Getting Started

Blogging...

It's something I've thought and talked about for years. And I've been hesitant to dive in, knowing the commitment that maintaining a blog is.

Consistency is key.

Blog daily like Ze Frank did that one time, do it weekly like Hiten Shah does with his SaaS newsletter, or long-form monthly/quarterly content like what Brian Dean recommends. I told myself, whatever you choose, just be consistent.

Publishing content is no joke.

Writing has many benefits, both personally and professionally. Writing forces you to think through your ideas and intelligently communicate them to others. Writing is also time consuming. But many throughout history have sung the praises of writing. I recently shared this post on The Psychological Benefits of Writing, and I'd encourage you to read it.

Here's my list of things I need to learn about blogging:

How to write in markup
What the process is that works for me: when to write, how to organize my thoughts (outline first in textedit, what images I want, sourcing posts, wow there's a lot) - this will probably be trial and error. I will probably use a combination of Trello and Todoist to help manage my publishing process.

Here's my list of what I need to do to launch this blog:

Setup consistent posting schedule
Create list of blog post ideas
Write posts
Find a friend to edit / read my posts for me
Make sure I know what my goals are
What keywords I want to rank for?
Setup Google Analytics

I'm posting this to keep myself accountable.

It's funny how much we will lie to ourselves but when it comes to public scrutiny, our pride will force us to follow through. Hence, this premature post on my newbie blog. Tweet me at @luketucker and scold me if you don't see any post over the next few weeks.

Some ideas I have about forthcoming posts...

A while back a friend asked me about whether I thought we were in a tech bubble. I wrote him some thoughts in an email. I'll probably turn this into a blog post.
I've been participating in the SumoMe Traffic1M course and slack group. The slack group has over 5,500 people (a top 5 slack group per SumoMe). There must be hundreds of different channels, and it's been hard for me to keep track of all the conversations, but there is some really valuable information being shared. So I've been creating weekly digests of my curated top conversations, users, articles shared, etc. and I've been sharing them with the group in the #general channel. It's gotten pretty good feedback. So I'll probably re-post those docs here for a long-term archive of the content. Even Chief Sumo Noah Kagan gave me a slack shoutout.
Through my work at Sultan Ventures, I oversee a highly trafficked website with millions of monthly page views. We recently did a big redesign and the first day after the redesign traffic fell of a cliff (down 90+%).
It was odd because all the customer discovery we did pointed to the fact that users wanted the change. The firehose of traffic to our most popular page, however, was from non-registered users and they couldn't figure out the new UI (I hid the navigation to only show on mouseover). I made 2 easy changes on the UI, and traffic rebounded to pre-redesign levels. I'm thinking about writing a blog post about learning design, watching analytics, and how small change can have big impacts.
Self-introspection: Since I want an emphasis of this blog to be about growth: personal and professional, I see this as key. Plus, it helps articulate to others your thought process and has an emphasis on transparency.
Why I decided to blog: This one kind of is a no-brainer, at least the thought process as to me pulling triggers with this blog, makes sense as my first post (or second if you count this as my first post).

Content

I will be writing about the following in some form or fashion:

Growth: In life (personally) and startups I work with (professionally)
God: Observations, questions, notes, and the occasional Bible Study Notes
Startups: Thoughts and theatrics along my startup journeys
Catchall: Sports, Finance, Fitness. Stuff I find interesting or cool

If I was to peg a percentage of content breakdown right now it would be: 35% / 15% / 40% / 10% for sections 1 - 4 above.

Disclaimer

I'm not a UI expert, nor am I a graphic designer. I can't develop a website for you. I've never grown a business to post-revenue with millions of users. I am a sinner saved by grace... And I'm learning as I go. But that's kind of the point... So this blog is my observations on what I've done, what I've tried, and what I've learned along the way.

This blog is a journal on growth.

What do I mean by that? Well, I'll find out as I continue on this journey, but recently I participated in a team building communication seminar as part of the Sultan Ventures team. And the facilitator asked me a question that I haven't had to answer in a while. She asked "What are you passionate about?" I muddled through some ridiculous answer about God, technology, and family. In thinking about that question over the weeks to come, I came to the conclusion that...

I really am passionate about growth.

It's the reason why I love startups (Paul Graham has an essay on how Startups = Growth),

It's the reason why I volunteer my time for things like ADUP Hawaii (helping non-profits tell their story and increase the amount of people they can reach),

It's the reason why I read my Bible everyday (those Sunday school brats will know the saying; "Read your Bible, Pray every day, and you'll grow, grow grow...),

I've always had this natural curiosity. I think that desire has served me well in my professional endeavors. I desire to be always moving forward, never stagnant. Yet, I often have the issue the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 7:15:

"What I want to do, I don't do, but what I hate, that I do." - The Apostle Paul

Meaning, we all have the best intentions and following through is not easy. This blog will hopefully be a periodic update on my journey of "following through" and if it helps other people grow then that's ultimately a humbling and awesome thing. I hope it will.

"This blog is really just one beggar, telling another beggar where he found food."

And if there's no valuable food here, perhaps I can make you smile or you can use me as an example of what not to do.

So What's Next?

For me, back to the "Things I need to learn and do" lists above. Enough writing about writing for now. Time to #GSD, Get Stuff Done...

Stay Tuned...

With love and respect,