Marketing strategist · Category designer · Author

I help founders turn what they know into categories they own.

I'm Fernando Labastida. I run the Viral Genius Institute in Austin, Texas, I organize conferences and virtual summits, and I've been doing content marketing since before it had a name.

My story The Viral Genius Institute
Fernando Labastida

What I'm building

The company

Viral Genius Institute

My firm. We excavate the knowledge only a founder has, distill it into a category they own, and amplify it into demand.

viralgeniusinstitute.com →
The conference

YouXAI

Waco's first AI conference, September 12, 2026. Built on one conviction: the most powerful thing you can bring to the age of AI is the full force of being human.

youxai.live →
The newsletter

The Viral Genius Newsletter

How founders get named by people and by AI engines. Category design, AI visibility, and the occasional book I can't put down.

Subscribe →

The books

The Startup Book cover

The Startup Book

#1 Amazon bestseller in Global Marketing. Why a book beats a funnel.

The Viral Genius Playbook cover

The Viral Genius Playbook

The framework: excavate, distill, amplify.

Nearshore Marketing cover

Nearshore Marketing

How Latin American tech firms break into the U.S. market.

Want the whole story?

From a student newsletter in 1989 to category design in the AI era. Same job the whole time: find the story and send it to the people who need it.

Read my story