How THNDR’s CEO increased LinkedIn engagement 8x with SecretSauce
THNDR is a B2B skill gaming platform focused on the iGaming industry. It provides a white-label skill games layer that operators (sportsbooks, DFS platforms, lottery apps) add to their products to keep players coming back, earning incremental revenue. THNDR has been running real-money skill tournaments for operators at scale since 2019: 166m+ games played, a 99.99% fill rate, 25+ partners live. Its games include 21 or Bust, Hit Me! Blackjack, Skill Slots, and Think-o.
Learn how THNDR’s CEO Desiree Dickerson created branded visuals for her founder-led LinkedIn presence with Secretsauce, and turned organic LinkedIn into THNDR's highest-performing channel.
Leaving money on the most important marketing channel
Desiree owns everything that isn't product: sales, contracts, operations, and every piece of marketing THNDR puts out. LinkedIn drives roughly 90% of their sales, making it the single most important channel the company has, and it's all handled by one person. "Marketing has always been just me, alongside running sales and ops. We're a 9-person company running a network of 25+ partners, so the majority of our resources are devoted to building out the product."
As an overloaded founder, cracking LinkedIn was critical. Knowing that visual content outperforms text, Desiree tried multiple ways to add branded visuals to her posts:
- General-purpose AI tools: Desiree cycled through every major AI model trying to create usable images and visuals. The output never matched what she needed. "I would try Claude, then Gemini, then ChatGPT, and then just forget it and make it myself in Canva."
- Canva: Canva was the fallback, but it was tough to use for someone without design skills or time. "I can make stuff in Canva if I spend time on it. I just have a simple template image for LinkedIn posts and post it."