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Could someone write an article about Patrick McKenzie's appeal and techniques on marketing to the HN community? :) And by marketing, I mean getting their atten

Could someone write an article about Patrick McKenzie's appeal and techniques on marketing to the HN community? :) And by marketing, I mean getting their attention and building a brand, not money.

davidw 11y ago
He's genuine (tech people don't like certain kinds of BS), he's helpful, and he's done something a lot of people want to do. And he's been very good at communicating what he's done. I think it helps a lot that he built a business that's "human scale" - everyone can relate to replacing their salary, whereas building some zillion dollar SV business really isn't in the cards for most of us. Also, bingo cards was a huge wakeup call that you don't have to do something technically brilliant or with an amazing business model. "Just" find a niche and sell stuff to people with a need.
- dba7dba 11y ago
  Opensourcing business processes, with tech skills to back it up. Rare combo.
patio11 11y ago
BCC was originally a bit of a purple cow, which is interesting to the HN community because it overlaps programming/business but different than the vast majority of what is on HN because it's the aggressively un-startup startup. Publishing sales numbers before that was common probably helped a non-zero amount, too. Many HNers feel a sense of personal investment in me, because HN has been my home-away-from-home for ~7 years now and I am a "local boy who made good." I write decently and have a strong written voice which people like. A relatively small fraction of what I write is immediately useful to people. Also: I write a lot. My published output is something on the order of ~3 million words, roughly ~2 million of which are on HN. (Give or take 500k or so. It's been a while since I ran the script and I don't have a few hours to wait before bed.) That's roughly Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones... combined. There: that's the whole secret. Use these dark magicks responsibly.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- radicality 11y ago
  Not sure how to quantify this, maybe by number of upvotes, but is some kind of a 'bestof' of things you have written on HN?
  - 1123581321 11y ago
    Here are his comments ranked by upvotes: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:patio11&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:patio11&sort=byPopulari...
    - mangeletti 11y ago
      That service doesn't even come close to functioning properly. Search for your own name and you'll see what I mean.
      - 1123581321 11y ago
        I don't see it. It returns as many results as the API for patio11 (and for my username as well.) https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/patio11.json?print=pretty https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/patio11.json?prin... I don't know about Patrick but Algolia correctly sorts my highest comments, too. What number are you expecting from patio11's results that you're not seeing?
        timv 11y ago
        [Not the OP] I can't say whether it's FireBase or Algolia that's at fault, but my HN search results are definitely wrong. It look like it doesn't have anything from the past year? But maybe there are other issues too. When I hit this, the top comment has a score of 12 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:timv&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:timv&sort=byPopularity&... That means it's missing all of these (and probably more) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11084278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11084278 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11077893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11077893 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070269 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921709 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906050
solutionyogi 11y ago
He is a prolific writer. He is transparent. I first learned about him from the Business of Software forum and it's incredible to see the path he traveled. I feel like he is my close friend and I am rooting for him to succeed. Not only he shares what he has learned, you can email him about specific things and get valuable advice for free for which he charges his clients several thousands of dollars. Finally, everyone loves rags to riches story. In his case, he wasn't exactly poor, but he is a guy just like you and me and hustled his way to success [1]. [1] Success not in terms of millions he made but rather by living life on his own terms doing what he loves.
jonnathanson 11y ago
Over the past decade and change, the story of entrepreneurship has been conflated with the story of the capital-S Startup. You know, the one that goes for VC dollars, launches itself at "the moon" (if not some equally recognizable celestial landmark), and belts out the heroic hymn of unbound (and unbounded) ambition. Patrick's writing and experience have offered us a refreshing counterpoint to that narrative. I don't know if Patrick set out specifically to provide that counterpoint, or to be a poster child for small software business in general. Regardless, he's kinda sorta become one. Which is cool. He reminds us that there is an interesting, livable life to be had running one's own business(es) and not grooming oneself for unicorndom. It also helps that he's contributed sensible, detailed, thoughtful, honest commentary throughout his tenure in this community -- be it about BCC in particular, or about any other topic he comes across. Finally, he's been at this slowly and steadily over the course of however many years. That authenticity contrasts very starkly to, e.g., the legions of folks who pop into HN every so often for the explicit purpose of marketing themselves. Patrick's HN fame is a side effect of his contribution to this community, and not the result of some calculated campaign to achieve it. That's awesome for Patrick, and Patrick's presence has been awesome for HN. I'll stop now, as this was not meant to be a hagiography. I don't know Patrick from Adam. For all I know, he once refused to help an old lady cross the street. Maybe he grabbed an extra slice of pizza from the high school cafeteria once when no one was looking. Who knows. But from what I can tell of him, he seems like a stand-up guy. :)
prawn 11y ago
It's all about putting in the effort to share the information and doing it consistently, regardless of how meagre the numbers might seem. Not everyone does that, so anyone that does stands out. If you've been on HN for a while, you might also remember the guy doing the Japanese candy boxes. Years ago, SEO was easy and many of us built low-effort, recurring revenue as a result. But not all of us capitalised by building a personal brand around it. I can identify with Patrick's path: - build - wow, SEO is easy - this is amazing; money for almost zero effort! - get distracted, ignore declining revenue - site becomes mental baggage
mistermann 11y ago
Here's one of my favorites: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/

