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Few successful entrepreneurs blog
- paulgb 13y agoIlya Grigorik ran an excellent programming blog while running PostRank (and continues to run it after being acquired by Google) http://www.igvita.com/ http://www.igvita.com/
- lucisferre 13y agoDamn I'd better stop blogging. I want to make sure I'm successful.
- goatsexual 13y agoYou'll need to time to research more irrelevant cat pictures for your blog.
- jonnyhosabah 13y agoI think you got the Cause-Effect process backwards; when you are successful you will be too busy to blog, but to be successful, initially, you need to market yourself and your products through blogs...
- BCM43 13y agoI think that may be the joke. Though this is the text, so I'm not sure.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pg 13y agoKeith's comment surprised me. I found at least one counterexample among companies we've funded: Jason Freedman of 42Floors. But there are certainly not many.
- unreal37 13y agoWhat about you, pg? Arguably you are the co-founder of a successful company which takes up most of your time, and you blog. I'm not sure what's the point of this statement. Few successful CEO's blog. Few politicians blog. Few celebrities blog. Few people blog. So what?
- philwelch 13y agopg blogs? Or are you thinking of his essays?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- logn 13y agoWould pg really consider himself a CEO now? Also, if we're considering pg's essays to be different than blogs, then I generally dislike blogs. Essays are way better.
- rl12345 13y agoSince pg can't always talk directly with each and every YC funded startup founder, I believe he writes his essays so all of them has a chance to get his message. Those texts are deeply related to his core duties at YC and no, I wouldn't call that "regularly blogging" - not even close.
- kops 13y agoHis essays are way older than YC.
- tptacek 13y agoSame thing. Blogging used to have a different connotation, but it's lost it, and Graham's site fits squarely into the modern notion.
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- jpeg_hero 13y agoI'm a CEO of a co that's doing well. This comment resonated with me. Started blogging a few yrs ago, then dropped it. 1) ain't nobody have time for that. 2) too fraught in general. Supposed to be face of company so can't really say anything interesting in a blog. 3) and that Dalton kid posting the millionth "MBA and startups" article: who gives a fuck, what's the use, hire good people that fit... Don't engage in navel gazing analysis.
- elwell 13y agoain't nobody got time for that
- jawerty 13y agoThere is no real causation between blog posting and the success of an entrepreneur but there may be a correlation between success entrepreneurs and whether they are likely to blog. At the end of the day, I don't think it matters. The CEO's transparency and image is all depending on what company it is. The CEO of IBM is less likely to blog than the CEO of Airbnb (I don't know if either of them blog, it's just a comparison).
- gexla 13y agoJason Fried, 37signals in SVN? I'm not sure that's a good example. It's a bit of an outlier and SVN has components which go to their bottom line (selling books, jobs board.)
- minouye 13y agoJason Goldberg of Fab blogs regularly at http://betashop.com/ http://betashop.com/ and is surprisingly open about his company and its progress.
- monkeyspaw 13y agoCoding Horror? The whole exchange seems to be @rabois saying "no, that's not a startup. No, that's not what I meant by CEO. No, he doesn't count." What's his point in making this statement, except to attract attention?
- enra 13y agoSome people really like writing, or blogging, so they do it anyway, whether is useful or not. I think the point Keith is making that successful people don't have time to blog, or the blog really doesn't help that much. They prioritize their time to do things that actually matter for their business, rather than being on top of HN or being tweeted 1000 times. It's not the whole truth. When you have actually "made it", had some successes, you don't need the promotion or visibility that much, but when you're just starting out, basically anything might help.
- jmount 13y agoI thought that was the whole point of Daniel Lyons's Fake Steve Jobs blog: that Jonathan Schwartz being a blogging CEO was counter-pointed by Real Steve Jobs as a non-blogging CEO.
- jiggy2011 13y agoThe genius of Steve Jobs was that he only had to send a few words from his iPhone and others would do the blogging for him.
- tikhonj 13y agoFew people blog, full stop. Is the proportion smaller among successful entrepreneurs? There are a few companies and people that stand out immediately: 37signals, Joel Spolsky, Jeff Attwood, Priceonomics and probably a bunch more that I just don't pay attention to. The last three really come to mind because blogging is pretty important to their companies. A large reason that StackOverflow had a strong audience from day one is that both Spolsky and Attwood had good followings on their blogs.
