Writing as a Tool for Early Stage Startup Creation
Last week, 2PM’s Web Smith wrote The Relevance of the Letter about the rise of Operator-First Publishers, people who have built companies and products and share their unique perspective through their writing. Smith points out that the new wave of newsletters provides a platform to people who might not otherwise have one because they don’t fit the pattern of the people we’re used to getting our knowledge from. He also highlights examples of people who have been able to build brands and businesses off the backs of their own content and distribution, focusing on media brands like Thing Testing, Lean Luxe, and 2PM itself.
I’ve been writing for about six months, since I took the Write of Passage course in April. Since then, I’ve written 21 newsletters, 22 blog posts, and about 50,000 words. I wouldn’t call myself a writer, but I’ve been writing. Similarly, I wouldn’t call myself an entrepreneur yet, but I’m starting the journey of starting something.
In that process, I’ve noticed, like Smith did, how helpful writing has been to me, in a few key ways:
1. Overcoming Fear of Rejection
I still get a little jolt of fear every time I hit send on one of these newsletters. I have an image in my mind of a group chat happening somewhere in which everyone I know talks shit on what I’ve written, and on the fact that I’m presumptuous enough to write in the first place. (Which would be totally fair, and if that group chat exists somewhere, no hard feelings.) But facing that fear is part of the reason I started writing and have stuck with it.
Now that I’m working on starting something, it’s been really helpful to have faced the fear of people thinking that my ideas are stupid, incomplete, or not worth sharing in a small way, every week. The early phase of starting something is essentially a long series of conversations in which I tell someone smarter or more experienced than me the latest version of my idea, they give feedback, and then I go back to the drawing board. By definition, the idea isn’t fully formed yet and has a ton of holes, so each time I share it with someone, I’m a little bit embarrassed. And there’s just something scary about putting your idea, the thing that you’re saying is the best you got given all of the experiences and learnings that you’ve accumulated over your life, out there for people to judge. I suspect this feeling will never fully go away.
But the hardest conversations, the ones in which people have poked the most holes or been most underwhelmed, have actually been the most fruitful. They’ve forced me to examine whether the idea is worth pursuing, and what would actually make it valuable to people. They’ve challenged me to keep improving before spending any money going down the wrong path.
Without facing the weekly micro-fear, I would have likely avoided conversations that have been extremely valuable.
2. Shaping and Strengthening Ideas
There’s a popular idea in the startup world that ideas are cheap and that execution is what matters. Like any meme, it oversimplifies and misses some important nuance.
If you define an idea as “I think it would be cool to do Uber but for haircuts,” then yes, the idea is worthless. This is a little-i idea.
But if you define an idea as all of the research, writing, editing, discussion, market-sizing, and strategizing that you do before deciding to hit go and build something, ideas can be really valuable. This is a big-I Idea.
Moving into execution without getting the Idea right is like driving somewhere you’ve never been without looking at a map; you’re going to waste a lot of time and fuel and end up miles away from where you meant to go. There’s a reason that companies like Amazon and Stripe prioritize good, clear writing.
Building the writing muscle has been really helpful in the earliest stages of shaping the Idea. A little i-idea is like a tweet - you think about it for a second and let it fly. A big-I Idea is like an essay - you start with a kernel, add to it, search for supporting or negating evidence, keep adding, figure out what you’re trying to say, and to whom, form a narrative, edit, share it with a small, trusted group for feedback, refine your argument, keep editing, keep adding, keep editing, and then at some point, get it to a place where you feel kind of comfortable putting it out into the world. You can edit on the page before having to edit a real physical product in the real world.
Getting a little bit better at writing has helped me to get a little bit better at strategy, and I’m a huge believer in the importance of strategy to direct all of the blood, sweat, and tears that you’ll have to put into execution.
3. Attracting Like-Minded People
One of the coolest parts of writing has been getting to meet and talk to really smart, helpful people who have a point-of-view on many of the things that I’m thinking about. Writing has allowed me to state publicly what I’m interested in, and has acted as a magnet to attract people who have spent a good portion of their personal or professional lives thinking about those same things. David Perell calls this aspect of writing the “Serendipity Engine.”
By putting stuff out there in a place where it can live independently from me, I’m able to find more interesting people than I’d be able to if I just approached a bunch of random people on the street or in coffee shops (and do it in a much less creepy, annoying way than that). Looking at my calendar from the past couple of weeks, over 50% of meetings that I’ve had have been a direct result of my writing, including conversations with long-time friends who share interests that I didn’t realize we shared. (As I’m writing this, someone just reached out after seeing the IRL series featured in Lean Luxe.)
One friend who recently started a company told me that the 0 - 0.1 phase of company creation is essentially just having conversations with a lot of people until you’re ready to launch. Writing has been hugely helpful in making those conversations happen.
I don’t want to overstate the quality or reach of my writing. I have a long way to go. But writing has been a really useful tool as I’m beginning this new adventure, so I wanted to defend thinking before doing against the people who would suggest that you should just get out there and do.
Every week, I write a fresh essay that uses pop culture to simplify strategy, economics, and finance and explain current business trends. Get them first by subscribing to my weekly newsletter, Not Boring.
