Today - April 6th - is our 1 year anniversary of posting on our blog, staysaasy.com. In almost every way, the outcomes have surpassed our expectations. Here are some reflections on the experience so far.
By The Numbers
- 51 blog posts in the last year.
- 350 Twitter followers
- 360 tweets
- 81k users, 104k sessions
- Roughly a dozen newsletter syndications
- Multiple advising opportunities from inbound inquiries
Superlatives
- Our most popular post was about not joking about firing people. It had two qualities seem to be ingredients for popular posts: 1) it confirmed many people’s beliefs (that boss was a jerk for joking like that) and 2) it was an uncommon observation.
- Our most controversial post was about staying at roles longer than a couple years. It had two qualities that seem to be ingredients for unpopular posts: 1) it challenged many people’s choices and 2) it overstated its claim and didn’t address nuance. The feedback on that article was great for understanding how YOLOing broad claims without consideration of nuance can lead to friction.
- Our most durable content - content that gets revisited after its initial post - has been all the evergreen Product Management content. PMs are out there continually doing research.
We’ve done a lot of tweeting about the company building and management topics that we write about. Our top Tweets:
People who can ideate, lead, troubleshoot, and actually finish a new end-to-end initiative are really rare. Lots of people can only do a few steps on the way (sometimes really well!). Great companies are built by teams with a lot of people who can run the full process.You either die a startup, or live long enough to become a bureaucracy.
On Writing Anonymously
Writing anonymously has been a joy. It’s given us the opportunity to voice ideas without worrying about every last implication of putting those ideas out there. We do not do any amplification of our content via our networks or social channels, but the freedom to write authentically about potentially difficult topics has been worth it.
On Our Audience
People have been extremely generous with their feedback. For every ad-hominem attack buried deep in a comment thread, there are more people that have reached out with positive thoughts or to ask thoughtful questions. Building an audience that we can have an ongoing dialogue with has been one of the most unexpected benefits of this entire process. (We’d love to hear from you at hellostaysaasy@gmail.com)
Learnings from the Past Year
- Write as a team. Working as a team has been one of the most important elements of our relative success. Having a partner allows for the healthy pressure to keep things moving, the necessary feedback to ship a quality product, and a diversity of perspectives to make the blog interesting.
- Just do it. We had talked about blogging in various discussions before we actually decided to just put something out there. Every second we waited to start was a wasted one.
- Listen to your audience. We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on posts - from Hacker News, over email, on Twitter. Processing and integrating that feedback has made our writing better.
Looking Ahead
We’re excited to continue this journey and conversation. Thank you to everyone who has read, posted, liked, and reached out.