Content

Why Content-Driven Strategy is Smart Business

My friend Nicolas Colin has an excellent new article out titled “Content-Driven Strategy,” in which he makes a convincing case for thoughtful content as a means of demonstrating and shaping the strategic direction of businesses. Nicolas would know: a robust content-driven strategy has been foundational to the success of The Family—the early-stage investment firm he co-founded with Oussama Ammar and Alice Zagury in 2013. What started out in Paris, The Family is expanding rapidly throughout Europe, with offices in London, Berlin, Brussels, and more surely to follow.

I am a strong believer in content as a means of more fully developing thoughts, stimulating discussion, and attracting potential collaborators. Some American entrepreneurs and investors do take content seriously, but many more don’t. That’s a big missed opportunity. The Family has something to teach us Americans on this front, and Nicolas’s article lays out the many reasons why producing content adds value. I encourage you to read the whole article yourself (as well as The Family’s Scaling Strategy series), but here is a summary.

Back and Ahead

I started out 2019 on the blog by looking back at last year: my posting activity, traffic patterns, and which posts were the most popular. I posted 29 entries last year, which is around 2.4 per month or about one post every other week. The maximum was 6 posts (in November) and in three months I wrote nothing (in June, July, and September). The median was 3 posts.

I’d like to be much better about posting this year—not just frequency but consistency. I write on a number of other platforms and am working on a few major projects right now—including crashing towards a deadline for a book manuscript. I also tend to write lengthy and analytical (data-driven) pieces, which means it simply takes longer to produce content (did I mention already that I’m pretty busy doing other things?).