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Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

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Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#271

Post by Lammy »

t-3 wrote: post #234
pc86 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like words have lost all meaning when we're calling removing a date from a blog article "hostile." It's only so for non-evergreen content, anyway. There's plenty of technical content that is just as relevant today even though it was written 2, 5, 10 years ago. Edit for clarification: By no means am I saying that it's bad to have dates, or that we shouldn't have them. They make sense a lot of times, it's just k…

Why would dates be removed from articles? (and why is this only a thing for 'news' articles and advertisements? I've never seen a personal blog without dates) The only reason I can think of is to misrepresent the content as being more up-to-date and relevant than it actually is. Useful content that doesn't go out of date would never be harmed by including one.

> up-to-date and relevant

These don't have to be synonyms.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#272

Post by ehzy »

xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

> private repo or a SQLite database because people keep copying it

Couldn't they just as easily scrape it from the site itself? Or is that too high a bar for type of scum we're talking about.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#273

Post by bunkerbewohner »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #117

From the hiring side, I always spend time reading people's blogs, Github, or social media if they make an effort to include it on their resume. 9 out of 10 times, blogs are extremely stale content from 5+ years back. A lot of people start blogging at the beginning of their careers and then just stop. This creates a weird frozen-in-time effect where what's shown on their blog doesn't match their current skillset at al…

Your comment just motivated me to write another blog article about something recent I've learned. Thanks ^_^ My last post had already been more than a year old :O

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#274

Post by t-3 »

Lammy wrote: post #271
t-3 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would dates be removed from articles? (and why is this only a thing for 'news' articles and advertisements? I've never seen a personal blog without dates) The only reason I can think of is to misrepresent the content as being more up-to-date and relevant than it actually is. Useful content that doesn't go out of date would never be harmed by including one.

> up-to-date and relevant These don't have to be synonyms.

Of course not, I wouldn't have used both if they were synonymous, that would be redundant.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#276

Post by alexpotato »

cosmodisk wrote: post #258
alexpotato wrote: post #255

My personal story: I read patio11 over the years and was struck by his often mentioned "Write about what you know and it will surprise you the value it will add to people" (paraphrasing). In particular, in one of his posts about consulting he mentions: "Some of my consulting engagements were essentially me doing a dramatic reading of my blogs posts." I realized that for the past couple years I had been coaching my fr…

I don't have a blog, but your first paragraph resonated with my recent experience. I know some stuff and even though I often doubt my capabilities, I've been doing it long enough so you simply get to know some things that aren't in a book. Recently I got invited to an invite only event. Small online setting with people from some very interesting companies. It's summer,so fewer than expected showed up, but it was fine…

> Turns out that I knew way more than others. People started asking for contac details,tell stories how I did x,y,z. What I assume as basic knowledge is chargeable consulting hours to to others. Sharing that kind of knowledge in writing would only help my case.

Your story is a good example of both impostor syndrome and also how what may seem blatantly obvious to us seems like a gold mine of hard earned information to others.

I've even seen incredibly prolific people on Twitter saying "The hardest part of this is saying things that I think are mind numbingly obvious but that so many people seem fascinated by".

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#278

Post by lpolovets »

I've found it very worthwhile to have a blog (https://www.codingvc.com/). Some of the benefits:

* My blog helped me differentiate myself and build a name for myself when I shifted from coding to venture capital. For context, I had no VC network at all when I got into the business, but a few good posts led to cold emails from strong VCs and founders, and a higher response rate to my own cold emails and twitter DMs. My gut feeling is that the less differentiated your skills are or the harder it is to stand out in your field, the more value there is in something like a blog or podcast or twitter presence.

* A blog sharpens your business sense: you start thinking about marketing, SEO, growing your readership, monetization, etc. It can be a mini startup if you want it to be.

* The great 1:1 connections that resulted from blog posts cannot be understated. Each post is like a bat signal: "here's how I think about some topic, and if you like my thoughts or like thinking about this topic, then maybe you should reach out." This leads to connections with people whose interests align with yours.

* Posts take a lot of time to write, but in the long run they often "pay that time back." For example, if someone asks me about equity comp benchmarks for early startup employees [1], or how VCs spend their time [2], or how to prioritize effort between funding rounds [3], I often just send them a link to a relevant blog post instead of creating a one-off answer each time. If I get a question a few times per year, then after a few years the associated blog post has paid back its creation time.

* Once in a while someone from across the globe will email you out of the blue and tell you that a post you wrote made a big impact on them or changed how they think about something. This will make your day, and probably your week. TBH this is probably my favorite benefit.

[1] https://www.codingvc.com/p/analyzing-angellist-job-postings-...

[2] https://www.codingvc.com/p/behind-the-scenes-at-a-vc-fund-pa...

[3] https://www.codingvc.com/p/how-to-de-risk-a-startup

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#279

Post by podviaznikov »

koch wrote: post #194
podviaznikov wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://montaigne.io/ is my small project! It's a third iteration of it. For a few years I had following setup: 1. keep files in dropbox 2. sync them and publish automatically using montaigne.io Now I switched and instead of Dropbox I use Apple Notes. Because it's easier to write, and mobile UI is better and it supports tables and images out of the box.

I agree with what others have mentioned; Apple Notes -> website is a really good idea! +1 for custom domain support

thanks!

custom domain support is there. That is how I ran my own site anyway. It just that it's a bit manual process for now. But I'll improve it.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#280

Post by xena »

ehzy wrote: post #272
xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

> private repo or a SQLite database because people keep copying it Couldn't they just as easily scrape it from the site itself? Or is that too high a bar for type of scum we're talking about.

Any barrier makes them give up easier.
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