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Growing a Thick Skin
Geesh.
What a long day at work.
Creating sites -- trying to answer every question somebody would have about a topic -- isn't such an easy thing to do. The material is hard enough, but then that's only a fraction of the work necessary. I guess if you copy other people's work, or use some kind of automated posting or link-building software, you could cheat the system. But my goal is simply to try to make something that's valuable and that people want.
I posted my microsite idea on the only place I hang out, HackerNews, this morning. I expected questions about my business model, but what I got was basically abuse.
I love the internet.
When I started blogging, I had some guy who dropped in every day to insult me. Every day. I finally had to use IP blocking to get rid of him. What a loser. It amazes me how many people just live in a negative universe, always assuming the worst and always sending out negative feelings.
Today I was told that I was crass (for posting my questions about Allison last week in a blog entry). I was told that my site wasn't a startup and I was abusing the HN system by using startup in my post. I was told my idea is as old as google itself. I was told I trashed myself by writing the Allison article (seems like it definitely touched on people's nerves!) Then I was told while the idea was good, it was uncool to use HN as a keyword backlink.
What can I say? I have a gift for pissing people off.
Let's review.
The idea for the site was due to a HN article, which ranked much better than mine. I was simply explaining my version of the same business idea. Perhaps I should have sourced the original, but why should that matter? It's interesting that one article would score so high and another would be greeted with derision. My previous Allison post was not about making money -- if people are stupid enough to send me $10 it will make for another great blog post. I don't need the money. If Allison is upset with the post I'll take it down. Finally -- I have no idea what a keyword backlink is. I linked to my own blog on purpose. I didn't want to be accused of using HN as a site promotion tool (even though that's one of the points of having a hacker board! To promote your business ideas! Geesh Louise, guys!)
The point of my last post, aside from promoting my business idea, which I think is fine, was that as hackers we always think about languages, technologies, platforms, code, etc -- everything but the real meat of making a startup work: finding a need and meeting it. I am viewing my little experiment in microsite creation as sort of getting back to the basics. What drives people? How to make what people want and not simply what I like making?
I'm growing a thicker skin, slowly but surely. A thousand people came by the blog today, and I hope they got something to think about. Just because a few jackasses had nothing better to do than trash my sites in a public forum doesn't mean I should take them seriously.
Now enough whining Daniel! Back to work! But damn it did hurt my feelings. Why -- I have no idea.
And I finished two other microsites this afternoon, Neuropathy in Feet and Peripheral Neuropathy.
This entire exercise is taking days and days. And I thought coding took a long time! No wonder they say marketing is ten times the work of coding. I know one thing -- I'm going to have my fill of neuropathy by the time I finish this little project.
Whatever happens, I'm definitely learning more about people, for good or bad.
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