mlent

Born on October 12, 2012•361 Karma

on Jan 25, 2021

•on: Discover the best developer blogs on any tech stac...

OP here! Great point. Right now each blog just shows the #1 trending post, but it could definitely also pull recent articles by RSS feed. Thanks Channing!

mlent•

on Nov 27, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Hey there! OP.

Yes, that's exactly my point -- that in fact reaching this point has been a six-month effort.

I didn't post on HN myself, and therefore did not choose the title either.

Anyways, thanks for pointing that out and I'm glad you got something out of the article!

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Hey there, OP here - yes, that's true.

If it's helpful or somehow relevant since you brought up Twitter followers, I started with about 9K when I launched the newsletter.

Wrote about that process here, though maybe you've seen it already? https://bloggingfordevs.com/launch-a-newsletter/

ZephyrBlu•

on Nov 27, 2020

I skimmed that article and your PH launch one :).

I brought up your Twitter followers because it seemed relevant to your accomplishments in this post, given that they were directly responsible for ~1/4 of your email list and likely indirectly responsible for many more subscribers (Signal boosting your PH launch, for example).

Having an audience seems to be the most important thing for a lot of product launches, so I'm always curious about how people built their audience.

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Thanks Tom, glad you liked it!

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

OP here, thanks for your comment!

I also don't see it as competition. People will join if they think it's valuable, they'll leave if they don't. You can also be part of multiple communities if you think it's worth it.

I'm glad you got some ideas from the post about making your community more sustainable. Wishing you the best with that!

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Welcome, Elliot! Stoked to have you :D

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Haha hey Azib! Hope things are going well for you, looking forward to the next update on MedAngle :D

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Hey there! Thanks for your feedback, that's really interesting because most people have told me they like the conversational style of my writing.

No worries if you're not into it, just curious what felt "infomercially" to you. Is it that the email form is kind of immediate? I changed that recently before launching on product hunt -- it used to just be a paragraph and two input fields.

Thanks for checking it out in any case :)

passwordreset•

on Nov 26, 2020

I can't speak for kerabatsos, but when I see something like "How my paid community made $5K in it's first week", I tend to automatically add "... and YOU CAN TOO, with my special patented secret methods!"

Writing like that is bait, because it will generate money from marks without even verifying whether the claim is true. If I take the bait, then I'm a sucker, and I'd rather keep my money and not be a sucker. To turn phrases in that way is sensationalism, and while I'm sure it works for you, I believe it trades short term cash for long term trust. When the next sucker finds that he can't reproduce your results, there's a good chance he'll feel shafted.

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Hey there! OP here.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm trying this "build in public" thing which is more transparent than feels natural to most people.

Who knows where it'll go, but I think it's cool and useful to see people's "early work", not only a final polished result.

So, trying to contribute some of that stuff myself!

That said, I'm not sure where I wrote I want to reach 20K? I don't foresee reaching that in terms of either revenue or subscribers in the near future.

Thanks for reading, even if you aren't sure about it. Was there a part you think was redundant or it was just a bit long-winded?

mlent•

on Nov 26, 2020

•on: I launched a paid community in one month

Totally know what you mean! When I was researching the rankings, I found so many lists that are clearly made by people who are literally just googling other lists and copy/pasting them.

The results so far are pretty cool and, in my opinion, should be a signal that it is TOTALLY possible for individuals writing great technical content to stand out for a specific technology.