{"id":5309,"date":"2018-10-23T14:22:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T21:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3.14.248.234\/?p=5309"},"modified":"2020-06-26T18:06:47","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T01:06:47","slug":"founders-fantasy-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/founders-fantasy-authors\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Lessons Founders Can Learn From Fantasy Authors"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have, for some time now, been obsessed with the work of Patrick Rothfuss.<\/p>\n

No, he\u2019s not an entrepreneur, engineer, or venture capitalist versed in the language of the startup world.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>bestselling author of the fantasy series,\u00a0The Kingkiller Chronicle.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This might seem strange to some \u2014 fantasy authors and startup founders operate in different worlds \u2014 but I believe there is plenty founders can learn from the work of fiction writers. The skills, habits, and values that make fantasy authors successful translate directly to success in our field.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

Patience is a\u00a0virtue.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For most writers, conjuring, crafting, editing, and publishing a novel takes\u00a0years<\/em>. To complete\u00a0The Name of the Wind,\u00a0<\/em>it took Rothfuss 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

In an interview\u00a0penned by Wired<\/a>, Rothfuss explained why his writing journey was so arduous.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time that a regular human being would spend watching television, I spent reading or writing. It would not be weird for me to spend 10 hours a day writing over the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also described writing multiple drafts of his epic story, iterating and improving each one with painstaking deliberation and analysis.<\/p>\n

All in all, his is a process that demands an almost superhuman amount of diligence and patience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That might strike some as hyperbolic, but it\u2019s what creating any kind of great book requires. While the seed of an idea might hit at once, slowly animating a new, cohesive world that stands up under scrutiny\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>entertains with a well-told story doesn\u2019t happen overnight.<\/p>\n

The same is true of building a successful, potentially timeless company.<\/p>\n

Maybe the idea for your MVP bloomed in a matter of minutes, but as any founder knows, the journey from that moment to the ultimate actualization of a successful company \u2014 one that creates products which solve problems for a cadre of loyal customers \u2014 takes exponentially longer. The process, simply put, cannot be expedited.<\/p>\n

Quality is paramount.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Whether you\u2019re writing a novel or building a company, the quality of that final product will depend on, yes, patience, but also on the creator\u2019s commitment to producing something great.<\/p>\n

In the case of the novelist, what matters is not how many books you\u2019re able to write \u2014 nor how quickly you write them \u2014 but how impactful the ones you\u00a0do<\/em>write prove in the lives of your readers. How deeply your characters resonate, how stubbornly the scenes you paint linger in the mind. It\u2019s that impact which builds communities of loyal fans who clamor for your next work. It\u2019s also what helps your book stand up against the test of time.<\/p>\n

This is true of the products, updates, tools, and services you release as the leader of a startup, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What separates successful founders from those who fold is an undying commitment to creating genuinely valuable things. The money that follows \u2014 like the movie rights that Rothfuss\u00a0recently signed over to Lionsgate<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 is a result of that commitment.<\/p>\n

Greatness is a product of genuine ambition. Prestige cannot be the primary inspiration.<\/p>\n

Quality requires a lot of lonely work behind the\u00a0scenes.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Here\u2019s the kicker, though: whether you\u2019re a novelist or a founder, you need an appreciation for the patience and authentic ambition. But that doesn\u2019t mean jack if you\u2019re not willing to put in the grueling work writing books and building companies entail.<\/p>\n

In fact, both endeavors require immense amounts of time spent sitting alone in silence, gnawing on your knuckles. Both processes amount to a kind of mental alchemy: you\u2019re turning something incorporeal into something tangible. That requires, too, neglecting other important aspects of your life, and embracing more generally the loneliness of solitude.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not prepared to face all that, you won\u2019t\u00a0\u00a0ever\u00a0<\/em>finish your novel or build your company \u2014 at least not\u00a0well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the flip side, though, if you embrace solitude and commit to the isolated struggle, your work will flourish. In fact, you\u2019ll succeed more generally: there\u2019s a direct and proven correlation between the number of hours you spend working alone and\u00a0the amount of success you ultimately achieve<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You need a set of core values to rely on and revert back to in times of\u00a0doubt.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Because writing novels and building companies is difficult, lonely work \u2014 and because patience is at times challenging to maintain \u2014 both writers and founders\u00a0must\u00a0<\/em>have a set of core values they can lean on in times of struggle.<\/p>\n

You also need a kind of foundational mission statement which you can refer to regularly. For Rothfuss, this means remembering what he\u2019s trying to accomplish, which is creating a new world with his next novel \u2014 he has little value to gain from distracting himself by writing a cookbook.<\/p>\n

For startup founders, this means establishing and remembering your core value proposition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the case of my company \u2014\u00a0BAMF Media<\/a>, a growth marketing consulting agency \u2014 we work to ensure that every new service we provide is a natural extension of the value we provide at our core. It does us no good to get distracted building things that don\u2019t further our essential mission.<\/p>\n

In reality, this imperative doubles as our North Star \u2014 similar to how Rothfuss\u2019s chief goals guided him through his long and challenging 15-year journey to his first publication.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, founders and fantasy authors are not\u00a0entirely\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0same.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Founders, for example, can update their products, messaging, or services after they release them. Authors, on the other hand, can\u2019t rewrite their books after they\u2019re published.<\/p>\n

But it remains true that the traits, values, habits, and appreciations which prove essential ingredients for writing a great book are\u00a0equally\u00a0<\/em>essential for building a successful company.<\/p>\n

In this sense, founders and fantasy authors really are playing the same game. The worlds we work in are, in fact, not that different.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re just creating different kinds of magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have, for some time now, been obsessed with the work of Patrick Rothfuss.
\nNo, he\u2019s not an entrepreneur, engineer, or venture capitalist versed in the language of the startup world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3254,218,136,3392,114,293,3258,3385],"tags":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fiction-writing.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Houston Golden","author_link":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/author\/josh\/"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bamf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}