Could someone write an article about Patrick McKenzie's appeal and techniques on marketing to the HN community? :) And by marketing, I mean getting their attention and building a brand, not money.

davidw 11y ago

He's genuine (tech people don't like certain kinds of BS), he's helpful, and he's done something a lot of people want to do. And he's been very good at communicating what he's done. I think it helps a lot that he built a business that's "human scale" - everyone can relate to replacing their salary, whereas building some zillion dollar SV business really isn't in the cards for most of us. Also, bingo cards was a huge wakeup call that you don't have to do something technically brilliant or with an amazing business model. "Just" find a niche and sell stuff to people with a need.

dba7dba 11y ago
Opensourcing business processes, with tech skills to back it up. Rare combo.

patio11 11y ago

BCC was originally a bit of a purple cow, which is interesting to the HN community because it overlaps programming/business but different than the vast majority of what is on HN because it's the aggressively un-startup startup. Publishing sales numbers before that was common probably helped a non-zero amount, too. Many HNers feel a sense of personal investment in me, because HN has been my home-away-from-home for ~7 years now and I am a "local boy who made good." I write decently and have a strong written voice which people like. A relatively small fraction of what I write is immediately useful to people. Also: I write a lot. My published output is something on the order of ~3 million words, roughly ~2 million of which are on HN. (Give or take 500k or so. It's been a while since I ran the script and I don't have a few hours to wait before bed.) That's roughly Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones... combined. There: that's the whole secret. Use these dark magicks responsibly.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
radicality 11y ago
Not sure how to quantify this, maybe by number of upvotes, but is some kind of a 'bestof' of things you have written on HN?
- 1123581321 11y ago
  Here are his comments ranked by upvotes: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:patio11&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:patio11&sort=byPopulari...
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    That service doesn't even come close to functioning properly. Search for your own name and you'll see what I mean.
    - 1123581321 11y ago
      I don't see it. It returns as many results as the API for patio11 (and for my username as well.) https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/patio11.json?print=pretty https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/user/patio11.json?prin... I don't know about Patrick but Algolia correctly sorts my highest comments, too. What number are you expecting from patio11's results that you're not seeing?
      - timv 11y ago
        [Not the OP] I can't say whether it's FireBase or Algolia that's at fault, but my HN search results are definitely wrong. It look like it doesn't have anything from the past year? But maybe there are other issues too. When I hit this, the top comment has a score of 12 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:timv&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:timv&sort=byPopularity&... That means it's missing all of these (and probably more) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11084278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11084278 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11077893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11077893 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070269 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921709 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906050

solutionyogi 11y ago

He is a prolific writer. He is transparent. I first learned about him from the Business of Software forum and it's incredible to see the path he traveled. I feel like he is my close friend and I am rooting for him to succeed. Not only he shares what he has learned, you can email him about specific things and get valuable advice for free for which he charges his clients several thousands of dollars. Finally, everyone loves rags to riches story. In his case, he wasn't exactly poor, but he is a guy just like you and me and hustled his way to success [1]. [1] Success not in terms of millions he made but rather by living life on his own terms doing what he loves.

jonnathanson 11y ago

Over the past decade and change, the story of entrepreneurship has been conflated with the story of the capital-S Startup. You know, the one that goes for VC dollars, launches itself at "the moon" (if not some equally recognizable celestial landmark), and belts out the heroic hymn of unbound (and unbounded) ambition. Patrick's writing and experience have offered us a refreshing counterpoint to that narrative. I don't know if Patrick set out specifically to provide that counterpoint, or to be a poster child for small software business in general. Regardless, he's kinda sorta become one. Which is cool. He reminds us that there is an interesting, livable life to be had running one's own business(es) and not grooming oneself for unicorndom. It also helps that he's contributed sensible, detailed, thoughtful, honest commentary throughout his tenure in this community -- be it about BCC in particular, or about any other topic he comes across. Finally, he's been at this slowly and steadily over the course of however many years. That authenticity contrasts very starkly to, e.g., the legions of folks who pop into HN every so often for the explicit purpose of marketing themselves. Patrick's HN fame is a side effect of his contribution to this community, and not the result of some calculated campaign to achieve it. That's awesome for Patrick, and Patrick's presence has been awesome for HN. I'll stop now, as this was not meant to be a hagiography. I don't know Patrick from Adam. For all I know, he once refused to help an old lady cross the street. Maybe he grabbed an extra slice of pizza from the high school cafeteria once when no one was looking. Who knows. But from what I can tell of him, he seems like a stand-up guy. :)

prawn 11y ago

It's all about putting in the effort to share the information and doing it consistently, regardless of how meagre the numbers might seem. Not everyone does that, so anyone that does stands out. If you've been on HN for a while, you might also remember the guy doing the Japanese candy boxes. Years ago, SEO was easy and many of us built low-effort, recurring revenue as a result. But not all of us capitalised by building a personal brand around it. I can identify with Patrick's path: - build - wow, SEO is easy - this is amazing; money for almost zero effort! - get distracted, ignore declining revenue - site becomes mental baggage

mistermann 11y ago

Here's one of my favorites: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/