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Strange how my development career has mirrored the author's one as well. Probably one of the biggest things I have learned is: If you tie your offering to anot

Strange how my development career has mirrored the author's one as well. Probably one of the biggest things I have learned is: If you tie your offering to another bigger established product, you can certainly leverage their customer base for a quick ramp up, but you will forever beholden to them and they will own your soul until they decide to change things and leave you out in the cold. Pretty much as Craigslist did to the author when they banned HTML in their ad copy and negated his first project overnight in one fell swoop. Even companies who encourage third party developers bear watching IMO. Never forget that they will always do what is best for themselves, and any 'hangers on' will just have to comply or be jettisoned. It's easier to be the remora, than the shark, but we rarely see a remora grow to become a shark. :)

jermaustin1 10y ago
The funny thing is that my first project was just for myself, but as it is easier to add accounts to a website than to hard code users, i just always incorporate that. I never expected another person to use it. That's why I never named it or gave it its own domain. The lessons I learned from it were priceless, though. I still, to this day, often overlook the project that will take 3 hours and be instantly valuable, and focus on the one that will take me 3 months and then I have to spend another 3 months explain why it is valuable to other people.
- marktangotango 10y ago
  The 'intantly valuable' eludes me as well. Nice write up, but can you explain a little about how the whole 'building back links' stuff worked out? I don't know much about ads and seo, isn't this a bit of a black hat technique that updates to googles algorithms a while back rendered useless?
  - jermaustin1 10y ago
    Well, building back links was a lot easier back in 2010-2012, various algorithmic updates occurred that made it more difficult, so we build additional tools to help make the backlinks more legitimate called Click Faker (I might right about this product in the future, but I am unsure since I am not a fan of the blackhat SEO scene). There is an arms race between Google and blackhatters, and it will never end as a blackhatter would rather spend $20 screwing Google and getting results than $5 paying them to get the same result. If Google were really smart, they would launch their own blackhat SEO products!

jermaustin1 10y ago

The funny thing is that my first project was just for myself, but as it is easier to add accounts to a website than to hard code users, i just always incorporate that. I never expected another person to use it. That's why I never named it or gave it its own domain. The lessons I learned from it were priceless, though. I still, to this day, often overlook the project that will take 3 hours and be instantly valuable, and focus on the one that will take me 3 months and then I have to spend another 3 months explain why it is valuable to other people.

marktangotango 10y ago
The 'intantly valuable' eludes me as well. Nice write up, but can you explain a little about how the whole 'building back links' stuff worked out? I don't know much about ads and seo, isn't this a bit of a black hat technique that updates to googles algorithms a while back rendered useless?
- jermaustin1 10y ago
  Well, building back links was a lot easier back in 2010-2012, various algorithmic updates occurred that made it more difficult, so we build additional tools to help make the backlinks more legitimate called Click Faker (I might right about this product in the future, but I am unsure since I am not a fan of the blackhat SEO scene). There is an arms race between Google and blackhatters, and it will never end as a blackhatter would rather spend $20 screwing Google and getting results than $5 paying them to get the same result. If Google were really smart, they would launch their own blackhat SEO products!