If you're looking for something more photo-driven, I'm working on a thing called Exposure: https://exposure.so/invite/hn (opening this week but we'll invite folks from that link ASAP)
Just released a Q&A book about building community products. (I founded Forrst in 09.) Totally DIY effort, used ruby and the prawn gem to generate the PDF file. All questions were crowd sourced. Here's a discount if you're interested:
https://gumroad.com/l/obcp-book/saturday
Thanks. It's kind of a range of related things. There's also another bundle of questions I'm working on as a part two. Probably a free or low cost addon to this.
I look at it from a standpoint of what tangible things I need to accomplish, and what I estimate I'll need in terms of time to do them. In the last 3-6 months especially, I've been constantly -under- my estimates. This correlates with starting to work a shorter week, taking more frequent breaks, etc.
Not scientific by any stretch, rather simply my own observations.
And yes - I'm thinking more in terms of folks working insane amounts of hours, at levels that put them well into the "doing bad work & burnt out" realm.
I think that it applies to everyone. To me, it's about the quality of your work vs. how much you're working. I think that even as someone newer to programming (or English), building a routine of a few "smart" hours of work (that is, being productive and effective) will almost always have a better outcome than working many, many hours but not being effective in how you're working. Get into a routine. Develop a system for yourself. Set realistic goals. I think you'll be surprised at what you're capable of accomplishing.
Finding the right balance is the hardest part, IMO. There's certainly no "right" answer, so long as you're doing work for the right reasons and can keep sight of the things which truly matter.
That's really interesting to hear. I would guess that it also potentially helps click the switch from "work, then life" to "life (e.g. kids), then work". I can't imagine any amount of work being as fulfilling as watching your family grow.
Interesting point. I guess, as an extension of this, I have noticed I'm accomplishing the same amount of net work in fewer hours. I can safely say I love my work, and that's definitely a driver in -wanting- to work more, but because it's exciting and fulfilling. (Obviously still balancing my non-work/family life with this.)
Personally, my only goal in doing all of this is to create great things which are fulfilling for me and others to use, and that hopefully have some lasting/tangible benefit in my/their life. In a sense, I've already achieved that. The idea of great wealth is not a driver (and I think would only distract me.)
> Kyle, do you still have any day to day involvement since selling to CL? I am grateful for the community you built up and hope that ZURB can bring it back up to snuff.
I left mid-summer, so not presently, no. Appreciate that, and I'm hopeful that it's in good hands with Zurb.
Also, I think that ~3 months of stagnation, low engagement, lots of "testing this out" sets, I should have a pretty good sense that I'm not going about this in a way that is interesting to others. (But as long as it is to me, then I'm happy.)
I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can run this forever whether or not it achieves meaningful scale. It's built for me (though it already has resonated with many).
As far as growth is concerned, it's already growing organically on its own and for the time being that's satisfactory to me. I haven't get invested serious resources in growth. Then again, I managed to grow my last product to > 50,000 users purely through and invitation model, with almost nothing spent on marketing. There's a pretty compelling reason IMO to want to build sets together, and I think a lot of the same invite driven mechanics will apply.
That being said, I'm more focused on just building a great product that I use daily.
You're certainly not missing the point; the pull quotes clearly aren't cutting it. :) Going to spend the weekend reworking the way work is presented. Ideally I'd like to offer a few templates for work, such that the user can pick short/medium/long-form, or, perhaps make it based specifically on the category (poem, novel, tagline, etc.)
The intention of the site is to help writers show off work elegantly, though, seems I'm not quite there yet.
Really appreciate the feedback. You make some great points, and it's clear that what I've got at this stage falls short of truly showing off writing in a way respectful to the writing. The pullquote format is actually left over, so to speak, from the previous iteration of Boldfaced, which was solely for copywriters. Based on feedback, I decided to shift gears and focus on helping any kind of writer show off their work.
And yep, this is an Elepath project. Thanks for kind words. :)
Agreed, and some great points. We kept that in mind when building the new flow. You can still cancel in a few clicks and without having to type anything.