Your *premise* is the foundational problem in the particular area you’re exploring; it’s something in the culture or norms of this area — something that exists whether you do or not. This is where you find power in your work establish your through-line. It’s how you start saying something that [[{5.2b} don’t market more, matter more|matters]] and resonates, and how you can break out of the content hamster wheel to make a difference. A premise has stakes. It makes an argument. It invites dialogue and criticism and expansion. It’s a *contribution*. **An effective premise should be something you can be known for**. Fully embraced, it will inform your internal choices and how you see the world – it’s the lens for everything, which makes everything you create more clear and coherent. **An effective premise asserts that something is or should be the case.** Like: - Corporate business practices **are** unsustainable for solo-entrepreneurs. - Traditional business **does** decontextualize our identities in unhelpful ways. - Social media **does** contribute to decontextualization and atomization. As I flesh these thoughts out, the point is that I’m making an *argument* — I’m saying this is how I see things working, or how I believe they *should* work, and you can agree / disagree / expand. **An effective premise must be defensible and personal**. Jay Acunzo says that we often make assertions in business like, “Marketing should be simple!” Or, “We need software that doesn’t suck!” That’s not *wrong*, but it isn’t *defensible* — no one disagrees, even if you don’t think they’re walking the walk. No one is going to say marketing should be hard and complicated; no one is going to say that their software sucks. So what point are you actually making? Your premise also needs to be pulled from your perspective. What do *you* think about this problem? Ignoring what you’ve been *taught* to feel, why is this important to you? What do you think needs to be done about it? Why do you *care*?