This year has been an interesting one for blogging, I’m writing a lot more drafts and publishing far fewer posts. I’ve adopted Medium as my main platform for what I’d consider to be my “professional” writing because the editing tools are superior to WordPress, and the writer’s experience being good leads me to draft more and feel excited to quickly jot down something and trust that the platform will help with distribution. I’ve been blogging lightly for my company but have handed off a lot of our professional brand voice to the talented Nick Frost, and he is hard at work building our community through blogging, email and social channels.
My Top 10 All Time Blog Posts
- Is My Startup Burn Rate Normal?
- Zombie Startups
- Why I Won’t Be Using Betapunch for User Testing
- Solve the Problems Your Parents Have
- The $3B Exit Tumblr Could Have Had
- Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round
- I Don’t Do That Job Anymore
- Don’t Waste a Single Moment
- Zombie VCs
- The Y Combinator Index
I don’t write with traffic in mind, but I do care about the reach of posts because it helps me understand what matters to my readership and what doesn’t. If I hit a nerve, I can quickly get above 10,000 visitors but for many posts a few thousands visitors is about right. There are things I want to quickly record or comment on. What I have been happy with these past two years is that the pieces I spent the most time on, and were the longest, actually did the best. I hope this means that I am learning to forge a stronger connection between my readers and my personal interests.
I write because it makes me feel more human to share my experiences and get feedback. Not all that feedback is friendly, and I’m not always right, but I always gain new perspective and learn from the community. This is my little corner of the Internet, and the people worldwide who have read, shared, commented, submitted to Hacker News, discussed and digested my writing has now crossed 1 Million people. I’m proud of that, and I look forward to writing for myself and millions more for many years to come.