The Creators Curse is Communication
Communication as the last piece of the puzzle
I still vividly remember that sunny day when my older sister returned from school holding a glossy magazine. I was pretty much still a teenager and I was always drawn to shiny things, but in this case, it wasn’t just the glossiness of the print that caught my attention, but the portrait of a young man who covered a third of the cover page and a bold title that read “The Billionaire by Mistake”. This young man posed in a striking way that established a sense of confidence in his abilities. It was Mark Zuckerberg and the story of how Facebook started.
My fascination with this story made me read it numerous times. Until I came to the conclusion “I was going to build the next big social media platform”. However ambitious or unrealistic you may see it, I know I gave it all I got.
Finally, I developed my first social media platform entirely from my mobile phone with a web builder called wapka (wapka.mobi at the time).
I got 5 of my friends from school to sign up and soon it grew to 15 users organically and stopped. Got frustrated, and picked other interests from creating my own online forum (inspired by nairaland), building my own browser (inspired by internet explorer), and even an FPS game (this was my gaming phase) using both code and mostly no-code tools.
My journey has since evolved from my early stages of being a curious creator who kept asking “how?” to becoming an intentional communicator now asking “why?”. My communications journey started out with me as a graphic designer. At the time it was about capturing an essence, value or emotion the business represents in a single symbol or image. Now, it is helping businesses express all these things and more through multiple mediums beyond graphical images and symbols.
Back to the Zuckerberg contender story. Being immersed in the world of communications and perception these past few years has made me realize how much opportunity is left on the table because of our inability as creators to communicate/express our creation in a way that wins people’s attention.
Give me a time machine to help my younger self and I might still not have become a Zuckerberg contender (who knows?), but I would have gotten the attention of more people, which would have opened up more opportunities for growth.
Until someone cracks time travel, I will be helping worthy-ideas get a chance to be heard using brand and strategic communications as a tool to align with the people that drive their growth.
About Wilfred Alfred:
I help founders and VCs build compelling investment narratives and strategic brands so they can be heard by the stakeholders that matter most. Connect with me on LinkedIn: WIlfred Alfred
