Creating public content directly proves what sort of person you are. Your interests, knowledge and abilities are out there increasing your chances and opportunities.
The process and accountability of creating content will likely increase your skills and network whilst you do it.
Investing
I have invested in over 80 startups. Until a few months ago, I hadn't really told anyone about who I invested in or why. If someone asked, I was always willing to talk about it, give advice or get feedback.
I posted an update on Linked In about a startup I had invested in. Suddenly friends started asking me about investing or sharing deals. I received more LinkedIn messages from startups looking for funding.
Jason Calacanis, a renowned angel investor, says that you should write a blog about every start-up you invest in. It helps you get deal flow as an investor. It helps the startup you invested in get attention. Everyone wins.
It's pretty obvious in hindsight.
I was interested in starting an Angel Syndicate or a VC one day (not sure I could avoid emails, calls and admin so not 100% sure about this…).
Creating regular content related to investing would increase my ability to do that. Keeping my activities and thoughts private blocks the chance for lucky encounters.
Starting with zero?
You don't need money or experience to develop some authority in a field. For investing you could:
Run a podcast about startups raising funding.
Break down the top lessons from investing books.
Create a regular analysis of the industry you’re interested in.
Report on public companies’ annual statements.
Create content on investing for a year and your opportunities will blossom. Turn up to a VC with a backlog of content and you will be more employable than trying to tell them you are passionate about tech.
Harry Stebbings launched the 20VC podcast without a degree or a job and only $50. He also didn’t have any contacts in VC. He emailed hundreds of leading investors asking them to be on his podcast.
Despite the rejections, he managed to get some high-profile interviews and slowly grew his network. He was also creating a valuable source of information for founders and VCs.
As the podcast snowballed he started earning money through advertisers paying him to do more of what he loved.
His opportunities outside the podcast also grew, he quickly landed a job with Atomico VC and only six months later became a partner in Stride VC and launched a $100,000,000 fund.
2 years later he left Stride to launch his own fund. His content creates so much attention and deal flow he is a good person to invest in.
With smartphones these days you don’t even need the $50 for the mic.
Geeking out
I run the Wiser than yesterday podcast. We read a book every week or two and then break down what we learned.
Each season we find the best non-fiction books in a given topic area and keep reading books till we feel we have covered the subject.
So far we have done:
Stoic philosophy
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Incerto series
Equality in race and gender
Great startup books (Techstars programme reading list)
The Human body, health and performance
Money and investing
Nuero-diversity and the brain
The podcast shows to anyone that I like reading, improving myself and teaching others. Any specific season shows that I genuinely like to geek out in that specific area.
I didn't do this deliberately to show people my interests. I did it for the fun of hanging out with my mate Nico and learning together. Doing it in public kept us accountable and adds a level of professionalism. It keeps us more organised and we get more out of it because we have to put more in.
It also attracts what I am looking for by proving my interests.
As a founder I want potential investors to know that I’m aware of how to actually run a business. (The best way is just doing what you say you’re going to do). Before an investor can see your results over time you need to do something else. Using content you can publicly prove that you think intelligently about how to be the best founder you can. A podcast, newsletter, blog, LinkedIn posts - just create stuff.
Writing this post I bumped into a lady on the train who works in art history, I have a podcast episode from a book we read about art trading and investing over past centuries for our investing season (the book itself was badly written and a difficult read). No chance I would have finished this book left to my own momentum (Thanks Nico 😅). Creating content pushed my knowledge and interests further than leaving it to myself.
I had a fascinating chat with this lady about art movements, price manipulation by galleries, blockchain and NFTs.
I didn’t have to tell her I was interested in the area, I shared my ideas.
(re - don’t say you're funny, make them laugh)
The point is I don't need to waste time telling anyone that I like books and learning in the hope they believe me. I have overwhelming evidence.
Create your calling
You’ve probably heard of food bloggers that get to eat for free by reviewing restaurants they go to and travel bloggers living the dream by showing the world what they are up to.
Waiting for your calling to appear is like expecting muscles to appear without exercising.
Start creating content around your interests and opportunities will appear.
The strategy of “seeking your calling” is a very easy place to hide from ever doing the hard work needed to create our calling.
It is only after we do the difficult work that it becomes our calling.
Only after we trust the process does it become our passion.
“Do what you love” is for amateurs.
Love what you do.
Seth Godin
If you’re looking for new opportunities in an area of interest it makes sense to be public about it. You can teach knowledge but you can’t teach interest.
The world is full of knowledge. You can buy it easily and you can learn it if you have the passion.
The problem is whether you are passionate or not.
A degree is certified knowledge.
Content is certified interest.
Any employer worth working for values truly interested employees over knowledgable employees. There are more than just employment opportunities you can create for yourself.
You will always get more out of yourself when you are entertained than working for the sake of work.
So create content about anything you are interested in, and let it build your path towards doing your calling.
The law of Creation
The Law of Attraction sells us the idea - we can have anything we want in our life by the sheer force of an overwhelming positive belief we can get it.
This is super dumb, you have to take action. The belief you can do it is only a part of it.
I propose a new law - The law of Creation.
You can achieve anything you want by the sheer force of creating overwhelmingly great content about it.
You still need to seize the opportunities. If your content is good enough to stick out - you will have your choice of opportunities.
Average content will be enough to prove your interest and give your career prospects a massive boost. Truly great content will allow you to create whatever you want.
So where possible, try and be like God.
“God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” - Genesis 1:31
This relates to some of my past writing:
Content creation allocation - How to think about the content you create and where you put it.
The Content gold rush - why creators are going to hold the power in the future.
Show me, don’t tell me - The power of showing instead of telling. Leverage the way humans form memories to your advantage.
The Physics of Success - An unbreakable formula to get your content noticed.
Note - You can learn from what others have done but you must also adapt. Copying what worked before won’t work today.
You won’t have the same success as Harry with his investing podcast by copying him. The world changes and so must you.