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by cliff0rd 3473 days ago
Wow, I'm really sorry if it came across that way.

Where I was coming from with this was that I was sick of seeing all of these posts and podcasts where they were saying things in a very humblebraggy way like "Yeah, I only got something like 3,000 signups for that but was able to launch anyway" or "Yeah, I did a soft launch to $25K MRR just to my Twitter followers" or "I spent a weekend ranking #1 for this keyword and it took off from there" or "I've never spent a dime on advertising and I've never done any marketing and I don't spend more than 10 hours a month on this thing, but it pays for my awesome lifestyle."

I was referring to that kind of attitude when I wrote about how they do that to make you feel like they have some secret knowledge you have to pine for.

My approach was to say "That's total bullshit. Let me show you what it's really like." Because in my experience it's been nothing like that. In my experience, that was fairy tale land.

So I tried to write the guide as if I were the one it was written for - I wanted to put something out there that I wish I could have read 5-10 years ago that would have given me a brutally honest view of what was involved, just how bad it could be, and that would have shown me what the most important things to focus on were. And most importantly, to get me to think critically about everything I was doing. Hence the strong tone. I wanted to write something that would have gotten my attention and would have made me stop and think and avoid wasting time. So that's what I wrote.

2 comments

> I wanted to write something that would have gotten my attention and would have made me stop and think and avoid wasting time. So that's what I wrote.

And that exactly what happened for me as a reader: I've read it because of this introduction. It was really eye-opening in a way ‑ it is so easy to forget how much work is behind the non-code side of a start-up project.

I totally understand your intention behind it. And it's ok to use strong tone. But as a matter of fact:

a) Say you're not going to use strong / condescending tone.

b) Use strong / condescending tone.

c) Express yourself in an honest manner.

Pick two.