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Publishing your work increases your luck

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Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#71

Post by michaelbrooks »

fideloper wrote: post #3

It’s true, I can attest! The idea of “increasing your luck surface area” is real. You can create a lot of opportunities for yourself by being public about what you’re up to. It got me a job working with Taylor Otwell, before his businesses took off, and now working at Fly to help with Laravel adoption. My side projects have made helped people learn, given me an audience, and earn extra income.

Not just sharing work, but sharing stories as well. I recently did a 3-peaks challenge for charity and tweeted about my accomplishments which has led to my next line of work.

I also shared about buying my first house which led to 2 news articles and 1 podcast 30 second audio clip that have all paid money, and given me more exposure. It's been great!

Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#72

Post by blackbear_ »

paulpauper wrote: post #31

I don't agree, sorry to say: 1. If your work sucks, the criticism and reputational damage may make it worse than having not published at all. 2. Even if it's good, its unlikely that you will get enough traction for it to matter 3. the 'right people' are inundated with pitches, the odds they care what you have to say are tiny, and trying more times will not help of you're on the wrong track to begin with.

Strong agree with point 1. As for points 2 and 3, you need to consider the cumulative effect of many works rather than just a single one. It is a very heavy-tailed distribution, with a few works getting all the attention and all others having no impact.

Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#74

Post by hoten »

I got my first paid work writing software because I got lucky on GitHub.

Back in college, I simply commented on a peer's issue made for a local hackathon. He was confused about what direction to take for a webapp, and didn't have any experience in any frameworks. I just suggested Rails, and gave a few highlights for it and pointed him towards some starter guides.

Within a couple hours a well connected student (I believe he ran the CS club) saw my comment, and forwarded it to an alumni who was doing local Rails work.

I actually didn't have any experience in Rails beyond the tutorials of the day, and I made that clear. But he liked the look of my GitHub and was happy to give me the job.

It was pretty good money for a college student. I recall not really knowing what to expect hourly wise, and when he brought up payment I wasn't able to give an answer so he immediately said 50/hr. To me, I was truly expecting like half of that. I tried to keep cool as I accepted. My pricing mindset was definitely anchored by waiting tables, where 50/hr is something you might get if you got a really lucky shift and required busting ass. So to get that much for _sitting down_? Oh boy.

After settling on the price, he stepped out of the room for a bit. This was a shared co-working space, and I recall looking over to the guy next to us (who I could tell was paying some attention to our conversation) and saying I did not expect that much money. He happened to work for Uber - and he agreed that I got a very good deal. Not sure why I remember that detail.

Anyway: yes, working in public, and even being helpful in public, certainly can pay dividends.

Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#75

Post by cehrlich »

aarondf wrote: post #4
fideloper wrote: post #3

It’s true, I can attest! The idea of “increasing your luck surface area” is real. You can create a lot of opportunities for yourself by being public about what you’re up to. It got me a job working with Taylor Otwell, before his businesses took off, and now working at Fly to help with Laravel adoption. My side projects have made helped people learn, given me an audience, and earn extra income.

The concept of "luck surface area" changed my life, no joke. It's the best framing I've ever heard for it.

Same, I can't remember where I heard it first but it changed my life. Would be curious if someone knows the origin of it.

Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#78

Post by OneOfTheIdiots »

Well, if that's the case, I'll gladly publish my work :)

Me and couple of my friends made a marketing tool called Market Roadie. It's meant to help startups and new businesses to spread the word about their businesses. I don't want to get all "markety", you can just check it out over here, and give us some feedback :). https://marketroadie.com/

And yeah, there is a free version, and you don't need to put info about your credit card.

Good luck with our businesses (yeah, I'm wishing myself some luck :)

Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#79

Post by aarondf »

cehrlich wrote: post #75
aarondf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of "luck surface area" changed my life, no joke. It's the best framing I've ever heard for it.

Same, I can't remember where I heard it first but it changed my life. Would be curious if someone knows the origin of it.

I think the first mention of the concept was on a podcast called TechZing. The author later wrote it down on his blog (referenced in the article) https://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-sur...

Re: Publishing your work increases your luck

#80

Post by agileAlligator »

angarg12 wrote: post #32
viraptor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that line disagrees with your experience. It's not saying you'll get 10x admiration comments. Just that there are 10x admiring people. It's a bit like HN comments, the discussion happens when someone disagrees, or adds more context. But if you like something you should just upvote instead of posting a trivial comment. Even the rules say so. I guess if you publish something where you can see the traffic…

That's a good point. I guess most readers are like dark matter. It's a pity the minority who does interact tend to give a (presumably) biased perception.

Most people who like something will at most "like" it, or just say "Cool!" and move on to the next thing.

But disliking something seems to produce a disproportionate reaction, like leaving a negative comment or reporting the content.

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