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My personal story: I read patio11 over the years and was struck by his often mentioned "Write about what you know and it will surprise you the value it will ad

My personal story: I read patio11 over the years and was struck by his often mentioned "Write about what you know and it will surprise you the value it will add to people" (paraphrasing). In particular, in one of his posts about consulting he mentions: "Some of my consulting engagements were essentially me doing a dramatic reading of my blogs posts." I realized that for the past couple years I had been coaching my friends through salary negotiations and general career advice as well. This led me to start a blog and write about some of the ideas and stories I used to help people get a better understanding of how to negotiate a compensation package, how to think about switching jobs etc. I then posted it to Hacker News and didn't get any response at all for the first couple posts. Then one of them took off. I should mention that when that post did take off, I thought there was a bug in my metrics script but no, not a bug, it did indeed hit the front page of HN. ~30 people reached out and a couple turned into paying clients. So answer to the question "was it worth it"? - From a personal financial perspective, better than not doing it - From a "wait! you can write things down, people read your words and then pay you money to hear more?!?!?" perspective, I can't think of a more worth it experience PS There is this one distinct memory from when I did a free consult and the person said "I read your blog and thought to myself 'If I'm ever switching jobs, this guy is the first person I'm calling' ".

cosmodisk 4y ago
I don't have a blog, but your first paragraph resonated with my recent experience. I know some stuff and even though I often doubt my capabilities, I've been doing it long enough so you simply get to know some things that aren't in a book. Recently I got invited to an invite only event. Small online setting with people from some very interesting companies. It's summer,so fewer than expected showed up, but it was fine. So we start talking with the host expected to take a lead on the whole thing. Turns out that I knew way more than others. People started asking for contac details,tell stories how I did x,y,z. What I assume as basic knowledge is chargeable consulting hours to to others. Sharing that kind of knowledge in writing would only help my case.
- alexpotato 4y ago
  > Turns out that I knew way more than others. People started asking for contac details,tell stories how I did x,y,z. What I assume as basic knowledge is chargeable consulting hours to to others. Sharing that kind of knowledge in writing would only help my case. Your story is a good example of both impostor syndrome and also how what may seem blatantly obvious to us seems like a gold mine of hard earned information to others. I've even seen incredibly prolific people on Twitter saying "The hardest part of this is saying things that I think are mind numbingly obvious but that so many people seem fascinated by".
PrayagS 4y ago
Can you please share a link to your blog?
- yoble 4y ago
  There is a blog linked in their HN bio (http://alexpotato.com/blog http://alexpotato.com/blog), but it's about paintball coaching. I'd be interested in checking out their other blog as well.

cosmodisk 4y ago

I don't have a blog, but your first paragraph resonated with my recent experience. I know some stuff and even though I often doubt my capabilities, I've been doing it long enough so you simply get to know some things that aren't in a book. Recently I got invited to an invite only event. Small online setting with people from some very interesting companies. It's summer,so fewer than expected showed up, but it was fine. So we start talking with the host expected to take a lead on the whole thing. Turns out that I knew way more than others. People started asking for contac details,tell stories how I did x,y,z. What I assume as basic knowledge is chargeable consulting hours to to others. Sharing that kind of knowledge in writing would only help my case.

alexpotato 4y ago
> Turns out that I knew way more than others. People started asking for contac details,tell stories how I did x,y,z. What I assume as basic knowledge is chargeable consulting hours to to others. Sharing that kind of knowledge in writing would only help my case. Your story is a good example of both impostor syndrome and also how what may seem blatantly obvious to us seems like a gold mine of hard earned information to others. I've even seen incredibly prolific people on Twitter saying "The hardest part of this is saying things that I think are mind numbingly obvious but that so many people seem fascinated by".

PrayagS 4y ago

Can you please share a link to your blog?

yoble 4y ago
There is a blog linked in their HN bio (http://alexpotato.com/blog http://alexpotato.com/blog), but it's about paintball coaching. I'd be interested in checking out their other blog as well.