

Ask HN: What lessons you learned in 2011 - markhall

As 2011 comes to an end, I'm working on a blog post about what big lessons entrepreneurs, hackers, bloggers learned this year. My focus is around technology, entrepreneurship, web, etc. Give me your thoughts.
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iSloth
The biggest thing that I learnt was you don't have to find ways of driving
traffic to your site with advertising and link building etc...

Just social web interactions such as replying to posts and helping people on
sites such as server-fault (with a discreet link in your profile) can generate
a substantial flow of users to your websites.

And the best thing about this flow of users is that they are more likely to
find value in your website than the average person which would be directed
from paid advertising.

~~~
markhall
Great point! I couldn't have agreed more. Thanks for the comments iSloth!

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FameofLight
The main learning is we try to solve the problem first, before understanding
and defining the problem.

You can see it everywhere, we always want to jump and skip to solution, skip
the process and get to result, skip the learning and get the work done in most
cases its a very bad idea.

See in personal life, we were always trying to make ourselves better but,
where does it goes nowhere, you don't know what you are trying to become
better at.

I think we need to relearn the basic problem solving, we have forgotten with
so much noise and fast moving world. 1\. Understand the problem 2\. Define the
problem. 3\. What are various approaches and solution to the problem.
Understanding them pros and cons. 4\. Applying and finding the optimal
solution. Refine the solution over time.

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decadentcactus
I'm sure others learned this before me, but it seems to be something you have
to experience: Things take so much more work than you expect, and will take a
lot longer than you planned (eg post-release building up to good traffic
levels).

Also agree with delwin

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delwin
Ideas don't mean anything, execution is everything. Feel free to give away
your idea to everyone.

This applies to entrepreneurship, but not, I believe, to other more "creative"
fields, like art/music/etc. Fine arts are judged much more on the fundamental
idea behind the work rather than the execution. For example, with the
exception of mainstream music, excellent records are released all the time
that have sub-par mastering/production.

~~~
markhall
Thanks delwin! Great points

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adrianwaj
Most people aim to take rather than give and come from a place of
insufficiency (not sure how that can help you) - maybe explains why business
models based on donations don't work, and why Wikipedia is struggling.

Although very admirable, should've Sergey Brin (or Google) given more - how
much is Wikipedia worth to Google?

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gw666
As I get older, writing stuff down pays bigger and bigger dividends. I have a
series of "notes" files on various subjects, which I keep on Dropbox. When I
learn something (especially something undocumented), I put it in the right
file so I can find it later. I've become much more productive (and less
frustrated) as a result.

~~~
markhall
Thanks gw666!