- netcan 13y agoNot sure if this is an example or counterexamle. Both stopped or slowed on the blogging as Stackoverflow got big/mature.
- scotthtaylor 13y agoI wasted 10 minutes reading that entire thread. Probably could have written a blog post in that time.
- lucasnemeth 13y ago... Well, but you probably are procrastinating. Writing a blog is a creative effort. And in 10 minutes you only can write a very short or unoriginal blog post...
- spullara 13y agoDick Costolo tweets. Close enough.
- josephjrobison 13y agoDoes Alex Turnbull, CEO of Groove count? http://www.groovehq.com/blog http://www.groovehq.com/blog
- goatsexual 13y agoFrom the link: Alex Bangash @AlexBangash -- @rabois @hunterwalk great observations... seems like we are in world of promoters. Those who can't build, tweet and blog. and Keith Rabois @rabois -- @hunterwalk @AlexBangash I don't know of a single successful CEO or entrepreneur who blogs regularly. for ONCE, and I mean for ONCE, I agree with some twitter garbage linked on HN. And if your reading my comment, that means that the self-aggrandizing "creators" and "entrepreneur" douchebags who have single handedly ruined HN with bullshit like this haven't voted me down yet.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- systems 13y agojust drop the word entrepreneur, and this claim is very plausible i hate it when a shop owner calls herself CEO, CEO should only be used for very large organizations yet even if you own a miserably failing business (success is in the eye of the beholder), you can still call yourself entrepreneur, i think keith just overestimate the term entrepreneur
- yuhong 13y agoRecently SEC approved Twitter for disclosing material information. I wonder how many CEOs etc will use it.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- davycro 13y agoReasons that I did not blog when I ran a company: 1) I'm a poor writer 2) Any insights that I shared would benefit my competitors and would be insignificant for customers 37signals is an outlier because their readers are potential customers
- birken 13y agoI think points #2 and #3 are the most important thing. Even if are a great writer, if your potential customers aren't going to be reading your blog, the only person you are helping is your competitors. It just doesn't make sense to blog, you are putting your own ego ahead of the success of your company. If writing helps you do your job better, write to a journal. And if you think little bits of information can't help competitors, I strongly disagree. A little perspective (like where a company is focusing or where growth is coming from or whatever) can go a long way, and when you blog you are just leaking those things to everybody else.
- tmallen 13y ago> 37signals is an outlier because their readers are potential customers Your readers are always potential customers.
- lucasnemeth 13y agoYes, as in anyone you meet in the street is a potential costumer. So this is a very weak counter-argument. But there are companies that have more economic value in maintaining a blog than others, YC, 37 signals, and other companies that market directly to people who work in the same business, will benefit more from famous blog posts from their CEOs than B2C companies or B2B companies that develop products for companies in different fields.
- yanivs 13y agoOne of the most important roles of a CEO is to tell a good story, so writing is an excellent way to practice that and you don't need to write about things that will benefit your competitors.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- homosaur 13y agoWhy is this treated like some insight? People who are running big successful companies are too busy to do a lot of stuff, blogging just yet another thing.
- SandB0x 13y agoElon Musk? Mark Shuttleworth?
- ajlin500 13y agoGary Vaynerchuk (garyvaynerchuk.com) blogs all the time and runs a highly successful, high growth marketing agency. Although, he mostly video blogs which can take less time than writing if you are good.
- flyosity 13y agoHis business was built on blogging and vlogging, it's at the core of how he makes money and markets his products. Not the best example because, of course he still blogs and vlogs.
- ajlin500 13y agoVery true. There is an obvious ROI for him. However, he is one of the busiest guys I know and still manages to make it happen. Regardless of incentive, it shows it is possible to manage both a high growth start up and a powerful personal brand.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tbrooks 13y agoJason Cohen a.k.a "asmartbear" blogs regularly and he was the CEO of WPEngine before handing over the reins to a new CEO.
- xtc 13y agoI think the primary point is that the successful founders we can think of don't blog regularly. I could think of a few exceptions to this that have been mentioned in other comments (Freedman, Musk, Spolsky, etc). However of the exceptions even fewer blog on a regular basis. There will always be exceptions to this and I hope people don't read remarks like Keith's as how-to guides. It's only a pattern that fits the mold. Don't think that your time is always too precious to 'share insights & experiences' as Hunter stated. That should have its time and place as well. It's very helpful to outsiders such as myself.
