The Master Skill

You’re reading an excerpt of Great Founders Write, by Ben Putano, writer, entrepreneur, and book publisher. He’s the founder of Damn Gravity Media, a publishing house that inspires and educates tomorrow’s great founders. Purchase now for lifetime access to the book and on-demand video course.

Entrepreneurs are driven. It’s in our nature. We’re willing to risk our time, money, and reputations to bring our crazy ideas to life. We want to succeed more than anything else in the world—more than sleep, more than comfort, and sometimes even more than our health (though I don’t recommend it).

And why are we striving? For independence. Freedom. Wealth. Notoriety. To change the world. To provide a better life for our families for generations to come.

Whether your goal is to build a lifestyle business or the next global giant, you’re defined by your drive to succeed. To turn nothing into something. To create the world you want to live in.

But all too often, the success you crave stays just out of reach. It’s so close you can almost taste it. There seems to be an invisible wall keeping you from your destiny. You’d give anything to reach the other side. What’s stopping you?

It’s not an invisible wall in your way—it’s a mirror.

The thing most often holding us back from entrepreneurial success is ourself. We struggle to share our mission, build support, and empathize with the people we are trying to serve: our customers, shareholders, and teams.

Most importantly, we fail to understand the inner workings of our mind. We stunt our growth with negative thoughts and subconscious habits. We undermine our progress in ways we aren’t even aware of.

Yes, there are external barriers to success as well, and some people face more adversity than others. But even external battles are decided by individual actions: your ability to communicate, to rally support, to coordinate global teams, and to paint the vision of a better future for everyone.

These challenges seem numerous and disconnected at first glance. But they all have the same surprisingly simple (though not easy) solution:

Writing.

Writing is the master skill for life and business. It’s the most versatile and enduring tool ever invented. And today it’s more important than ever—especially for founders.

The Language of Business

Writing and entrepreneurship have been linked since the beginning of time—literally.

Historians believe writing was developed for record keeping in ancient Sumer (modern day Iraq). In fact, one of the oldest known pieces of writing, called the Tablet of Kushim, is a business receipt:

“29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim.”

Kushim, the person who signed his name at the end, was not a royal figure or prophet. He was an accountant.

Business has evolved dramatically since the times of Kushim, but the importance of writing has not. If anything, writing has become only more important to the modern entrepreneur.

Thanks to software and the internet, nearly all the traditional barriers to startup entry have been torn down. You no longer need to procure expensive hardware, office space, or even a full-time team. You can build your entire company with on-demand tools and freelance contractors. You can even build a technology company without writing a single line of code.

Anyone can start a company today, and more people are doing just that. Competition is fiercer than ever. You are now competing in a global market, and technology is upending every industry. In the twentieth century, three- to five-year plans were the norm. Today, even twelve-month plans risk becoming obsolete.

The way we work has also changed dramatically. We spend less time in the same room with coworkers. Remote work was already growing in popularity, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed this fringe trend to the mainstream.

YCombinator, often considered the world’s top startup accelerator, has had a front-row seat to this dramatic shift. Data from their startup-focused jobs platform illustrates the change:

“In 2019, just 15 percent of small companies and 10 percent of large companies on the platform were building remote organizations. In 2021, that shifted dramatically to 86 percent of small companies and 85 percent of large companies.”

What do these massive shifts in entrepreneurship mean for founders? There are three big takeaways:

1. Writing is now your primary mode of communication, especially if you lead a remote or hybrid team. Even if your team works in-person, there’s a good chance your customers, suppliers, or business partners are dispersed around the globe.

2. Most companies can no longer compete on logistics, distribution, or even technology. Instead, messaging is your most reliable competitive edge: what you do, for whom, and why they should care.

3. You must be more adaptable than ever. You need the flexibility to change your strategy, build new skills, and lead in new ways. Most importantly, you need to build a deeper understanding of yourself. Writing and journaling are the primary tools for this self-development.

This shift to globalized markets and decentralized work is just the beginning. The future is becoming less predictable. What worked five years ago will not work today, and what works today may not work tomorrow.

Are you ready?

What Great Founders Have in Common

Many of the world’s most influential entrepreneurs are also prolific writers.

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey has kept a journal since she was fifteen years old. “It’s a wonder that I’ve managed to be a successful human being considering how pathetic I appeared in many of my daily musings,” she said in a blog post on her website. “It’s a testament to growth and grace that I’ve come this far.”

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has built his entire organization on the back of meticulous writing habits. From shareholder letters to product meetings, writing plays an essential role in running the global behemoth (we’ll revisit Amazon’s writing tactics many times throughout this book).

