have left?"
3. Your Defensible Moat is Trust, Not Traffic
The saddest outcome for any brand is to have a massive number of followers, none of whom are willing to pay for what you offer. This happens because the brand has built an audience but has failed to build trust.
Short-form video is excellent at generating broad, often superficial, traffic. The people who enjoy your videos do not automatically trust you as an expert or a provider. Real, durable trust—the kind that forms the foundation of a business—is almost always built outside the chaotic feed of the platform:
- Your email newsletter provides exclusive, high-value insights that no one else does.
- Your paid community solves the real, pressing problems of its members.
- Your one-on-one consulting tangibly improves a client's business trajectory.
These are the assets that an algorithm cannot devalue or take away from you. When you have this level of trust, you can post one video a month, or even none at all, and your business will remain solid. Traffic is rented; trust is owned.
The Real Role of Short-Form Video: An Amplifier, Not the Source
The strategist's final conclusion was this: short-form video is an amplifier, not the product itself.
If you have a well-defined business model, a high-value product, and a foundation of trust, short-form video can be an incredibly powerful tool to amplify your success. But if your strategy is undefined, your product is weak, and you have no trust with your audience, then creating more short-form videos will only amplify your chaos. It will not build you a business; it will only bring you anxiety.
Therefore, the questions you should be asking are not about video production. They are the fundamental questions of any real business:
- What am I truly selling?
- How much is my ideal customer willing to pay for it?
- Beyond making videos, what is my strategy for building deep, unshakeable trust?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you will realize that short-form video was never the mandatory first step everyone claimed it to be.
