Why I don’t promote Startup blog

I get told all the time my blog is quite good. I’m chuffed. It’s nice people get something out of it. And yes, it has grown in the almost 3 years it’s been going. Grown from 10 readers a month to about 30,000. And No.1 on Google for ‘Startupblog’. But I don’t promote it hardly at all, other than a tweet here or there. I’d rather people just find out. And here’s why:

As soon as we start creating stuff for the ‘popularity contest’ we start to compromise what we do. We’re doing it to win, rather than for the love of creation. Our work suffers and we start making it for ‘them’ instead of ‘us’. Slowly we evolve into a qausi-politician trying to please everyone and yet stand for nothing.

This sounds counter intuitive to all the marketers out there…. but, the world has changed. We used to make stuff for them, round the edges and then sell to everyone. But now they’ve already got more stuff than they need – physical and informational. So what we have to do now is create stuff we love and let the people catch up. The people who are in fact ‘us’. Our people, not them.

I’ll be blogging 10 years from now (among other things) and if I stay the course, they’ll keep coming, like they already have. The only promotion this blog will ever get is the Kudos it deserves from those who discovered it… and then spread it. Given I don’t advertise on it, or make a living from it – that’ll suit me just fine. My main goal is to take pride in my content – not my ranking.

Entrepreneurs ought there – create something you’re proud of.

2 thoughts on “Why I don’t promote Startup blog

  1. Hear! Hear! A good reminder for those of us who believe the pursuit of quality is more noble than the pursuit of popularity (think Mac vs PC?).

Leave a Reply