I am going to put a question mark next to this dichotomy, and here's why.
This idea that you have "authenticity" vs. "corporate PR" is no longer true. For sure, there's still what we think of as "corporate PR" (Look at our employees volunteering! Look at the award we won!). But fundamentally, this idea that there are "corporates" and there are "workers" is fast becoming dated. You don't have to be a freelancer or an indie hacker with a SaaS side project to be a company of 1. You, and everyone else in the knowledge-work economy is a company of 1.
The lines between who's "in" (an employee) and who's "out" (unemployed) are really blurred - and will only become more so. Contractors; freelancers; side-projects; these are all manifestations of the same thing. So when I say "my content" and you say "it's your corporate PR" I think is the wrong way to look at it: Trust IS personal. Views ARE personal. Heck, employment IS personal.
> Your example seems to be more about you talking about potential client pain points.
No, it really isn't. Anyone who builds stuff, side-projects or otherwise, knows you CAN build all sorts of stuff, but the question is whether you SHOULD. To understand what's worth building, I was - and still am - having a lot of conversations with clients. LinkedIn made it a whole lot easier, of course. the pain points are not "potential", they're real. And because the building is done is tandem with the market, it's hardly a wonder I position the services as a solution to those pain points.
Maybe I got it all wrong but it seems to me this is what Steve Blank was talking about in the "The 4 steps to the epiphany."
But all the times clients have told me about pain points have involved phones or meeting rooms and the assumption I'm enough of a pro not to discuss that with their clients or competitors!