Vasili’s notes, Oct 30
Blog about yourself, not about a topic.
Blog about yourself, not about a topic
You do not know what you will be interested in in the future. But you will be into something. If you write about yourself, you will always have a space for maneuver, but if you blog about the project, you will not.
To build relationships with readers, you need many turns of the game. The more touch points across various topics you have, the easier it becomes to engage your followers.
In business and blogging, the most value lies decades from now. You must answer the durability question to build a long-term product - why will this blog still be around 10y from now?
Peter Thiel on why PayPal had to be durable: "In March 2001, PayPal had yet to make a profit, but our revenues were growing 100% year-over-year. When I projected our future cash flows, I found that 75% of the company's present value would come from profits generated in 2011 and beyond—hard to believe for a company that had been in business for only 27 months. Today, PayPal continues to grow at about 15% annually, and the discount rate is lower than a decade ago. It now appears that most of the company's value will come from 2020 and beyond."
Projects come and go, but "yourself" will be around as long as you live.
Media are more likely to promote a personal blog than a content project because in their mental model, a project is a competitor and a person is not.
A personal blog gets more valuable over time because you have more chances to interest your readers with something else about yourself besides the project you're working on.
There are two approaches to making a successful blog: build a publication on something people care about or become something people care about yourself.
Website is better than a platform like Instagram. Platforms come and go, but the Internet stays.
You can't demand your creativity to write on a topic for a long time because your interests are likely to change. If you stick to one theme when you run out of ideas, you will produce mediocre works or quit.
When you have a stable audience growth, you can quickly test new ideas because they are just another part of you. If you have a subject-based blog, you don't have that luxury.
If "you" have a "subject", you can always add new ones to engage more people, better. If a "subject" has "you," you've got one shot.
Building a cult
Best cults are always built against something (i.e., Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech is *against* racism).
Best companies (i.e., Tesla) sell the idea that change is needed, and they are just a part of a bigger wave against climate change.
People buy into someone else's ideas because philosophy makes life easier and reduces the number of decisions they need to make (i.e., if you don't drink, you don't have to decide whether to have a shot or not)
People want to "label" themselves to feel belonging to a larger cause, to know their stand in society.
To build a cult, you must answer three questions: 1) who do we want to bring together; 2) why these people want to come together; 3) what are we against?
The second question is why most communities are dead; founders bring together people who don't want to come together.
To test the second question, look up if there are any existing communities in your niche. If there are not, chances are you're not targeting the right people because if there was an urgent need for them to come together, they'd find a way to do that (i.e., Reddit, telegram groups, FB, etc.)
Misc
Content products benefit from inviting someone famous who has an audience already and promoting through them.
Most edu products are like gym subscriptions; people buy them but never use them.
Это заметки с встречи? С кем, если не секрет?