Show up as yourself and trust that it will work out.
Hey!
Just in case it isn't clear.
I ❤️ Community Building.
Sure, whatever, you may say.
But that tweet for me is a reminder. To myself and to everyone around me what I am absolutely focused in on.
Everywhere that I show up is for the world of building better communities.
I don't show up to promote myself, my work or my newsletter. I show up because I want to help, contribute and make an impact. And I'll help most of the time without pointing to my own stuff.
I actually really struggle with doing posts about myself and my work. I know that I could make more money, have more email subscribers, and have a bigger Twitter following if I put more of a marketing focus, but tbh, it's not my style.
I kind of started over when I left my previous business and came to help here at Indie Hackers. As part of this, I set myself a personal goal.
In addition to making Indie Hackers as awesome as I can, I wanted people to think of and point to me when they think of building communities.
I honestly wasn't sure if I was cut out for it.
- CV wise people wouldn't understand why I would leave a 'successful' bootstrapped company to take a 'lower title' role.
- Maybe I was just lucky with my previous company, what if I didn't make an impact here at IH?
- Was I really cut out for working for someone else? I had tried in the past and failed. I honestly believed I was unemployable.
- I didn't really know anyone in this indie world, my head had been down in my business for so long.
It has been about 18 months and my world has changed. My Twitter pings with notifications. Communities I am part of recommend me. I have made some new friends (though not as many as people would assume).
Apparently I know a thing or two about building communities.
This is a flywheel effect. That benefits me in multiple ways.
I didn't set out with the intention to start a paid newsletter. I just kept showing up. Delivering value. Week after week.
But of course, I am where I am because of everyone around me.
- I am influenced by the people around me. I dive into various communities to help, guide, interact, and gain inspiration.
- People help. I have rosie.land as a domain because an indie hacker reached out to me via email to recommend it. I had just bought another domain that was not as good as this one.
- I learn constantly from everyone around me. Your questions, challenges and successes help me see things from new perspectives.
- It of course helps that I get paid to hang out here every day. 🙏
I want people to show up for who they are.
To show them that a successful path can be fun and rewarding in so many ways.
That you don't need to do advertising. Or cold emails. Or have a lengthy sales funnel.
To understand that these things take time, but they sure are much better than dumping links in 20 different communities in the hope that people will click on it. (Hint: they most probably won't).
To see that we can be happily be the tortoises. Not the hare. That we are in it for the long, enjoyable consistent journey.
To understand, that yes you are important, but we can be in this journey together. The more you talk about and help others, the more you will be seen.
It's a much better and sustainable life, imho, when you focus on doing what you love. The pieces can fall into place very conveniently.
Be you. It's the best growth hack out there. ❤️
First of all, I love the way you manage this community. If you weren't there, I wouldn't come here as often as I do. I'll try to explain why with a story.
My first product was a broken MVP, a Buffer clone I didn't really care about. It was free, and I thought I could get money from donations.
Of course it wouldn't have work, but I didn't even wait enough time to see it going down. I didn't care about the product. I didn't even like social media. It was a pain for me to work on it. At one point, I had to face the truth and stop building this thing.
I put a lot of time in it. I learned many technical skills, and I was already at that time working with myself to really internalize the fact that each failure brings me valuable experiences. I really understood two things:
So I decided to do more marketing. I have a blog and my goal is to write books and create courses for developers. I decided to post regularly on social media about the blog, trying my best to follow advice from marketing gurus.
After many experiments, I needed to face another truth: I don't like it either. I feel miserable each time I post on twitter an article for the 8th time in three months. I feel miserable each time I bring my blog when I know that nobody asked for it, and nobody would find it valuable. I hate spending my time trying to be likeable for my own egoistical interests. This is not me.
I decided to stop marketing, or at least the way I was thinking about it. I decided to only bring value to any writing I would send on the Internet. Since I began doing that, I feel good about myself, and I never had as much "success", at least what I define by "success".
I'm happy writing for my blog, I'm happy when one person tell me that it was useful. I just try to please this person now, and that's all. I love what I do, everything I do. It means that I can continue to do that for years, and improve on it. It means that it's my real chance of success. It means that I spend my time as I want to.
More I think about it, more I believe that too many people just send useless content on the Internet, repeating again and again the same things we saw too many times, like broken records. I don't criticize, I did the same, and I understand why they do it. But I believe that the best way to differentiate ourselves is to stay true to who we are.
So when I read your post, I knew why I come pretty often around here: I'm 1000% convinced that yes, your advice is the best growth hack out there.
Fantastic post ❤️
You've achieved this, and then some!
@rosiesherry I love this and you are an inspiration to us all. Fantastic :)
hi @rosiesherry,
I'd like to say that this is the first community that I join and in love with. I feel the good vibe and energy of people in this community and it has driven me to create something. I was new to IH a month ago, but now I get a hang of it. IH newsletter is the first newsletter that I go through carefully and read every single one of them. I'm super happy to be in such an energetic community.