Viral 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.
Few successful entrepreneurs blog
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Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#82Joel Gascoine and Leo Widrich from Buffer do. Essential part of their routine and business practice.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#83Probably a far greater proportion of successful entrepreneurs blog than bloggers among the general population.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
pg blogs? Or are you thinking of his essays?
Same thing. Blogging used to have a different connotation, but it's lost it, and Graham's site fits squarely into the modern notion.
What? Are you comparing idle blogging emmissions starting with "If you are like me" or "I have always been a huge fan of" or "What I will say has been said already here, there and there but I will repeat it anyway" with pg essays? Are you comparing playdoh "shapes" produced by an army of monkeys monkeying each other with the few and rare carefully carved gemstones we can read under pg's hand? Must be kidding...
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#85A 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.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#86Keith'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.
do you think that's because once they get really big (especially if they become publically traded) what they can say gets restricted by the SEC?
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#87He 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.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#88Keith'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.
Keith couldn't make up his mind. When Hunter mentioned the CEO of LinkedIn blogs, Keith said it doesn't count because they're not a startup. But by definition, the "unicorn" companies are all more like LI than the average startup. Maybe the question is "at what point does a company cease to be a startup?" At a $1B valuation? Or a significant liquidity event?
When it has discovered a business model that works at scale.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#89Surprised by the ideas.
Re: Few successful entrepreneurs blog
#90Keith'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.
What 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?
Yes, this is a good point. Agreed fully.
There's a hint of at least two tenuous causative implications there: if you're successful, you ought to think twice before wasting time blogging (ie. blogging by the CEO adds no value to the business). Or the corollary: if you're blogging, chances are you're not yet successful (it's a marker for lack of success). Both are reaching.
Blogging by the CEO (founder) simply means that marketing is (also) done by the CEO. The founders and CEOs who don't blog probably delegate marketing activities to specialists (nothing wrong with that). You delegate when you don't possess the skills to execute. This will probably happen when the founders or CEOs don't possess the technical knowledge or expertise about their own fields.