

From Here On Out, Do What You Love - InfinityX0
http://justinbriggs.org/from-here-on-out-do-what-you-love

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Yhippa
Normally I'm pretty skeptical of these types of stories but I must say I'm
pretty impressed. I think you have to hit rock bottom sometimes to get the
best out of yourself. The trick is making sure you can push yourself when
you're not at rock bottom.

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Shenglong
I've seen a few of these types of articles here - I'm just wondering... since
this is one of the most intelligent communities I know of, how many people
here have given up everything for one reason or another, and pushed back from
rock bottom?

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itcanbedone
With a young family to support, I gave up a secure career in a stable sector
to pursue the startup dream. I taught myself programming and started working
on my idea full time.

Three years and two failed startups later, I had only $200 left in the bank
and decided to throw in the towel.

I started interviewing for jobs but wasn't having much luck. This was a real
low point in my life, I had asked my family to live on the poverty line for an
extended period of time with the promise of success in the near future. But I
had failed. And now I couldn't even get back into the career I had left
behind.

I started working on a third idea while looking for a job. But after suffering
knock back after knock back from potential employers, things were looking
pretty bleak. A family friend wrote out at a check for $4000 to see me through
until I got back to work. I accepted the check but it was a humiliating
experience to do so.

"The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to
succeed."

Then out of no where and completely unexpectedly, my latest idea went
stratospheric. It was so unexpected that even now I sometimes pinch myself and
wonder how it all happened.

I never did cash the check my friend gave to me and keep it in my desk drawer.
From time to time, I take it out and look at it to remind myself how far I've
come.

~~~
snitko
Great story. Care to elaborate a little bit more about the idea and the
business you're running?

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wf
As a student at school, (coincidentally, the University of Tennessee) trying
to figure out where I really want to be and what I am doing with my life, this
is absolutely inspirational.

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briggsbio
I usually shy away from these "Do what you love" stories, but when I saw the
domain it came from I had to read it. I thought the universe (or PG) was
sending me a direct message via HN! (And no, I'm not that stupid or that much
of a megalomaniac, I hope.)

So, from one Justin Briggs to another, thanks for an inspiring story, a
newfound respect for SEO, and for bringing back some similar memories from my
path.

Good Luck!

~~~
pluies_public
The bad news is you'll have to out-SEO him for people to see you when Googling
"Justin Briggs".

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sid6376
As someone who has just pushed the reset button on his life, this was an
amazing story. Good luck and may you continue inspiring people.

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revorad
Now _that_ is determination. Respect to the man. May greater things come your
way.

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babel17
Great story. I gotta ask though, how can ANYONE love SEO ??

~~~
briggsjustin
As the writer of the story, I guess I should answer this.

I think the acronym "SEO" feels a bit outdated. The problems and strategies
involved in SEO are far more involved than it often gets credit for. There are
a number of people who do the name a disservice and do bad SEO.

But the type of work I do at Distilled is working on incredibly creative
projects.

It might include projects like managing domain consolidation across 3 domains
comprising of pages in the millions without allowing for a massive drop in
traffic. To solving speed optimization issues, to account for crawl budgets
that limit indexation. Or determining IA on large scale sites. Or helping
optimize a site running on a 16 year old CMS that won’t switch.

And in the same day, I may switch gears to brainstorm some of the most popular
viral content on the internet. Then I'll work with a client on their customer
service center problems, because it's leading to reputation issues online.

Then later that week, I'll be on the phone with the CEO of a cool startup
talking through strategic business ideas.

I get to help work on strategies that fall well outside the acronym of "SEO"
that help lead to the success of some great brands.

As an ex engineering, math, and science fanatic - I love the problems that
force me to just sit in front of a whiteboard for 2 days straight until I come
out with a solution I think will work best for a client.

I love the complexity of the problems. However, in the industry, I'm more
known for "building links" which is the aspect that allows me to be creative.
Also, my "hustle" has made me successful at getting my clients coverage. But
in link building, you get to work on projects like data mining and analysis on
client data to create interesting content. Then I get to take that same
content and pitch it to publications. It's such a dynamic process for one
content piece to cover everything from brainstorming concepts, to data
analysis, to outreach.

So yeah, I love SEO.

~~~
will_critchlow
I'm one of the founders of Distilled (mentioned in the story) and I also come
from a technical background (maths mainly). The thing I love about SEO is that
we get to work on harder problems in more fun ways than any other industry
I've come across. You can make it whatever you want - Justin is a great
example of this.

And, yeah, he rocks - but you all worked that out already.

~~~
a5seo
In some ways, I'd like to keep SEO's awesomeness a secret from the HN and
startup community.

As a developer (I'm not a engineer or computer scientist), I love to build
stuff and see people use it. If you build things that are usable by Googlebot
(as in, easy to crawl, easy to perceive the content's quality, easy to
categorize and associate with keywords) and worthy of citations (links), then
your reward can be astronomical...

My last site was a SEO-driven UGC site and I sold it for $10M before I turned
32. I never paid a dollar for marketing, I was the only owner, and I never had
more than 5 employees. And with my help, it doubled in revenue after I sold
it. It was a fantastic business. Now I'm pretty much free to work on what I
like.

