What "Telling the Stories of Builders" Means to Me

I recently updated the tagline of my newsletter to “Telling the Stories of Builders.” It’s a small change on the surface, but it represents something much deeper — a through line I’ve been chasing for years across my work in writing, content, and community.

In this essay, I wanted to share more about what that phrase means to me, and how I see it shaping the heart of everything I create.

In my first year of freelance writing, I found myself working with a few venture capitalists, which gave me unexpected exposure to the founder world. I was hooked.

It fascinated me that some of the biggest companies we know today — billion-dollar unicorns — all started with a simple idea. Not a perfect idea. Not a polished one. Just the seed of something better. And then someone had the vision and the stamina to bring it to life.

That’s what I care about: the journey from idea to realization. The leap between A and B.

I’ve spent years studying the lives of successful entrepreneurs, both as a journalist and as a freelance writer, and I never get tired of learning what it really takes to build something that didn’t exist before.

To me, entrepreneurship is just solving problems. Seeing a gap in the world and thinking, I can offer something better. That idea is incredibly empowering. And it’s why I believe we need more stories — especially stories that go beyond just celebrating the final polished, impressive outcome.

Because the early days, the failures, the iterations, the countless rejections… that’s where the real transformation happens. That’s also what helps the rest of us see what’s possible.

I’ve written about everyone from solo newsletter creators to startup founders. On paper, a Codie Sanchez is building something fundamentally different from a Steven Bartlett, or a Justin Welsh, or even a Tyler Denk, who’s growing a tech company. Their businesses, audiences, and goals vary widely.

Yet they all have this builder mentality.

To me, the builder mentality centers around a relentless belief that the current model isn’t good enough. That you can reimagine it, refine it, and reshape it into something better.

If I had to put people into categories, I think of them as workers and builders. Workers bring their talent to existing systems. Workers bring ideas to life by supporting existing missions. They find value in structure, direction, and execution.

Builders chart their own course. They buck convention, experiment, iterate, and create new paths. Not all of them call themselves entrepreneurs (I hesitated to for a long time myself), but they are united by a mindset: a desire to create something that hasn’t been done before.

Builders resist convention. They imagine a different path forward and start laying the bricks themselves. And it doesn’t always look like the stereotypical founder journey.

Builders exist in every corner of the professional world — from solo creators to niche founders to entrepreneurs reinventing legacy industries.

This mentality is what fascinates me most. It’s the energy behind every story I want to tell — whether in a newsletter, a case study, or an in-depth interview.

Because ultimately, I believe these stories matter — not just because they’re interesting, but because they reflect what’s possible for the rest of us. They show us how people with a vision and some courage can create something that didn’t exist before.

And I see myself in that, too. I’m always tinkering. Always thinking about what could be better or more interesting. I don’t know my “billion-dollar idea” (yet), but I know I want to keep creating, testing, and sharing. I want to build something meaningful. Something that helps people.

That’s why storytelling matters so much to me.

It’s how we connect the dots. It’s how we make sense of the patterns in success and failure. And maybe most importantly, it’s how we see ourselves in stories that might otherwise feel out of reach. If you only look at the end result — the public success — it’s easy to feel like there’s a massive barrier to entry. But if you hear about the early days, the late nights, the dead ends and the “almost gave up” moments, it becomes more real. It becomes something you might do, too.

This is also why I care so much about how stories are told — and whose stories get amplified. The world of entrepreneurship is still heavily dominated by a certain kind of demographic and archetype. But there are so many people quietly building remarkable businesses outside of that mold. I want to find and tell those stories. The unconventional paths. The slow and steady ones. The kind that reflect more of us than we realize.

I’ve been working on a history of Y Combinator for Just Go Grind, and I loved this quote from Jessica Livingston, one of its cofounders:

“I’d say determination was the single most important quality in a startup founder. If the founders I  spoke with were superhuman in any way, it was in their perseverance… It may not be as easy as the job they had before, but they seem happier. Certainly the founders of the startups who have been acquired are glad they did it. But even the YC alumni whose startups have failed seem to be better off. They have a better job in a more interesting company. This is what makes me want YC to keep going.”

That, to me, is the essence of building.

You might not end up where you thought. You might fail. You might pivot. But you’ll grow. You’ll get closer to what matters. And you’ll be better off for having tried.

So yes, my newsletter is about creators and entrepreneurs and solopreneurs and startup founders. But more than that, it’s about the builder mindset — and what we can learn from those who have the courage to start something new.

If that sounds like you, join us here.