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What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

blog.ghost.org

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Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#101

Post by privacypoller »

justinclift wrote: post #74
erikpukinskis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue they should be part of Product. The skills overlap much better there: user research, usability testing, copywriting, information design... these are all things UX teams think about and are part of making good docs. The only similarity between engineering projects and documentation projects is... there are engineers around.

Yeah, under "Product" sounds workable too. Under marketing just sounds (to me) bizarre. Of all the places to put user docs, marketing is not the right one. :)

it can work though - sometimes the evangelist role is under marketing (with lots of cross-pollination); customer success is usually under marketing. Think more post-sale support (keeping customers happy and increasing engagement) vs. sales. I wish more companies focused on marketing to existing, paying customers instead of just new wins. It's (a) easier and (b) has real, long term value over short-term metrics.

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#102

Post by vladdanilov »

johnonolan wrote: post #24

Good morning HN! John from Ghost here - Thanks for all your support over the last 5 years. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that very first blog post hitting the #1 spot of HN and getting so much attention back in 2012. That was the very first time anyone ever heard about Ghost, and everything we've built since then has been thanks to that.

Since you're in the spotlight now, I want to bring back the discussion on image optimization [1]. Looking at your Features page [2], there are 953KB of images that can be compressed down to 453KB (-47.3%). I genuinely wonder what you can save with better image optimization.

[1] https://twitter.com/JohnONolan/status/941572225890533376 [2] https://ghost.org/features/ [3] https://i.imgur.com/b5OO3Q6.png

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#104

Post by holychiz »

justinclift wrote: post #11

> Our biggest marketing failure has been our documentation and resources. ... We're actually hiring right now for someone to help us fix this and make using Ghost a really fantastic developer experience. Putting user docs as part of a marketing role is not lining things up for a good result. :( How about putting it under engineering instead?

User docs are customer-facing, and therefore entirely fitting to be under marketing. Of course building the documents requires engineering contribution for technical details.

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#105

Post by detaro »

justinclift wrote: post #11

> Our biggest marketing failure has been our documentation and resources. ... We're actually hiring right now for someone to help us fix this and make using Ghost a really fantastic developer experience. Putting user docs as part of a marketing role is not lining things up for a good result. :( How about putting it under engineering instead?

How does it matter that the role for which they are hiring a developer to write docs is labelled "developer marketing" instead of "documentation engineer"?

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#107

Post by johnonolan »

vladdanilov wrote: post #102
johnonolan wrote: post #24

Good morning HN! John from Ghost here - Thanks for all your support over the last 5 years. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that very first blog post hitting the #1 spot of HN and getting so much attention back in 2012. That was the very first time anyone ever heard about Ghost, and everything we've built since then has been thanks to that.

Since you're in the spotlight now, I want to bring back the discussion on image optimization [1]. Looking at your Features page [2], there are 953KB of images that can be compressed down to 453KB (-47.3%). I genuinely wonder what you can save with better image optimization. [1] https://twitter.com/JohnONolan/status/941572225890533376 [2] https://ghost.org/features/ [3] https://i.imgur.com/b5OO3Q6.png

So, on a post which discusses problematic behaviour on Github where entitled people try to bully us into working on what they want without writing any code themselves -- you (someone who has tried to bully us before on Github) -- decide that being in the spotlight is a perfect time for you to draw everyone's attention to your feature request once more. Because you think bullying us with HN social pressure will help your cause.

And then, to back up your argument, you link to a page which is not running on Ghost - and actually does have optimised+responsive images.

All so you can spam your own image compression app.

Without a trace of irony.

Are you serious.

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#108

Post by bwoj »

detaro wrote: post #36
johnonolan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do managed hosting, so the comparison is to "Managed WP Hosting" - which is exactly what the page says. Here's an example of a managed WP host: https://wpengine.com/plans/ Here is an independent speed test which finds Ghost (more specifically: Node) to be up to 1900% faster than WP - https://blog.appdynamics.com/engineering/example-node-js-fas... We don't make baseless claims and we're not in the business of lying…

Why are they a fair comparison point, and not e.g. wordpress.com?

WPEngine is specifically in the business of selling fast WordPress hosting. It actually makes for a more honest comparison. Comparing to Wordpress.com should give you better numbers.

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#109

Post by georgestephanis »

johnonolan wrote: post #70
detaro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they a fair comparison point, and not e.g. wordpress.com?

Shared hosting - $1.99, here's your server, good luck Managed hosting - $29, you get your own server, app, automation, backups, and 24/7 support to make sure everything is working great Centralised, multi-tenant application - $0-$9, you get no server. You get access to our app for your use. You cannot modify it or run any third party code. We do managed hosting - and managed WP hosts... also do managed hosting. That'…

Hi. I've worked for WordPress.com for the past five years. It does run the open source WordPress codebase, and we sync changes from the open source project to WordPress.com regularly.

:vanishes in a puff of php:

Re: What we've learned from building Ghost after 5 years and $3M

#110

Post by shrumm »

misterbowfinger wrote: post #89
johnonolan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are exactly that. Same with Automattic, Zapier, Buffer - and most of the other big remote companies. In fact, we all use the same set of contracts. They tend to get passed around founders. All 3 of those other companies are USA based, so for anyone in the US they do standard employment contracts - and anyone outside = self employed contractor on a retainer. We're based in Singapore and don't have any staff i…

Thanks for the insight! > In fact, we all use the same set of contracts. They tend to get passed around founders. Care to share? ;)

seconded! Early days still for our startup but we are also interested in pursuing the remote working route and we are incorporated in Singapore.
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