Reputation isn’t as powerful as you imagine
The most common reaction to my recent announcement1 of starting a new WordPress hosting company was that this blog provides me with a ridiculous unfair advantage.
“[You’re starting from nothing] except approximately 18,000 prospects. How convenient. ;) I wish I had that kind of mailing list starting out.”
“It is, of course, simple to talk about how easy it is to be popular, when you’re the already established prom queen.”
Interestingly, Eric Sink got the same reception years ago when he launched a little company of his own. It’s worth hearing Eric defend himself because it’s just like my scenario, but because this happened six years ago I can reveal his results at the end of this post:
“Reactions to my Winnable Solitaire experiment were mostly positive, but several people claimed my experiment was “unfair” or “invalid”. In a nutshell, they argued that because I am already “famous” for my writings about the business of software, I have an advantage that is not available to my readers. My experiment is therefore meaningless because I did not duplicate the conditions a regular person would be facing when trying to launch their own micro-ISV.”
WPEngine got two new signups. Only two. That with 18,000 wonderful, loyal, friendly, supportive RSS subscribers and as many page-hits from Twitter and HackerNews.
