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To be honest, HN is full of this stuff too - Double your freelancing - Guys who create a not-very-well-known startup and then start pushing guides on how to b

To be honest, HN is full of this stuff too - Double your freelancing - Guys who create a not-very-well-known startup and then start pushing guides on how to be successful - Email marketing, write 3 tutorials on topic X to build your list and then spam your ebook. Don't get me wrong, things are better targeted and less shady. It just feels like people spend more time selling their systems than they do using them. It looks like 'snake oil'.

mootothemax 12y ago
To be honest, HN is full of this stuff too Agreed, and some of it (as you mention) is quite ingeniously marketed as well, e.g. pushing a load of free content that occasionally suggests using a certain SaaS app as part of the success strategy. It just feels like people spend more time selling their systems than they do using them. It looks like 'snake oil'. I'm not sure that it's always snake oil exactly, more that it's simply easier for these people to make their money training others, especially compared to making money with the systems they're pushing.
- smacktoward 12y ago
  There will always be a market for selling people messages that they desperately want to hear.
jacquesm 12y ago
First you sell the stuff you mine from the ground, then you sell shovels to the miners, then you hire the miners and make them dig stuff out of the ground for you that you sell. The final stage is selling miners to other mining companies.
- egypturnash 12y ago
  This is starting to sound like an incremental game.
- kolinko 12y ago
  The final stage is selling stuff that helps people sell miners to other mining companies.
  - sebkomianos 12y ago
    The final stage is actually owning the mines.
    - droidist2 12y ago
      And then selling the mines when they stop producing so much.
graeme 12y ago
The first and the third work though. The first is from Brennan Dunn. Haven't seen him on here in a bit, but I used his program. Really helped improve my tutoring business. I've actually had to tell some freelancers I use to RAISE their rates, because they were too busy and frazzled. The kind of advice in Brennan's book is something a lot of freelancers need. The third is probably Patrick Mckenzie. He advice helped me create an email course that is very popular on my site. It's not spam if you write good stuff and people ask for it. Everyone on my list explicitly signs up to get an email course, and I get tons of excited emails from happy users. That stuff is popular on Hacker News because a big percent of the audience here genuinely needs help with those problems. (I agree that the second one can be an issue, if they actually lack expertise. On the other hand, lots of startups are good even though I've never heard of them. It all depends at what level you're giving advice. If you're giving advice about a solo business, you don't need to have founded Facebook)

mootothemax 12y ago

To be honest, HN is full of this stuff too Agreed, and some of it (as you mention) is quite ingeniously marketed as well, e.g. pushing a load of free content that occasionally suggests using a certain SaaS app as part of the success strategy. It just feels like people spend more time selling their systems than they do using them. It looks like 'snake oil'. I'm not sure that it's always snake oil exactly, more that it's simply easier for these people to make their money training others, especially compared to making money with the systems they're pushing.

smacktoward 12y ago
There will always be a market for selling people messages that they desperately want to hear.

jacquesm 12y ago

First you sell the stuff you mine from the ground, then you sell shovels to the miners, then you hire the miners and make them dig stuff out of the ground for you that you sell. The final stage is selling miners to other mining companies.

egypturnash 12y ago
This is starting to sound like an incremental game.
kolinko 12y ago
The final stage is selling stuff that helps people sell miners to other mining companies.
- sebkomianos 12y ago
  The final stage is actually owning the mines.
  - droidist2 12y ago
    And then selling the mines when they stop producing so much.

graeme 12y ago

The first and the third work though. The first is from Brennan Dunn. Haven't seen him on here in a bit, but I used his program. Really helped improve my tutoring business. I've actually had to tell some freelancers I use to RAISE their rates, because they were too busy and frazzled. The kind of advice in Brennan's book is something a lot of freelancers need. The third is probably Patrick Mckenzie. He advice helped me create an email course that is very popular on my site. It's not spam if you write good stuff and people ask for it. Everyone on my list explicitly signs up to get an email course, and I get tons of excited emails from happy users. That stuff is popular on Hacker News because a big percent of the audience here genuinely needs help with those problems. (I agree that the second one can be an issue, if they actually lack expertise. On the other hand, lots of startups are good even though I've never heard of them. It all depends at what level you're giving advice. If you're giving advice about a solo business, you don't need to have founded Facebook)