Working Equally Hard Doesn't Net Equal Outcomes

If you've kept up with me here for a while, you know I read a fair number of books and many of them are of the entrepreneurial/inspirational variety.

Something that bothers me about this genre is the often laughable claims of self-reliance and the attitude that, "If I can do this, anyone can."

I guess that sells more books than telling people, "Look, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, so don't try to get the same results as me."

But the latter would probably be more accurate. When people say, "I worked hard and succeeded and now you can too!" They often overlook the margin they had.

It's a lot easier to take risks when you have a college degree and a six-figure salary to fall back on.

I'm not saying they didn't work hard, but let's not pretend it's an equal playing field.

Business

The Key to Early Stage Content Marketing: Be Strategic

I was recently invited onto Fundraising Radio to talk about content marketing, especially for developers. My big message to founders considering content in the early days is to develop a strategy and invest in promoting their content. Too many of you are just guessing.

Why Marketing Management is so Hard in Startups

I’ve gotten to know a lot of marketing managers at startups since I started working on Draft.dev full-time last year. I was talking to one recently and she mentioned some of their marketing goals and constraints.

The Incentives to Publish No Longer Reward the Web's Creators

"In 2016, creating amazing content that people would want to consume and share was a powerful way to build a brand on the web. In 2021, that same content is unlikely to get 10% of the reach or clicks it received just a few years ago."

Technology

Amazon is Sitting on $2.9 billion in IP Addresses

"If you invested in IP addresses 15 years ago, you're doing pretty well. If you invested in IP addresses 15 months ago, you're also doing well."

Target Companies and People, not Roles in Your Job Search

"Put together a list of companies you're keen on working for, with a focus on ones that currently have open tech roles, though you can also include your dream companies even if they don't have any positions listed."

Why I Hate Frameworks

"If you really want a high-quality, industrially engineered spice rack, you desperately need something more advanced than a simple hammer from a rinky-dink hardware store."

Leadership

How Tech Companies Should Compensate Their Remote Workers

"Just because wages have always been influenced by location, does that mean we have to keep paying people based on where they live? Is the value of a line of code written in Hanoi worth less than code written in San Francisco?"

Managing Direct Reports at a Startup

The hardest part of making the transition from team member to manager for me was changing the nature of my relationship with my peers. I was no longer on equal ground with them, but it’s not like I felt comfortable with having authority over them either.