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.
With any powerful tool, careful aim is vitally important. Writing is no different.
Bezos has a clear purpose for every shareholder letter: to reinforce Amazonβs long-term mission of market leadership. Most of the time, your purpose is more mundane, like rescheduling a meeting. Big or small, you need to know what youβre trying to achieve.
Start every piece of writing by asking yourself, βWhy am I writing this?β It doesnβt matter if itβs an email or a book. In fact, the shorter the communication, the more important the question.
I often write, βWhy am I writing this?β at the top of my doc or email before drafting. When I hit a writerβs block, itβs usually because I have forgotten the purpose of the piece, and I ask myself the question again.
Here are other useful variations of the question:
What am I really trying to say here?
What action do I want my reader to take?
What am I trying to achieve?
What emotion do I want my reader to feel?
If my reader only remembered one thing, what do I need it to be?
You can also find the purpose of your writing through freewriting. Just start writing to see where it goes. When I do this, I typically find my real purpose somewhere in the middle of my ramblings. (I share a specific freewriting exercise later in this book).
But hereβs where most founders go wrong: they fail to edit their first draft and send or publish it as is. (Weβll discuss editing in more detail in Section 3, Writing with Clarity.) Your reader should know the purpose of your writing at the beginning of your work, not the middle or the end. The burden of understanding is always on the writer.
Writing with purpose isnβt complicated, but it does take a few deliberate moments of thought before you share your work with others. For your readers, it will be considered time well spent.
Sometimes you need your writing to resonate on a deeper level. You arenβt just firing off an email, but trying to convince a superstar designer to join your team. Or maybe youβre creating the landing page for a brand-new product that has the potential to triple your business.
When you need to define a deep, emotional purpose for your writing, donβt turn to visionary founders for inspiration. Talk to your software development team.
Software developers and product managers are masters of purpose-driven writing. They do it every day. You wonβt find their work in Google Docs or on your blog, but in your task management system.