Not enough entrepreneurs appreciate clear, concise writing

David Ogilvy, legendary co-founder of Ogilvy & Mather. ‘Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well.’

The start-up world is awash with words that sound impressive but don’t make much sense and only confuse potential customers.

I met an aspiring entrepreneur at an event recently who failed to explain their business to me, then suggested I visit their website. Yet this made me even more confused. The site was made up of long sentences filled with ‘ten-dollar words’ that, individually, I understood, but when put together made no sense. It reminded me of this scene from 30 Rock:

How could I buy this person’s product if I didn’t know what they were selling?

Successful businesspeople appreciate clear prose. David Ogilvy, who founded and built the now-iconic advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, once issued guidelines to his staff. ‘The better you write, the higher you go’ in the company, he told them. ‘People who think well, write well.’ One of his rules was to avoid buzzwords and clichés. As George Orwell warned in Politics and the English Language: ‘If you use ready-made phrases, you…don’t have to hunt about for the words’ to explain what you actually mean. Someone who can clearly explain their business has clearly thought about it and knows where they want to take it.

Good start-ups break down barriers to make something easier. The barriers created by bad writing need to be pulled down just as much as logistical or technological ones.