
Making what people want isn’t enough, you have to share it - johnwheeler
https://blog.oldgeekjobs.com/be-a-prolific-sharer-31bfdfb50a40
======
jklinger410
If the problem is worth solving, from a monetary standpoint, then sharing is
actually more important than building.

I know that's heresy here on hacker news but I am an internet marketer and I
have not seen the "if you build it they will come" mentality work very often.

In most cases it's "if they want it you should build it."

~~~
jsprogrammer
Doesn't "If they want it you should build it" already assume "if you build it
they will come"?

If you don't think they will come, why are you doing it?

~~~
jacobolus
The key point here is that you need to have contact/communication with the
“they” (either they already contacted you, or you need to put a lot of work
into marketing to them). Otherwise “they” are going to ignore you.

------
sosuke
When you do share it try not to get discouraged if no one looks at it, is
dismissive of it or even becomes inflammatory of you sharing your own
creation.

Kind of like an extension of the quote: "Don't worry about people stealing an
idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _" Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will
> have to ram it down their throats."_

Personally I believe that if you have something original and the idea gets
"stolen", you should be proud of yourself. You've just done something good for
the world[0]. What really matters for humanity is that something was done, not
_who_ did it, and especially not who did it _first_.

[0] - assuming the idea itself isn't evil.

~~~
swalsh
This sounds nice in theory, and perhaps if we lived in a different type of
society that would even be true. We don't though, we live in the world where
our rewards are tied to our accomplishments. those rewards are the incentives
for us to do the work, it might not be 100% of the incentive, but it's a large
part. Of course, if someone steals your idea, but wins the race, they're
probably executing better. That's capitalism, that's the beauty of
competition. First mover advantage is often a disadvantage. You have to pay
for all the mistakes. If you're an established player, you can afford it. If
you're brand new though, you might not be able to.

~~~
pjlegato
That's not just capitalism; that's _all_ systems.

If you had a great new idea in the Soviet Union, for example, do you suppose
you would be just _given_ the resources necessary to execute it well? Of
course not, and moreover the incumbent solutions were a lot better positioned
to crush your novel way of doing things in order to protect their own
positions than the incumbents are under capitalism.

~~~
djkyrone
The Soviet Union was a variation of capitalism, called state capitalism. I
hope you weren't implying that they were socialists or communists in any way.
We have not seen socialism, only small forms of democratic socialism. We have
definitely never seen communism, only dictatorships and their one-party
systems.

~~~
pjlegato
Let me state it explicitly: that "state capitalist" theory is false (and so
absurd it makes me suspect you are part of some sort of Russian troll farm.)
The USSR was both socialist and communist in character, and not at all
capitalist.

~~~
djkyrone
I concede, my friend. They do have the character.

------
fillskills
Sharing is so hard. Fear of criticism is so high. Being open and even looking
up for critical criticism is important for a product to evolve. Even the
iPhone opened up to apps on feedback at launch.

Posts like these are very crucial to help people like me get over that bump.

I have to say also that I am in love with the website oldgeekjobs. Its so well
done.

~~~
johnwheeler
Thank you! I'm trying to keep it loading under 300ms--speed and simplicity as
features.

I love that you say you're in love with it.

~~~
adamqureshi
This client asked me to build a job board. I was thinking of using a theme.
BUT dang when i saw the UI for OGJ i was curious, would you opensource the
Front end? They are in the UK niche market. Figured i'd ask. ;-)

------
fiatjaf
People are already sharing a lot, we need more curation. HN is great for that,
but still a lot of crap emerges and awesome stuff is ignored, so people have
to post multiple times and so on.

There are also a lot of paid sharing sites, which means something is very
wrong.

~~~
Quiark
Yes, I think there is definitely value in hand-curated lists. Just look at the
popularity of the awesome-XYZ repos on github

~~~
fiatjaf
Despite some of the famoust ones being of great utility, most Awesome-XYZ
lists are just "everything that mentions this topic slightly", and so there
needs to be better curation there too. Or perhaps a curation of Awesome-XYZ
lists.

------
mstodd
I take the opposite approach. If I share my idea and people say "that's a
great idea", I get a feeling of accomplishment even I haven't done anything.
It can be tough to actually do the hard work now instead of just coming up
with another "great idea" again and being praised for it.

[https://sivers.org/zipit](https://sivers.org/zipit)

~~~
danieltillett
Care to share some of these great ideas?

