On The First podcast, Alex Rankin sits down with Chris Wirasinha, co-founder of Linkby, to explore how he built two distinct business empires across two decades—and why his second act might be his most ambitious yet.

After spending a decade building and scaling Pedestrian TV to over 100 staff and $20M+ in revenue, Chris achieved his first successful exit as a founder in 2019. Post-exit, Chris identified a critical industry problem: brands wanted measurable outcomes from their media spend,while publishers were locked into traditional PR models that couldn't deliver them.

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Linkby emerged from this insight in the post-Covid era as what Wirasinha calls "performance PR", a platform where brands pay publishers cost-per-click for editorial placements which bridged the disconnect between brand goals and publisher incentives.

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Despite strong metrics, fundraising proved difficult due to sector bias. Then came an unexpected plot twist: the rise of AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity created massive tailwinds for Linkby's business model. Suddenly, the pitch shifted from a tough sector bet to a critical solution for brands navigating citation-based discovery in the AI era.

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Whether you’re bootstrapping your first MVP or planning international expansion, this conversation offers wisdom from a founder who's done it twice—and learned something different each time.‍