After PaperG took on investors a number of years ago, I realized we needed to begin communicating with a new group of people who cared about the future of the company. Before, we just had our founders and our customers which made it pretty easy to figure out what to share and what not to share with who or who not. Soon, we would have many more employees, advisers, and other supporters which would all want to know what’s going on with the company.

Wondering what other founders did in this situation, I stumbled upon an interesting solution by Larry Page and Sergin Brin. They wrote Founders’ Letters since the time of their IPO. Going through them gives you a glimpse into the minds at work behind the impressive growth of Google. They don’t go into the blocking and tackling of day to day operations nor all the money they were making for their shareholders. Instead, they focus on the progress and vision for the company. These letters also always end with the name and signature of the founders.

           

I admired this approach. It was a simple and easy way for the founders to directly communicate with everyone who cared about what they created. So often the voices of the founders get drowned out by the time the company reaches the size of Google, so it’s all the more impressive they have this forum.

Communicating well is hard in a growing company as I’ve come to learn and you need as many ways as possible to share your thoughts on the future to keep everyone on the same page. We have been writing our own “Letters from the Founders” to all our employees, investors, and advisers once a quarter.

Since starting this practice, we’ve been able to better stay in touch with all our stakeholders and get offers for help in specific areas from them. It had begun as a one way street but it’s beginning to become a valuable conversation starter about the future.

I wish more companies would write these founders’ letters regularly — it’d be fascinating to hear what founders have to say to the world.