------
patrickyeon
> If your posts don’t get traction, HackerNews allows a small number of
> reposts spaced out over time — you’re not spamming (so long as you’re not
> spamming).

Interesting to watch. This article has been posted by the same user twice
already in the last week, with a different title, and got no traction either
time. It's hard sometimes to figure out when what you're offering isn't
wanted, and when you just hit the perfect storm that stopped you from getting
the attention you deserve.

I'm not calling johnwheeler out on this, clearly he's eventually hit the right
nerve. But, well, it's a line to walk: taking the hint that some content
doesn't resonate with an audience vs. needing the effort to make them realize
it should resonate.

~~~
prawn
I posted it also and it went nowhere. Not being in the US, I find timezones
can work against stories I think are interesting and post.

------
leaveyou
While I don't mind people sharing their work, I would argue quite the
opposite. Make what you want and don't actively share it. Don't waste your
time sharing and documenting only to waste even more time maintaining your
project if "it becomes successful".

>Any programmer worth their salt has a collection of repos

Repos are cool but don't be a programmer. Programmers make programs. You
should probably make money. If something is not worth selling, probably is not
worth actively sharing & supporting either. Bill Gates is not known for his
collection of repos.

> Factor in the extra time needed on your projects to tune your work and make
> it resonate with your audience. Be a prolific sharer.

Yeah, and don't forget to whip yourself regularly.

~~~
moron4hire
That's a bit like saying "carpenters make furniture. You should probably make
money."

Our craft is programming. In order to create unique value where others haven't
out of programs, you should probably be good at programming. If the unique
value we would create were out of design, we'd be designers. If it were out of
reports, we'd be statisticians. Know your craft and be good at it.

~~~
leaveyou
I bet there are a lot less carpenters "worth their salt" giving away their
designs and "sharing" furniture for free than programmers. Still, if you want
and afford to profess for fame and good will, do it..

~~~
moron4hire
I think you would be very surprised to see the insides of many periodicals
focused on carpentry. Open source and information sharing wasn't invented by a
bunch of programmers at Stanford in the 70s.

~~~
leaveyou
>periodicals focused on carpentry

Are those periodicals distributed for free ? ad free ? written and printed by
carpenters ? Do they give free samples of furniture too ?

Your counter analogy just does not stand..

~~~
TeMPOraL
Before the Internet, publishing and distributing was expensive. But in about
every craft, you have people hosting their knowledge and designs for free from
the earliest days of the Internet. First self-publishing (webpages) and mail
groups, later also on-line forums.

~~~
leaveyou
I have barely shared an opinion and I'm already forced to offer countless
minutes of free "support" because someone on the internet misunderstood it or
has surplus minutes for arguing. Now imagine if I had posted a github link to
some fancy router, brand new web framework for Golang or whatever. Sorry but I
really don't have time to explain you that I don't have time for "free
support" even if the hosting is cheap now.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're not forced to do anything. You can share stuff and then not reply to
people's comments. I think most people understand that others too are busy.

~~~
leaveyou
>You can share stuff and then not reply to people's comments.

Good. That's what I meant in the original comment: "Make what you want and
don't actively share it". Share if you want but don't waste time
sharing/commenting/documenting/crowd pleasing.

------
mattbgates
I actually have the philosophy: "Build it for yourself, share with others."
Everything I have done, I have always just built it because I have needed it
and found use for it. I have then shared it with others. In a way, it is
totally selfish, but I'm not disappointed if no one uses it because I use it!
Why waste my time developing something I would never use? If other people use
it, great! If not, I still find it useful! My first PHP project showed me this
philosophy was true and fortunately, hundreds of people are actually using it.
[https://mypost.io/](https://mypost.io/)

------
rb808
> Sharing takes extra effort.

its more than a little extra effort though. If some library you use yourself
takes X effort, cleaning API, making good documentation is 3x, promotion
probably means 4x, support brings it to more like 8x especially if popular.
Are you sure its worth it?

~~~
TeMPOraL
But doing that 8x work is a difference between an obscure Github repo and next
fad in the JS world.

(You could probably skip making good documentation, everybody does that and it
doesn't seem to stop popularity.)

I'd also question making good documentation is 3x the effort - not if your
product is really doing anything interesting. For interesting stuff, most work
is in the internals and not at the edges that will be documented.

