A little explainer on why I write
I need to take a breath here because things have gotten crazy
Hey. I’m taking a pause here on Substack while I figure out how to consolidate.
Over the last eight months, a lot more readers have started reading what I’m writing. I mean a lot. Up to and over 1,000,000 readers per month and over 100K subscribers across various platforms and pubs, and thousands and thousands of free and paid newsletter members.
OK, that’s enough self-congratulatory crap.
If you’re reading me for the first time or you’ve been following me for a couple years, you may not have a handle on what I’m trying to accomplish with all the writing. Lord knows I barely have a handle on it sometimes.
What follows is not a manifesto. It’s an explainer. It’s behind the curtain of what I’m trying to do with my writing. It’s going to be quick and painless. It might be worth your time, but if not, that’s cool too. You do you. That’s how I roll.
What Would You Say It Is You Write Here?
I don’t know, man. Tech? Startups? Business? Work? Product? Culture? Yeah, pretty much all of it.
Here’s the thing. The more I stay focused on a single or narrow topic, the more people read what I write and follow me. But the more I stay locked into a standard topic, the more I eventually hate what I write and the less useful it becomes.
This is why I don’t write full time. Or call myself a writer. But I know what I’m doing.
It’s opinion, it’s criticism, it’s humor, it’s complaining. It’s pointing out those things that you thought only you were thinking, and having fun with it. And at the same time, it’s all the stuff I wish I knew along the way to getting where I am, across a lot of different axes.
Oh, let’s talk about “where I am” for a second. I’m not an influencer. I’m not a billionaire or even “rich.” I’m not a tech genius or a startup guru. I’m you.
But I’ve spent a long career — hell, a long life — doing new and different things while chasing only happiness, satisfaction, and the truth. I’ve punched my way out from the inside over and over again. I’ve got more rhymes than I’ve got gray hairs, and that’s a lot because I’ve got my share.
Wait. Let me put it in the way I’m good at. Right now, I’m spending a lot of time brushing back up on machine learning. But you don’t want to know — from me — how to machine learning. You might want to know if machine learning and why to machine learning and what isn’t machine learning but they’re selling as machine learning.
That’s what I do. And I do this because people like it. End of story. As a “writer,” I don’t care if I reach more than a single reader with a single well-executed line. Or reference or joke.
But as a tech/product/startup/business guy…
What’s The End Game Here, Spence?
I do a lot of tech and product and startup and business things, most full-time, some part time, mostly for others but also for myself. A lot of them have gone pretty far. A lot of them have blown up in my face and made me look like an idiot.
I write about all those things for Inc. Magazine, Built In, and I do guest spots for other pubs (less of that lately), and then it all flows into Medium — right now under Entrepreneurship Handbook. This public writing is all high-level and fun, where I scratch the surface of concepts and trends to be more universal and entertaining.
So to be clear. With my public writing, I am trying to entertain you. That’s it. Give you a break from all the bullshit. You might learn something, but that’s not my fault.
The call-to-action on all of my posts takes you to my website, which I built myself, and I use it to get a sense of what you all want me to write about next — from the data that it collects about how many of you visit and open newsletters and click on links and join and leave. Then when you click, you get to Medium and you clap and highlight and comment, or you don’t, and that’s more data. You can also come back to my website and reach out to me directly.
A ton of you do this, and again, I’m truly honored and grateful. I try to read every comment and every message, and I’m not going to pick fights or argue my point or try to prove myself right because this is not about me, it’s about you.
Now, like I said, the public writing is scratching the surface. Entertainment. Jazz-hands, but I respect your intellect enough that I know you’ll know when I’m being ironic and tweaking myself or the whole stupid system. Some people don’t get that and I just find it funny, the rest of us can enjoy the inside joke and I don’t want to ruin it by over-explaining it.
I have a private newsletter, and that is more about value. When a lot of you do reach out to me, you want deeper dives into my business experience. That’s what the private newsletter is for, it’s the equivalent of coaching or advising, but without all the scheduling and small talk and wasting your time. I also write stuff in private that I won’t write in public. There’s a lot to it and it’s weird, but it’s worth the price of admission. It used to be a business, and in some sense it still is, but now it blurs the line and it’s better off for it.
This is a Long Play
I don’t know where this is going to go, but like I said, I know what I’m doing. I know I’ll probably always do this in one form or another, as long as people still like it.
Two things I can promise.
I will always be searching for the truth. I have paid for that over and over in my career, and while I’m not an activist and I haven’t burned any big bridges or anything, I don’t hesitate when it comes to doing the right thing.
I will always be grateful for your patronage — whether that comes in the form of a read, a clap, a comment, or a membership to either my free or paid newsletter.
What’s Next?
A year ago, almost to the day (it’s Easter Sunday as I write this), I felt a rather dramatic culture shift taking hold in the tech and product and startup and business worlds. When I started addressing that culture shift directly, that was the catalyst that kicked off the eight months of explosive growth in my audience.
It’s happening again. That’s the other reason I wrote this explainer. It won’t happen overnight and I don’t even think it will encourage another level up in my audience. In fact, this one feels like it might do the opposite.
But I don’t care. I’m here to do this for the people who like it. If you’re one of those people, then from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
End of story.
Canonical Link: https://jproco.medium.com/ea82d5cefb47?source=friends_link&sk=c0629a44aeca38df67e7efd36e5430c9