Holloway Editione1.0.0
Updated August 14, 2024Youβre reading an excerpt of Great Founders Write, by Ben Putano, writer, entrepreneur, and book publisher. Heβs the founder of Damn Gravity Media, a publishing house that inspires and educates tomorrowβs great founders. Purchase now for lifetime access to the book and on-demand video course.
βWhat the hell is the point of this?β
Weβve all read blog posts, landing pages, or long-winded emails that have made us ask this question.
The writing is all over the place. Details are out of order. The writer pummels you with every half-baked thought in their cluttered mind. Worst of all, you donβt know why you should be reading it in the first place. You eventually (and rightfully) give up. Youβll never get that time back and refuse to waste any more.
This, my friends, is a failure to write with purpose.
Writing with purpose means beginning with the end in mind. Itβs having a clear intention for both yourself and the reader. Few entrepreneurs have demonstrated such clear, purpose-driven writing as Jeff Bezos.
For nearly twenty years, Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon, broke the cardinal rule of publicly traded companies: he didnβt prioritize shareholder returns.
Amazon was a public company for nearly five years before it recorded a cent of profit: literally $0.01 per share in the final quarter of 2001. Despite making billions in revenue, it took until 2003βnine years after its foundingβfor Amazon to post a profitable year. Even then, the company distributed just $0.08 per share, a laughable return compared to competitors like eBay ($0.75 per share), Walmart ($1.81 per share), or Sears ($2.24 per share).
Value investors like Warren Buffett dismissed Amazon as just another internet company doomed to fail like so many did in the early 2000s. In the eyes of skeptics, Amazon would never turn a significant profit. It would eventually shrivel up and go away.
But Bezos proved them all wrong.
How?
By beginning with the end in mind.
Amazonβs success is not only a case study in disruptive entrepreneurship, but in purpose-driven writing. Bezos kept investors laser-focused on his long-term strategy: gain market leadership through low prices and exceptional customer service. He reinforced his companyβs purpose every year in Amazonβs shareholder letters.
Unlike Buffett, who was famous for his clear and concise writing, Bezos sometimes rambled in his annual letters. For example, Amazonβs 2006 shareholder letter read more like a term paper. Bezos recounted the history of Amazonβs database technology and shared minute details of how it all worked. After seven hundred words of tech jargon, Bezos acknowledged, βIβm sure youβre wondering why Iβm sharing all this.β Thatβs when he introduced the next stage of Amazonβs AWS business.
Despite his long-windedness, Bezos never let investors forget about Amazonβs end goal. They werenβt optimizing for short-term profits, but long-term market leadership. He drove this point home by attaching a copy of his first shareholder letter from 1997 to every shareholder letter thereafter.
In that first letter, Bezos outlined the long-term vision of Amazonβnot as a bookstore, but as an everything store. He made his priorities crystal clear:
Itβs All About the Long Term
We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.
Patient investors were eventually rewarded. In Q4 of 2017, Amazon posted $1.86 billion in profit, more than the company made in the previous fourteen years combined. In 2021, Amazonβs profits soared to over $33 billionβmore than Walmart and eBay together. Meanwhile, Sears, once the worldβs largest retailer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018.
Bezos is famous for his rallying cry, βToday is still Day 1.β Itβs a reminder to keep building and striving as if you were just getting started. But Bezos was just as focused on his end goalβthe grand purpose behind Amazonβs strategy.
Whether youβre writing a shareholder letter or leading a trillion-dollar company, great founders always begin with the end in mind.
Nothing great is built alone. The best founders are able to rally support around their vision and purpose. They see the future so clearly and vividly, youβd think theyβve already been there. A powerful why is one of the strongest forces behind a successful startup.
But we often forget to identify an equally clear vision and purpose for our writing. We start writing without really knowing what weβre trying to say. And once we do find the point, we donβt edit our work to make it clear. The reader has to slog through lines of rambling just to understand why you wrote them in the first place. Itβs exhausting.
Writing this way is like trying to sail a boat with no rudder. Getting to your intended destination is all but impossible, especially in choppy waters. This isnβt just an inconvenience for your readerβit costs your company precious time and actual money.