I did it myself for a long time until I did this My Facebook group on cool serial numbers now has 22,288 members. I’m glad they’re members, and seeing what people post is always a pleasant part of my day. Unfortunately, I missed a key opportunity to ask most of them why they joined. As … Read more
One sign that you’re making a difference as a creator is that you get negative comments. My YouTube channel on cool and fancy serial numbers gets some hate because I encourage people to collect what they like, and not necessarily what is valuable. I’ve gotten some more “these bills are face value” and “these bills … Read more
Because I had found the person my group was for If only my day job were as straightforward as running my Facebook group. After going past 22,000 members with my Facebook group on currency collecting, what happens in the group from one day to the next is mostly predictable: The same thing with most of … Read more
I’ve heard it all before and I don’t care what you say There’s a time and place for going public with your goals and aspirations. Maybe. I’m not convinced. When I’ve written about something that I’m going to do, it never was as powerful as when I’ve written about something that I did. Wishes aren’t … Read more
I made this mistake once. Not again As an online creator, the thoughtful comments I receive on my work are gifts. Let’s consider the journey of Seymour Posts, a fictitious reader, who eventually comments on a Medium article. Each step in this journey filters out people. That’s six “only a fractions” and if my math … Read more
When I started blogging Way Back When in 2005, things were different. Blogging was still cool and mostly cozy. People still sought out blogs and fired up their RSS readers and knew the web addresses of their favorite bloggers. My niche was money and personal finance. I knew a few other bloggers and we commented … Read more
As a content creator, most of what I’ve done on the web isn’t all that great. But I can point to a few places on the web that have it going on, and it puts a smile on my face. One such place is my Cool Serial Facebook group, and I’ll explain how it got … Read more
A business arch-enemy is a powerful construct. I heard of this idea first from Jeff Atwood, one of the founders of the programming behemoth Stack Overflow. (He, in turn, heard it from 37Signals.com about BaseCamp, likely penned by David Heinemeier Hansson.) The website that Stack Overflow loved to hate was Experts Exchange. (Experts Exchange added … Read more
Sunk costs are painful. So much money, so much time, for so little return. I’ve been doing email marketing since 2010 I started using AWeber in 2010. Switched to Robly around 2015 or so (yeah I’d forgotten that one too), then MailChimp in 2017, and finally ConvertKit in 2022. (Note: I’m pleased with ConvertKit. They … Read more
Once in a while an article shows up that is so timely that it demands an article in response. I had just revised an article on my main blog to include an updated realization about how I’d start a website today. I had been a hardcore “you need to own your stuff” kind of guy … Read more