👋. This is the first article I've written that is truly mine. After over a decade of helping to market SaaS companies and growing up during the rise of the web, I set out to finally put myself out there on the Internet. I’ve hesitated for quite a while for a number of reasons. Actually, a lot of reasons. Let's get vulnerable right from the start. In no particular order:
- I'm not nearly as strong of a writer as the people I typically follow and read. So that’s discouraging.
- I'd prefer to sound like I know what I'm talking about.
- Polarizing views do well on the Internet. And I don’t believe I have any polarizing opinions (I might be wrong!). So, who cares about some reasonable schmuck?
- It seems difficult to say anything novel. I’d like to believe I have a feel for some corners of the Internet. There’s a lot of people all saying the same shit. I’m “competing” with people at a GLOBAL scale, not just the local talent to my school, university or local city.
- Yet another blog? Feels stupid starting from nothing and trying to push packets out to the Internet and nobody specifically care
- While I spend my days trying to market things, I always hated the idea of marketing myself.
- Tied to the above, I always thought I would (or should) be the person who can keep a low online profile and still be really successful in what I do day-to-day.
- I actually care about what people think about me, whether I want that to be true or not.
- While I don’t believe I offer any particularly polarizing points of view, I’m a bit anxious that things I say may hurt future opportunities in the professional world, personal relationships, etc. May be lame to say, but hey, I'm being vulnerable.
- Everyone’s just constantly shilling themselves. And that sucks.
But on the flip side, a few things have occurred to me of late:
- I don’t need to try and sound smart.
- Brand matters. Who would have thought?
- I believe practice and repetition matter. If I want to write better, then it isn’t going to just “happen”. Practice is key, whether you’re a natural or not.
- I’m into crypto. And I haven't made a dime. And I got really into it after it fell out of fashion. And I’m not a finance bro or cypherpunk. But I do love punk rock. I may have something to add here.
- In high school (circa 2001) my friends and I built a site using Dreamweaver: eacapable.com/collinsposse. For some reason our friend's dad let us create this directory on his company's domain and let us put up whatever we wanted. Every generation is nostalgic about the good ole days of their youth, and I was fortunate to be part of some of the the weird days of the internet. I hope to use this site and app to keep the internet weird.
- I have a 2 and 1/2 year old baby 👧.  At times, my mortality haunts me. That’s a recent phenomenon (since she was born). I sometimes ponder what she’ll think about me as she gets older. And what she’ll know about me when I’m gone. I don’t have much of an online footprint outside of college-era Facebook and who I’m connected with on LinkedIn (cool). I guess you could deduce the things I’m interested in, my sense of humor, etc by checking out my twitter likes. (I may write a post about that in the future)
- Tied to the above: fatherhood is a new thing. I’d like to imagine I have a few "observations" worth sharing...
- Finally, I’d like to “solve problems and tell people about it”. The developer community is REALLY good at this (who would have thought that the people who build the web use it a lot 🤔). Turns out the collective sharing of knowledge is really powerful (is that an understatement or what?) and I’ve had a front row seat in helping it play out at one of the largest developer communities in the world (cough, selling my 9-5) .
As I write this, it’s become EVEN MORE clear there’s a wide range of topics. I could dive into. I feel encouraged I have options but equally anxious “if I’ll find the right niche”.