~~~
rhizome
Documentation is not about functionality, but about maintenance and the Bus
Factor.

------
ronilan
If you "liberate yourself from giving a shit" how would you give shit about
"making what people want"?

~~~
dkrich
I think he's referring specifically to giving a shit about people's criticism
or even lack of interest, not about the product itself.

Just about anyone who has publicly launched a product or idea knows what it's
like to have your ego crushed by people who take one look and dismiss work
that you've likely spent a lot of time and enthusiasm on. That can hurt a lot,
and you really do have to develop a thick skin to a point where you don't get
discouraged by criticism and dismissive attitudes (which frankly seem to be
the default on this forum).

~~~
delegate
I thought there was something wrong with my projects, with the code or with
myself when people did that. And probably, there is :).

But as I get older I try to give less of a shit about what others say.

I've also noticed that people troll more when they are unhappy about something
in their life - I know it because I do it too - I'm more negative or
dismissive when things aren't going quite as I'd like them or when I have an
argument with my wife or something...

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I 've also noticed that people troll more when they are unhappy about
> something in their life_

Right. Good thing to remember. I also realize that I have days of cynical
mood, in which I tend to click "Reply" instead of "Close tab" and some poor
randomly selected commenter now gets to read my rant...

------
dfabulich
I don't get it. Reddit explicitly forbids self-promotion.
[https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion)

I understand their policies, but I'm running a business. I have time enough to
share my work on Reddit, but I don't have time to be an active contributor to
Reddit, submitting links from a variety of sources, _just_ so I can
occasionally post my own links and get no clicks on them.

The only self-promomtion alternative is posting a sponsored headline. Doing
that every time I want to share my own stuff is just throwing away money.

~~~
mattthebaker
Reddit is owned by a mass media conglomerate. A significant portion of
everything on the site is native advertising. Self promotion would interfere
with what they are really pushing and undermine their influence. The smaller
communities exist as goodwill to make the high traffic portions seem more
authentic.

Using sponsored headlines makes you look even worse than posting
unfortunately. You have to be an insider to get the native placement I guess.

Just watch for the next big hollywood movie to come out and random disguised
content x to magically bubble up and plaster the front page.

~~~
anondon
> The smaller communities exist as goodwill to make the high traffic portions
> seem more authentic.

What makes you think smaller communities exist out of goodwill? People are
allowed to create subreddits, and whoever is interested joins the subreddit
and engages (or just lurks). It has nothing to do with goodwill. It's
fascinating how you spun your narrative to make it seem like "Reddit is owned
by a mass media conglomerate" is an evil thing.

------
beamatronic
This is something I struggled with. I built something that I wanted, but I
haven't shared it with anyone yet. I wanted a REST client that would not only
allow me to get some data, but then do some simple graphing with it, right in
the tool. It's not really packaged up well at this time, but the screen shot
gets the idea across.

[https://github.com/beamatronic/JsonAnalysisTool](https://github.com/beamatronic/JsonAnalysisTool)

------
ilaksh
I share quite a bit of what I make or think. It almost always is rewarded with
indifference or mild to extreme hostility. The best I can hope for if I am
lucky is a tepid level of upvotes (perhaps one or two dozen) and maybe one
comment.

But I continue to post links and comments on reddit and Hacker News no matter
how much hate or indifference I receive. Sometimes I doubt that I should
bother. But I do anyway.

------
pascalxus
This is a good point, especially about getting over your own ego and fear of
rejection. I've shared your post on my twitter. And, btw, if your looking to
find others to share with on Twitter, try out
[http://www.find70.com/?t=ha](http://www.find70.com/?t=ha) It's the most
advanced Twitter Profile Search.

