Plant lots of small seeds while you can
A big company recently reached out to me about working together. We get plenty of inbound interest at Draft.dev, but this was an exceptionally big name in our space.
It was unexpected, but I realized that a bit of writing I did last year planted a seed that eventually led to this huge opportunity. I didn't go into the previous blog posts thinking anything bigger would ever come of them, but I said "yes" to a lot of things when I was just getting started.
Similarly, another founder reached out to me last week about a big partnership based on something I wrote years ago. There was no way I could have anticipated how a single piece of writing would turn into thousands of dollars, but it did.
My point is that if you're thinking you might start a business someday, one of the best things you can do to prepare is to plant lots of small seeds.
For some of you, that might mean taking meetings and building relationships.
For others, that might mean writing articles or making YouTube videos.
And for others, it might mean building small side projects or doing freelance work.
All of these small, low-risk activities actually serve to raise your "luck surface area". Of course, I'm not the first person to notice this phenomenon. Jason Roberts describes it this way:
"The amount of serendipity that will occur in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you're passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated."
Someone else recently asked me about the value of graduate school for entrepreneurs. On one hand, connections from a top-tier school can enable you to raise money, hire people, and build high-leverage relationships faster than you could on your own.
On the other hand, spending 2-3 years with your nose in a book will absolutely not increase your luck surface area.
So whether you're a student who's getting ready to graduate, you're early in your career and not sure where things will lead, or you're locked into a career ladder with a clear next step, take some time to plant seeds on the side. You never know what opportunities they will unlock.
Startups
If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?
"In the old days, if you were a white-collar worker, the deal was that you worked as hard as you could at the start of your career to earn the right to be rewarded later on, with security of tenure and a series of increasingly senior positions...The competition was relentless, but once you won the prize, it was yours for keeps. This is no longer true."
My SEO Journey with Karl Hughes from Draft.dev
In addition to promoting each piece of content on social media and in newsletters and building internal backlinks, we have worked to intentionally build inbound backlinks too. Our backlink profile has tripled in the past month, and here's how.
thisisgoodmarketing.com - A course for content marketing at startups
Earlier this year, I teamed up with my friend and the former Codeship Co-Founder, Manuel Weiss, to create "Building a Content Marketing Engine." The course covers everything you need to get started with content marketing at a startup. If you're trying to get a new content program started or you're trying to get results from your current one, this is for you.
Software Engineering
Next.js vs. Gatsby
The battle of the React-based frontend frameworks rages on in the form of NextJS vs. Gatsby. Read what Shaundai Person thinks in her latest piece for the Draft.dev blog.
17 Mental Models, biases, and fallacies that Software Developers should know
"We like to discover patterns, name them, and communicate them to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future (to avoid repeating ourselves). These patterns are conceptualized through Mental Models, Laws, Fallacies and other general aphorisms."
VCs are Betting Big on Kubernetes: Here's Why
"At times, Kubernetes can feel like a superpower. But with all of the benefits of scalability and agility comes immense complexity."
Leadership
Hiring Developers: How to avoid the best
"If you slow down your hiring process, you’ll dramatically reduce the volume of high quality developers available for you to hire. Slowing down this process works especially well if you have a smaller business or if you’re a brand new start-up, as you don’t have to worry about having a reputation that allows you to have a multi-month hiring process, you can do it anyway, and still find good developers."
How a $10k poker win changed how I think
"My unexpected victory was just the beginning. Over the course of the following months, I would be pitted against a controversial player I had never met, notorious for his bombastic Instagram lifestyle and negative comments about women. I would be thrust into 15 minutes of fame in the poker media, drawn into the wider issue of sexism in the game."