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Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

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Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#91

Post by roel_v »

sarciszewski wrote: post #63
chc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's an Underpants Gnomes quality to this sort of career advice. It's not bad, but there's a giant "?" in the middle that nobody can really help you with, which seems to involve accumulating a huge base of clients beating down your door.

Personal and business relationships vary from person to person. I guess the assumption is that, if you are skilled enough at engineering and marketing, you will find yourself getting clients and make money hand over fist. Unfortunately for me, I'm purely a technology guy, not a people person.

"Unfortunately for me, I'm purely a technology guy, not a people person."

This is bullshit. People can change. You can change yourself. 'I only do tech' is an excuse to not have to go outside your comfort zone. Of course it's a big change. Of course it's scary. Of course you don't know exactly how to get from A to B. But just giving up with a 'this is how I was born' is defeatism.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#92

Post by hackerboos »

ForHackernews wrote: post #84
chc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also a guy who commented toward the end of his consulting career that going out to look for clients rather than having them just appear unasked-for was kind of a new thing for him. I think this also has a lot to do with his above-average income.

I wish I knew more about how to get to that point where clients would find me.

Reputation helps enormously. Patrick is always blogging and it's made him well known.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#93

Post by roel_v »

mijoharas wrote: post #75
wglb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that an antonym? The point to "falsifiable" is the statement is made about an event is capable of being false, not that it is false.

auto-antonym[0] is a word that means both one thing, and something else that is the opposite of that. This dictionary[1] (second result on google) has definition one meaning the opposite of definition two, thus the word is an auto-antonym. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym [1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/falsifiable

Those two definitions aren't opposites of each other. They're two different things.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#95

Post by WA »

the_rosentotter wrote: post #58
nish1500 wrote: post #51

Making 30k a week, is very different from saying he made 30k some weeks. 120k in Profit is hardly something I would call an 'Empire'. I appreciate the sentiments of this community, its unquestioning reverence towards Patrick, but the article is full of misleading statements. What is factually correct, can still be grossly misleading.

> I appreciate the sentiments of this community, its unquestioning reverence towards Patrick I honestly don't. I mean, nice guy, sure, and a great writer, but I don't see that he has built anything I consider particularly inspiring, or successful. In fact he has had quite a few misses, which were announced with the usual self-assured write-ups, only to disappear later. (I only say this in light of the surprisingly la…

In fact he has had quite a few misses

Care to give an example?

but I don't see that he has built anything I consider particularly inspiring, or successful.

Then what is inspiring to you and what would you call successful?

These are genuine questions.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#96

Post by S4M »

davidw wrote: post #88
S4M wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also seems very good at marketing himself - as a proof, that so many people here know and talk about him - and at networking; he bought lots of coffees to strangers who asked to meet him in Tokyo - including me.

From everything I can tell, "marketing himself" is mostly just patio11 being genuinely kind and helpful.

And also participating a lot on forums and blogging. If he gives free advices to hundreds of freelancer/programmers and ten make it into a multi millions company, that's ten potential clients for Patrick.

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#97

Post by tptacek »

mattmanser wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Patrick was about as well known on the Business of Software message boards as you are on HN when his consulting career started. Those boards no longer exist and were always smaller than HN. Prior to consulting he held what is probably the lowest- status job in software development. What do you think the secret ???'s were for him?

You're making stuff up now, patio11 was a major celeb on here way before he quit. Here's the 200+ point annual report he did with story of him quitting his day job: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2018816 I'm sure if you look the previous reports up they'd be similarly high ranked.

If you actually read that post, you'll see it talks about how he got started, and that it also contains a clue as to why I think I know a bit about that. In any case, I'm not sure what this has to do with Patrick's "underpants gnome" secret. Is the trick "have a high-karma HN account"?

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#98

Post by tptacek »

patio11 wrote: post #71
ph0rque wrote: post #6

"He works a (shocking) average of 20-25 hours a week—a stark contrast to his former life as a salaryman." Kudos @patio11! Will this pace continue with Starfighter? For your and your family's sake, I hope so.

I'm hoping it does or I'm firing myself. The last few months dealing with the BCC acquisition and getting SF running and AR settled down simultaneously have been rather rough (a combination of raw hours and how many were between 1 AM and 7 AM due to time zones).

The modal message on our internal chat channel: "Why aren't you asleep, Patrick?"

Re: Building an Empire with a Single Brick: Meet Patrick McKenzie

#100

Post by [deleted] »

roel_v wrote: post #91
sarciszewski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal and business relationships vary from person to person. I guess the assumption is that, if you are skilled enough at engineering and marketing, you will find yourself getting clients and make money hand over fist. Unfortunately for me, I'm purely a technology guy, not a people person.

"Unfortunately for me, I'm purely a technology guy, not a people person." This is bullshit. People can change . You can change yourself . 'I only do tech' is an excuse to not have to go outside your comfort zone. Of course it's a big change. Of course it's scary. Of course you don't know exactly how to get from A to B. But just giving up with a 'this is how I was born' is defeatism.

[deleted]
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