You Should Give Ideas Away

Don't be overly protective of your ideas. When you make them free, the ROI is huge.

- by JASON FEIFER

Want to attract new business? Here's one of the best ways: Give away your knowledge.

This may sound dumb. Won't people just steal your work and abuse your time? Nope: When you give away knowledge, you build trust and authority—and people want you more!

I've experienced this myself, and I see many smart entrepreneurs do it too. I'll explain how, so that 2025 can become your year of giving—and receiving.

Let's start here: I was recently talking to Dan Norcia, who heads partnerships at Pilothouse, which I do some work with. They improve brands' e-commerce revenue through digital marketing and have driven more than $750 million in business for clients. How? They'll tell you! They publish tons of instructional materials, like a newsletter and podcast (named DTC), and host events like livestreams to help founders improve their websites.

“When we give away our knowledge,” Norcia told me, “people are grateful, and they trust our thinking. Then they try to implement this stuff themselves and get overwhelmed, and that's when they want to hire us.” In fact, this is Pilothouse's greatest source of user acquisition.