Tim Ferriss—an entrepreneur, author, and podcast host—credits writing with transforming his life when he was a student at Princeton.

Despite being a neuroscience major, Ferriss took a non-fiction writing course taught by the legendary journalist John McPhee. It was in this class that Ferriss developed the minimalist mindset he’s famous for today. Ferriss recalls getting papers back from McPhee where there was more red ink than black. Whole passages were crossed out. “You don’t need this,” McPhee wrote in the margins.

McPhee didn’t just teach Ferris how to write; he taught him how to think. “Once I started taking this writing course, my grades in all of my other classes went up,” Ferriss said on his podcast.

And the power of writing extends far beyond business. The world’s first two-time Nobel Prize winner, Marie Curie, kept a diary throughout her career, particularly after the death of her husband, who was also her lab partner. She wrote to her late husband as a means to summon the courage to continue their historic work. “I am working in the laboratory all day long, it is all I can do: I am better off there than anywhere else,” she wrote.

(A few years later, Curie published a 971-page, Nobel-winning treatise on radioactivity. Talk about prolific.)

The link between writing and personal achievement is undeniable and widely recorded. Just search “benefits of writing” in Google Scholar, and you’ll find over 4.1 million results. A paper by Dr. Cecil Smith of Northern Illinois University sums it up best:

Writing enables the external storage of information that can be represented symbolically (e.g., letters, numbers, words, formulas, drawings) and which can then be analyzed, critiqued, reproduced, and transformed, among other potential actions …

Writing might be beneficial to cognitive skills because it requires focusing of attention, planning and forethought, organization of one’s thinking, and reflective thought, among other abilities—thereby sharpening these skills through practice and reinforcement …

Writing is a significant literacy activity in modern life that enables individuals to accomplish a variety of personal, intellectual, occupational, and recreational goals.

Writing has always been an important skill for entrepreneurs, but it has never been this important.

That’s why I wrote this book.

The Writing Book for Entrepreneurs

Great Founders Write is the book I wish existed when I started my first company. It contains all the lessons I learned the hard way—through the wins and losses of building multiple businesses.

I’ve worked at the intersection of writing and entrepreneurship for nearly a decade. I’m the founder of Damn Gravity Media, a publishing house for business, creative work, and personal growth books. We partner with founders and business leaders to share their stories with the world. Prior to that I ran WeContent, a content marketing agency for startups and tech companies. We wrote hundreds of pieces that helped our clients grow their audiences.

In preparation for this book, I spent eighteen months studying some of the world’s best entrepreneurs, including Sarah Blakely, Warren Buffett, Ryan Holiday, Jeff Bezos, and more. I also researched the best work on writing and human psychology from experts like Robert Cialdini, John McPhee, Natalie Goldberg, Stephen King, and William Zissner.

In addition, I learned from numerous entrepreneurs and writers you may have not yet heard of, but are equally impressive:

• Amanda Natividad, a startup content marketer and trained chef;

• Andrew Barry, the founder of a corporate learning development consultancy.

• Andy Raskin, a strategic narrative consultant for CEOs and leadership teams

• Arvid Kahl, a developer, entrepreneur, and multi-time author; and

• Dickie Bush and Nicolas Cole, the founders of Ship30for30

• Drew Eric Whitman, author of Ca$hvertising

• Jay Acunzo, an author, keynote speaker, B2B marketing consultant, and podcast host;

• Jamie Russo, author, founder, and former Senior Program Manager at Amazon Advertising;

• Josh Bernoff, author of Writing Without Bullshit

• Mac Conwell, a multi-time founder, currently building Rarebreed Ventures.

• Meredith Metsker, a journalist-turned-B2B content marketer;

• Shaan Puri, co-founder of The Hustle

The result, I hope, is a book that helps every entrepreneur discover (or rediscover) their love for writing.

Great Founders Write is divided into sections based on the four core principles of great writing:

• Write with Purpose

• Write with Empathy

• Write with Clarity

• Write with Courage

It’s designed to be practical and immediately applicable. We’ll dive deep into specific writing use cases, including marketing, sales, training, persuasion, communication, and more. I’ll also show you how to use writing as the ultimate personal development tool.

Finally, you’ll find free writing tool like templates, frameworks, and cheat sheets at the end of many chapters. You can access them all by going to www.greatfounderswrite.com/bonus and entering your email.

Writing is often considered an art form. This book is not about the art of writing. It’s about wielding writing as a tool for your own transformation into a better entrepreneur, leader, and person.

If you’re open to the slow, messy, but transformative process of becoming your best self, then this book is for you. Read on.