- callil 13y agoI wish more did, but I suspect there is a good reason they don't. There is liability in what they say. And when dealing with lots of money it's easier to say nothing publicly. [offtopic] Wow I hate reading twitter threads, I wish there was an easier and better way to see related tweets and connect who is talking to who inline.
- adamzerner 13y agodhh is the first example that comes to my mind. Interesting point, but I think it's still probably important for early stage startups to blog. It helps get them exposure and increase their luck surface area (http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surf...). Things probably change when you get really big though.
- yo-mf 13y agoAnd no successful VC's blog...oh wait. Obviously most "people" do not blog regularly. Whether it is CEO's of startups or chefs at top tier restaurants or whatever else you can think of. Does real questions is whether anyone have time for blogging? And the answer for the most part is no. Yet a few people persist. People laughed at Fred Wilson when he started blogging. VC's mocked him. A decade later, every major VC started blogging and are falling over each other to start their own online entrepreneur magazine. How is this to turn the question on Keith's head: founder CEO's that blog will in fact be a bigger deal and provide better "cost/benefit" than any other communications channel?
- abalone 13y agoTypical Rabois shock-truthiness but he's really just playing with definitions. In the resulting argument thread, he just labels as "corporate blog posts" any example of a successful entrepreneur who actually does blog. What he's probably right about is that when they blog it's mainly about their business. But that's a very different, much more limited and not as shocking claim than "nobody successful blogs".
- paulrademacher 13y agoI understood his point to be that successful CEOs don't have time to blog about how to kick ass, or lessons learned running a company, or the usual self-promoting topics we see so much of here.
- tptacek 13y agoFew people blog. The question is thus, "are bloggers represented proportionally among startup CEOs"?
- bkanber 13y agoThere's one from Tim Cook on HN right now: http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304527504579172302377638002-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwMjEwNDIyWj http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304...
- declan 13y agoI would have said "an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal with Tim Cook's byline." Nothing indicates that he wrote it himself (though he may have reviewed it before submission).
- codex 13y agoAgreed. Blogging is a tool of the mediocre. It's like the blind leading the blind. And those who do have a clue are trying to manipulate you to their hidden agenda.
- josephscott 13y agoI'm not sure if he would qualify on the exact metrics mentioned, but certainly in the general sense: Fred Wilson, http://www.avc.com/ http://www.avc.com/
- ajsharp 13y agoWhile I generally disagree with the sentiment, his observation for the subset he's talking about -- "world changers", e.g. Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Zuckerberg, Brian Chesky, Drew Houston, etc -- is correct.
- yesimahuman 13y agoI think he's largely correct beyond just VC-backed companies, though he did seem to go back and forth between "personal" blogging and company blogging. On a side note, I found his definition of success to be typical of an investor: If you get them a return, you're successful (oh, and "changing the world" means getting them a return). Pretty boring definition of success.
- thejerz 13y agoMark Cuban, anyone?
- dzink 13y agoViral B2C startups don't require blogs to grow. If your business requires a blog(it requires sales), it is probably B2B, or B2C with linear growth which takes a while and is likely not done by the CEO but by staff. Thus none of the unicorn models actually require a blogging CEO. A server scaling or coding CEO though would definitely fit the bill.
- QuasiAlon 13y agoJoel Gascoine and Leo Widrich from Buffer do. Essential part of their routine and business practice.
- MaysonL 13y agoProbably a far greater proportion of successful entrepreneurs blog than bloggers among the general population.
- ksk 13y agoA parallel statement could be said about Wikipedia. I bet if you're a world-class expert at something, probably the last thing you want to do when you get home after a hard days work is log to Wikipedia and edit articles and deal with mods. Still, Wikipedia manages to maintain a not-bad-for-a-first-try quality level on most science-y topics.
- ojbyrne 13y agoHe expressed this on twitter, which can be characterized as a microblog. I'd hazard a guess that fewer people blog and instead address the kinds of comments in shorter form mediums. This seems like a general trend, and "CEOs and entrepreneurs" are probably just following that general trend.
- LizVerano 13y agoSurprised by the ideas.
- ibudiallo 13y agoYou know, when you make an interesting statement like this one, you have to keep quiet and let it sink. Let others debate on it and such. Go on with your day. But if you keep arguing and arguing, it loses all its value. He should have gone to sleep after that.
