

Buy these 9 things: Week 2 - acoyfellow

Week two (6/11/2012)<p>At the moment of writing this, http://Buythese9things.com has gotten these numbers in less than 1 week:<p>Visits: 3,757
Unique Visitors: 3,566
Pageviews: 8,540
Pages / Visit: 2.27
Avg. Visit Duration: 00:01:31
People interested in making their own ‘9things’: 23
People wanting a weekly update: 2<p>Look like a lot to you, or a little? Well it’s a lot to me. Thats the most impact I’ve ever had on the internet world, and it was thrilling for me. As someone who is focused on making it, someway or somehow, as an entrepreneur on a computer. I even got @ericries to “cool!” me on Twitter.<p>I have been patiently waiting for Monday morning to roll around and see if I had gotten any actual rewards. I either didn’t get any (which is odd, because I know for a fact someone bought something using my page), or it still hasn’t updated as of 10:00AM EST.<p>I got praises from Referly’s “whole team” and in specific the CEO Danielle Morrill and I have exchanged a few words<p>Danielle Morrill ‏: @acoyfellow you just made my week;’l (maybe month)!<p>Also Alexandra Harris from Referly had contacted me about co-writing a blog post about Buythese9things + Refer.ly, and how I used their service to launch in my first 9 things. Here is a quote from an e-mail-<p>“The entire Referly team was so excited when they saw buythese9things.com, I think we were literally going over your site and talking about it for a solid half hour (horrible productivity during that time).”<p>I was so flattered and excited, you couldn't imagine (I jump up and do the chicken dance for my cat and girlfriend, more than a handful of times). Look at it from my perspective: I’m a broke college graduate who is focused and committed to getting something started to become independent from Daddy. And I’m hungry. Really hungry. Don’t underestimate someone who is hungry. I have a good part time job, but it’s not for me. My personality was always hard to pinpoint because I was all over the place- only now thanks to the internet do I realize that I share that trait with almost all entrepreneurs.<p>I’ve made a iteration into something a little more specific for this week, and I used Refer.ly as the referral system (same as week1).  I love their service and am learning to make it work for me (even though it was the main thing people complained about last week).<p>I signed in to Refer.ly today and see a new major feature, which was Public Profile. It is awesome for their product, but it totally just makes the direction I was going to take with 9things much harder (in my opinion- I could be wrong). They became competition for 9things instead of the functionality that I used to implement my idea.<p>I’m not writing this because I’m "mad" at Referly. I’m just slightly deflated and lost now, because I had a whole game-plan for this week and how I was going to attack with 9things. My flattery has been replaced with confusion now. What are you trying to write a blog post about? You guys just implemented my idea into your product, and I can’t compete. I still love your product though.<p>I’ve had so many smart people online give me awesome advice on the places I posted it: HackerNews, Reddit, Quora, and the Lean Startup Circle. I had some people laugh at me for my idea (you seasoned veterans laughing at the rookies is lame), I had some people laugh with me for my candid honesty, but more importantly I started something. I have a craving for more of it. I need to start something and build it- it’s my calling to be an entrepreneur.<p>I’m not giving up that easily though. I’ve never had such a return of “interest” on anything in my entire life. There was a large amount of effort put into it, but a very limited amount of time. I’d be ashamed if I quit so easily, and I don’t quit. Especially when I’m hungry.<p>So, here is my question for all you Entrepreneurs, Wannabes, Hasbeens, and Willbe’s<p>Why do you think I should give up- or not?
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dmor
Don't give up! Maybe your differentiation should be your good taste, not your
website. Or maybe it is your website and creating more custom experiences for
specific types of visitors than our generic one-size-fits all profile page
(although fair warning that will probably improve too).

Some people will come to Referly and buy your recommendations off your profile
page, and some will come to your site, but you are going to get the same
rewards either way. AND we will make every effort to drive traffic to both.
Sorry you are disappointed - public profiles was a feature we absolutely had
to add. I'd still love to blog about what you've built.

-danielle (CEO Referly)

