Why Writing Online Is the Best Investment You Can Make in Your Business

The Attention Economy Is the New Frontier for Business Owners

In a world where most successful business people are told to "get rich quietly," entrepreneur and investor Codie Sanchez is making the case for the exact opposite approach. In a recent video, she pulls back the curtain on something she rarely discusses publicly: how turning online attention into a monetized business may be the single greatest leverage play available to entrepreneurs today.

Speaking to a handpicked room of business owners and top fitness influencers—at an event held alongside a former presidential candidate, no less—Sanchez lays out a compelling framework for why every business owner should be obsessed with one thing: attention.

From Goldman Sachs to the "Interwebs"

Sanchez's own journey is a masterclass in pivoting toward opportunity. She started her career at Goldman Sachs, doing the traditional Wall Street thing—corporate suits, strong paychecks, and parents who were thrilled. But somewhere along the way, she recognized that the real power wasn't locked inside boardrooms. It was flowing freely through screens, feeds, and timelines.

When she told her mother she was going to start a blog, the reaction was predictable disbelief. With a PhD and an MBA under her belt, the internet seemed like a step backward. But Sanchez saw what many traditional business minds missed: audience is the new leverage.

That decision—to write, to share, to build in public—set the stage for a media and business empire that now generates millions.

Why Audience Is the New Leverage

Borrowing a concept she credits to Naval Ravikant, Sanchez breaks down the historical tiers of leverage that have driven wealth creation across centuries:

Labor — The oldest form of leverage. From ancient civilizations to modern corporations, controlling labor meant controlling output.
Capital — Those who could deploy money at scale gained an outsized advantage in building wealth.
Code — The internet revolution created a new class of leverage, where software could scale infinitely at near-zero marginal cost.
Audience — The newest and most democratized form of leverage. Social media has removed the gatekeepers, allowing anyone with a message to build influence and monetize it.

The key insight Sanchez emphasizes is that no single person can go very far alone. She invokes the African proverb: "If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, you need to go together." An online audience is the vehicle that lets entrepreneurs go far—and fast.

The Vacuum Problem: Why Smart People Need to Speak Up

One of the most provocative points Sanchez raises is what happens when intelligent, experienced business minds stay silent online. A vacuum forms—and that vacuum gets filled by entertainment, celebrity gossip, and content that does little to improve people's lives.

She argues that there is an active war for attention, and when the smartest operators refuse to participate, the conversation defaults to noise rather than signal. For Sanchez, writing and creating content online isn't vanity—it's a responsibility. The more business owners who share what they know, the more people learn to build wealth for themselves.

Creators Are Uniquely Positioned to Win

Sanchez points out that the creator economy represents a fundamental shift in how capital flows. Venture capital funding is increasingly moving away from traditional big tech and toward individual creators and media-driven businesses. This isn't a passing trend—it's a structural change in how value is created and captured.

What makes creators so powerful, she explains, is that they've normalized sharing. In the old world of finance and business, nobody gave away their playbook. There were no masterminds, no public talks breaking down strategy. Today, the people who share openly are the ones building the largest, most defensible businesses.

The Real Goal: More Owners, Not More Followers

At its core, Sanchez's message isn't really about follower counts or viral posts. It's about ownership. She believes deeply that people build better when they have skin in the game—when they own part of what they're creating. Her philosophy is simple: owners build the house; renters are more likely to let it burn.

Writing online, building an audience, and monetizing attention are all means to an end. The end goal is creating more business owners who are empowered, financially independent, and contributing to the broader economy.

As Sanchez puts it, rejecting the old advice of getting rich quietly in favor of a bolder vision: "What if instead we all got rich together?"

Key Takeaways for Business Owners

Start writing online now. Whether it's a blog, a newsletter, or social media posts, building an audience is the most accessible form of leverage available today.
Don't wait until you're "ready." The smartest people often stay quiet the longest. Every day you're not sharing is a day the vacuum fills with noise.
Think beyond followers. Audience is a means to business ownership, deal flow, partnerships, and financial independence.
Share what you know generously. The old gatekeeping mentality is dead. The creators who share openly are building the most valuable businesses.
Treat attention as a strategic asset. Audience compounds over time, just like capital. The earlier you start, the greater your advantage.