Memes & Motivation 39: Just Launch
Hey Team,
This week, I launched my first info product, a video course called Timeless Career Advice for Engineers, and you won't believe what happens next.
It actually sold a whole bunch.
170+ people watched it, and the feedback from engineers has been fantastic. It led to several conversations and DMs where I could give people concrete feedback with real examples of what to say and do to get raises, promotions, get ahead.
I joked with a former direct report that I stopped managing my teams at Walmart and started managing the Internet's Engineers.
The crazy part is I had plenty of reservations about doing this course. Lot's of fears too. The big one is that I didn't think it would work nor that anyone would want my decade of knowledge in this form; in hindsight, it's obvious to see that was wrong. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I very much credit Daniel Vassallo and the Small Bets community and Twitter for changing my mind and pushing me, so I struck while the motivation to do it was there. And I struck fast. I suspended my fears and disbelief and trusted the instincts of those with more experience than me.
I will be writing a Twitter thread on this later, but here is a sneak peek of the things that worked well:
I focused on content quality and not production quality; it was the only way to get it out fast. People quickly messaged me and said if I used a nicer camera, nicer mic, better video editing, I could charge 50-100 bucks for this, it may be true, but it could've taken me months to do that.
I priced it low, and I left value on the table. I knew the value would come back to me in other ways, in followers on Twitter and in feedback and learnings.
This weekend I plan to add all of the things others gave me feedback on, free for those that bought it already and charge a little more for new buyers next week. Now I may really get the chance to make it timeless.
So why did I do this? I did it to learn more about the creator economy, I have built tools like TapeX with my brother, but this is a great way to embed myself, become a creator. The best way to learn is to do it. Don't get me wrong the few thousand dollars in income from this has been awesome, especially now that I don't have a big tech salary, and maybe long term, it can generate more, but I wouldn't say that was my goal to start.
I am incredibly grateful to everyone that supported, gave me 5 starts on Gumroad, and gave me feedback to make it more timeless.
Two Essays from this week
My friend Chris shared this awesome article by Seth Godin which perfectly captures what's going on within the Small Bets community. We are all starting to think of our income sources as assets inside of an Index Fund.
A fun visual of the costs of attrition on teams. With attrition rates hitting over 50% in our industry in 2021 the effects will be staggering, even on big companies.
Two Tweets from this week:
The 90-9-1 rule of the internet is real and I found this older tweet by Sahil that made me think of my own journey to start creating last year. If you are on the fence, if you just start engaging on social you have a 10x head start on the journey.
I think Jack Butcher is spot on about the way the wealth game works.
A few Memes from this week:
I love this Tweet because its true, it made me think about some of my own bugs and those of my teammates how we still joke about them.
This Tweet by Alexandra hits close to home, I've had this happen too many times recently.
Thank you for reading and have a great weekend.
Louie
P.S. a reminder that you can reply to this email if you want to chat. I am a little behind on messages but do plan on fully catching up.