- auctiontheory 13y ago<generalization alert> Writers tend to be high-ideaphoria people. This should be pretty obvious. In my experience, many successful businesspeople are not high-ideaphoria people. They may be very smart, talented, etc., but their tendency is toward singular focus, rather than an exploration of the interplay of ideas. So it seems natural they would tend not to write/blog. (And yes, I realize there are many exceptions, James Altucher being my favorite.)
- davemel37 13y agoThose who don't engage at the top of the funnel won't be able to afford advertising to the bottom of the funnel. I Can't think of a single founder who blogged high quality original content consistently for more than two years that didn't turn his audience and readership into a successful company. There is a massive misconception about blogging and content marketing in general that gets ignored by people. Creating content that can't be found anywhere else, content that represents the true voice of the CEO or founder and their vision is top of the funnel marketing that makes advertising and regular marketing MUCH MUCH More effective. Content is the long game, and builds on itself one reader at a time. Eventually it breaks through and than every piece of content you produce gets massive exposure. Exposure at a much more affordable price than any other strategy that exists in the universe today. Tomorrows leading companies will be the ones that realize they must become the media company for their niche. They must be the go to place for the best information in their industry. Startup CEO's that don't blog are missing out on the big picture and should really learn to prioritize the value they can create. Just look at Moz.com and Hubspot. Two great companies poised for massive growth that built their audience by blogging, one reader at a time.
- ronaldx 13y ago> I Can't think of a single founder who blogged high quality original content consistently for more than two years that didn't turn his audience and readership into a successful company. This is statistical nonsense. You are unlikely to be able to think of those founders who don't have successful companies, whether they blogged or not. In general, we are more aware of founders who blog precisely because they do that. Making a list of blogging founders is pointless unless you have a fair way of listing the non-bloggers.
- davemel37 13y agoMy claim is no more statistical nonsense than the original tweet that claimed successful ceos don't blog. My point is simply that blogging is a proven, repeatable strategy for building an audience. An audience that trusts you and is happy to give you their money. Whereas not-blogging is at best a shaky correlation to successful ceos and their success is just as likely to be despite their not blogging than because they save two hours a week not blogging.
- app_lover 13y agoJust because of tough Schedule!
- jiggy2011 13y agoSurely the more important question is, "is the % of successful entrepreneurs who write blogs moving up or down". If you think back to the 90s before "blogging" was a thing, the number of entrepreneurs who blogged was approximately 0%. You could probably rewind to 1995 and say something like "Few successful businesses have a website" but would it naturally follow that investing in a website was a waste of time?
- joelrunyon 13y agoWhat's the level of "success" he's talking about? Millions? Billions? Yacht & Helicopter money?
- benmoore1982 13y agoIt really depends how you see success... "Success is working towards a predetermined goal" Earl Nightingale How much money does a CEO need to make to be deemed successful? For me people like Ryan Carson are successful because he is on a journey and whilst I admit he doesn't blog now as often as he used too, when he does blog it is about the journey he is on. Mark Suster I would deem successful irrelevant of how much money he has and his blog is brilliant and regular and a great read for any entrepreneur. Just my thoughts :)
- pistle 13y agoYou can talk about it. You can do it. If your doing isn't talking, then you aren't doing it.
- mbesto 13y agoSlightly meta, but this is one of the many topics that (1) will continued to be debated and (2) always draw attention. The problem with these statements is a fundamental issue with definitions. What does successful mean? Raised a million in funding? Sold company for a million? What is a blog? Is a magazine/newspaper turned digital considered a blog? Does a press release written by someone else count? What is an entrepreneur considered? Someone who just started a company (less than 1 year)? Someone who's started 40 companies over 30 years? Probably the most well known entrepreneur blog by what is considered a highly successful entrepreneur, is Richard Branson - http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson - but as far as I can tell he doesn't actually write any of it himself.
- Killswitch 13y agoJacob Thomason of RentPost.com - http://jacobt.com/ http://jacobt.com/
- atmosx 13y agoIn my view, statements like this are thin air. People shouldn't even bother to comment seriously on them because they lack context. Until I am 100% sure what Keith means by the words "successful" and "regularly", I can't comment nor I can take anyone else's comment on such a broad statement seriously.
- js2 13y agoBen Horowitz?
- wmougayar 13y agoActually, "successful" isn't a good criteria. Any entrepreneur who is on their way to success, or trying to be successful should be counted. The lessons on the path to success are many, and they are varied.