------
HillaryBriss
> _If you’re a big picture person unwilling to grind out the gritty details on
> your project, you might as well just forget the whole damn thing — no one is
> going to stick around if you don’t._

yes. in a corporate context, i've see this same thing happen in a research
group which was very "vision driven."

the prevailing belief (at the top) was that the group could just implement a
bare bones, buggy, semi-documented version of the visionary's idea and simply
"hand off" the whole project to another group which could then "realize value"
from it.

but it never worked out that way.

the receiving groups didn't want to spend the time learning about it, setting
it up, working around bugs and deficiencies and asking the research group
questions about their vision-implementation.

in short, the receiving groups never believed in the vision group's
implementation enough to invest their time and attention.

------
jamestimmins
What subreddits are good places to share on Reddit? I'd love to get feedback
on small projects, but things that are definitely not polished/planned out
enough to warrant posting on Product Hunt. I find that feedback is most
helpful in the "simple little tool" phase.

~~~
overcast
Click on that little 'Show' link at the top of your screen.

~~~
jamestimmins
Hah thanks! I've never noticed that before.

~~~
overcast
You're welcome! People are much more helpful here than on Reddit in my
experience.

------
RachelF
Very true - building a great product is only half the story. You also have to
market it, something us geeks are normally not that good at.

Part of the reason for Linux's failure on the desktop is that is lacks
salesmen to push it.

------
arbuge
It seems what the author is actually recommding goes beyond just sharing and
is actually open sourcing a project's code.

Not saying that's necessarily a bad idea, but on the other hand I'm not sure
it's always guaranteed to be the best course of action either.

I do endorse the viewpoint of sharing updates on a project's progress with the
intended audience as often as possible, including when those updates could
sometimes be rather minor.

------
golergka
It makes a lot of sense. However, being a proficient software engineer is
correlated with being introverted, and for an introvert it's much easier and
more enjoyable to tinker and build something in solitude than sharing it with
others. So, even while sharing itself would take only five minutes vs a few
hours to implement another feature, it often requires much more effort and
energy.

------
mezod
This was a well timed reading for me. Been battling with showing an idea in
the last 2 months and the interest has been minimal. People will say it's
great and won't even sign up. I guess everyone is too busy with their life.

Is at this point where you keep reconsidering if this project is worth the
time you've put in it, and you might have to put in it. So, don't concede.

~~~
rhizome
I'm in a similar position, working on an app idea that I've decided to open-
source. If it catches on I can create a hosting service for it.

------
kenrick95
In short: "Do things, tell people"

[http://carl.flax.ie/dothingstellpeople.html](http://carl.flax.ie/dothingstellpeople.html)

------
tones411
What happens if you share it, but haven't built it, and don't have very much
time to build it, but someone else does, and they like the idea and build it
first?

~~~
Axsuul
This rarely happens. It's a moot point. Potential customers are 99.9% of the
time too busy or don't have the resources to execute on a solution.

------
happy-go-lucky
@johnwheeler, good to see you again. How is it coming along?

~~~
johnwheeler
My latest progress report: [https://www.sitepoint.com/how-i-
made-2000-in-1-5-months-star...](https://www.sitepoint.com/how-i-
made-2000-in-1-5-months-starting-with-a-google-form-based-mvp/)

Trying to get the word out any and every way. Having a blast doing it.

Thanks for asking!

~~~
happy-go-lucky
Looks like sharing it all has worked its magic. Keep up the good work :)

------
5ilv3r
Where do you share? I'm not on facebook, reddits..... bad now, and all the
hacker messageboards I used to frequent are gone (benheck, bacmods, etc).

~~~
rawrmaan
HN, Reddit, Product Hunt. Why is Reddit "bad now", because someone wrote that
and now it's your new world view? Reddit is stronger than ever.

~~~
5ilv3r
Stronger isn't what I'm looking for. If it was, I'd be on facebook. I just
want a smaller community with closer interests. More like benheck and bacmods
were and less general interest. HN is all business now so it's no good either
(for my hacks).

~~~
sosborn
> I just want a smaller community with closer interests.

Whatever you are making I am sure there is a subreddit that is small and
closely aligned with your interests.

------
coupdejarnac
I noticed it is free to post a job now. Is this part of the sharing ethos, and
has your business model changed?

