Writing for myself
And scratching my own itch
It all starts with a tweet.
Not one of mine (I desperately need to up my Twitter game).
Instead, one of the tech world’s most popular philosopher, entrepreneur, and VC, Naval, who wrote:
*Insert ‘I’m in this photo and I don’t like it’ meme*
Right in the feels.
The issue with perfect (and getting over it)
The problem when you’re writing (hoping) to be read is you aim for perfection.
You try to optimise for engagement. You try to find the right SEO description. You write about things you’ve solved instead of things you’re working on.
And, worst of all, it’s all a great excuse to procrastinate.
Case in point: alexdebecker.com — where I haven’t posted anything in 18 months. Not that I had nothing to write about. It just wasn’t ever ‘perfect’.
Starting over with Substack
So, I’m starting over. With Substack.
There are three reasons I’m doing this.
Clean slate. Could be good, could be bad. I’m just enjoying starting from zero.
Less pressure. Somehow, posting on my blog got me stuck and unproductive. This change might help. I feel less pressure writing here. I can write short posts. I don’t have to have answers. I can just write.
Built-in distribution. I know I know — I’m not supposed to write to be read. Still, if it turns out people enjoy my journey (and not the destination), I like that Substack has ways to distribute it for me.
Topics and promises
I’ve decided to write about three things I enjoy: products, growth, and management.
More importantly, I’m going to write about challenges. I intend on using this publication as a journal rather than a series of tutorials and how-tos. By subscribing, you will follow my journey through product, growth, and investing challenges.
Hopefully some of them will get resolves. But that’s besides the point.
Choosing the topics above is the first decision I’ve made to, hopefully, combat procrastination and ‘know-it-all’ block. The second is cadence and consistency.
From now until March 31st, 2022, I will publish one newsletter per week on any of these three topics. With the alleviated pressure of writing just for me, writing about topics I enjoy, and the Substack format, I think this is a good goal.
Dear myself, I hope you enjoy the show.