Writing is a Founder Superpower ... Here’s How to Grow It

Growing a company fast requires superhuman leverage. In my 117 years in business, I’ve observed 3 key “superpowers” that can provide this leverage. All of them are rooted in communication. 

That’s because the only way to get people — be they clients, employees, or investors — to do what you want is to communicate with them. The 3 skills are: 

Leadership/Sales - Communication on a one-to-one scale. The stage presence. 

Video - Getting those ideas to the masses in the most efficient way possible. Mass distribution. 

Writing - Developing great ideas that you can share. The content. 

I will write future briefs about each of these and how they fit together, but today is about just one of them: writing. 

If you don’t have great, unique ideas, there’s no point in communicating them to others. The best writers have endless leverage, making it the most important superpower. 

This is not a new idea. As Steve Jobs said in his biography: 

“People who know what they're talking about don't need PowerPoint.”

Jeff Bezos said something similar: 

"The reason writing a 4-page memo is harder than 'writing' a 20-page PowerPoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and a better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related.”

In Bezos’ eyes, teams that depend too much on decks end up glossing over ideas and losing their interconnectedness. By putting together a pretty presentation, structure is faked in a way that absolves the writer from thinking the ideas through. 

Writing creates and sharpens great ideas with structure. You should always be working on it.  And the more you think things out on paper, the sooner you find where they are weak. That’s why writing is a superpower. It’s also one you can improve with deliberate practice.

You Can Predictably Improve Your “Raw Materials”

Everyone thinks their ideas are unique. Realizing this made me conclude that my ideas might not be as dazzling as I thought. It also taught me that you won't know for sure until you talk to people about your ideas and gauge their reactions. 

This is why you should become friends with your audience and talk to them about your ideas, either in a chat format or on a call. I sincerely doubt that any of the greatest essayists dropped their ideas on the world without any network feedback, especially when they would have had to pay for them to be distributed in print.

In many ways, this is what an editor does for you, but getting early readers (and talkers) to help you figure out which of your thoughts are unique, interesting, and useful… that’s how you start coming up with gems. 

A single piece of feedback can tell you which direction to go down, and that’s where you’ll get gold.

Ideas are more than just “big thoughts” that you’re sharing with the world. Even if it’s an internal process… that’s an idea that you are sharing through writing. Of course they will benefit from more market feedback that makes it as clear as possible. 

Sculpt Your Ideas into Powerful Tools

Each idea you come up with has the potential to be something bigger and better. If you stop at the first iteration, you’re not capturing everything it could be.

And the better your ideas are, the more attractive you and your company are going to be to prospects. For your best results with this founder superpower, Tides has a repeatable process that we’ve built out just for founders like you.

As you’ll see if you sign up, it’s not cheating if we take your ideas and help you make them into something much more infectious.

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