Everyone
Wants
Progress

A weekly post
for software creatives.

Every Saturday AM.
Subscribe below.

All Posts

No 0043
Dec 6, 2024

Honest Belief, and Marketing

As the person marketing your project, you might be comparing your approach to others who talk like this:

“This is the best thing in the world. Trust me, you’ll love it.”
“Are you kidding me? This stuff is made in-house, the best of the best.”
“You won’t believe it when I tell you how good it is.”

No 0042
Nov 29, 2024

Relational Upgrades

We’ve got some work to do with our relationships. A relation, an association with two sides, yours and the other party’s, can be in need of an upgrade.

You can upgrade it, the other person can upgrade it.

No 0041
Nov 22, 2024

Discounting Discounts

You hesitate to announce a discount on your product. You’re debating this when it’s discount season, you’re debating this when sales are low.

You hesitate because a discount cheapens the perception of your brand. It attracts the wrong kind of customer. It might seem desperate.

No 0040
Nov 15, 2024

But These Are Just Words

Too few words, and you sound transactional.
Too many words, and you sound distracted.

If the words are too big, you lose attention.
If the words aren’t big enough, you sound like sound bites.

No 0039
Nov 8, 2024

The Downsides of Guarantees

When you’re giving your guarantee, there are downsides, but many more upsides.
When you’re requiring a guarantee, however, then there are mostly downsides and only few upsides.

When you’re self-employed, you offer guarantees, and you stake your reputation on honouring them. There are overall few guarantees in your line of work, except the ones you offer and honour. But, honour them often and without fail, and pretty soon, you’ll get to new heights.

No 0038
Nov 1, 2024

Having Consequences

Maybe you launched an online course, and it hasn’t sold that much.
Maybe you tried freelancing for a bit, and it hasn’t been easy getting clients.
Maybe the SaaS you’re building isn’t going to grow organically either.

No 0037
Oct 25, 2024

Selling with the Right Side of the Brain

Anybody can draw. That was the claim of the book Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. The part about the brain’s left side being more categorical, and the right more artistic, that part’s probably a myth. But the book still had a point: learning how to draw is less about learning how to draw specific shapes, and it’s more about drawing the shapes (and the shades, and the colors) that you see. Drawing is about seeing.

No 0036
Oct 18, 2024

Facing the Scaredom

Imagine trying a marketing tactic that you haven’t seen people use.

Imagine offering a new client something different than what they asked for, risking getting rejected, because you think you’ve read their deeper motivation.

No 0035
Oct 11, 2024

The Smaller Bang

You’ve been brewing a change. Something, soon, will have to be different, because this time, it’s too much.

If you take a snapshot of your emotional state at this moment, it’s likely you’re feeling annoyed, some anxiety, or maybe you’re energized to take a leap. You might do nothing now, but if the problem persists, you’ll be thinking: “I need to take a bigger leap”.

No 0034
Oct 4, 2024

The Launch Business

There are a bunch of approaches to avoid when launching a new project. You don’t want to be silent, you don’t want to be insecure, you certainly don’t want to beg.

No 0033
Sep 27, 2024

Fully Edged

When you’re really good at your craft, you “have an edge”.

When you’ve achieved mastery and all your tools are at the edge of your fingers.

When you’re well-steeped in a problem, you understand all of the edge cases.

No 0032
Sep 20, 2024

Catching Their Beginning

If you talk to a buyer when they’re ending a run, you’re too late, they’re just about done.

If you talk to a buyer when they’re in the middle of a run, you’re too late, they’re in the thick of their work.

No 0031
Sep 13, 2024

New Intolerances

Previously, you have been tolerant of your own difficulties with sales, but intolerant of your chops with coding.

Tolerant of being on the side of employment, but intolerant of not having interesting challenges in what you’re building.

No 0030
Sep 6, 2024

The Expensive Upgrade

Here’s a story of someone wanting progress.

A freelance designer feels like their craft is changing too fast. All of a sudden, the crowd is moving to use new tools, and new practices.

No 0029
Aug 30, 2024

Free Things With Huge Costs

Somebody might give you a compliment, which is free, but if your self-image isn’t great, you won’t receive the compliment. But working on your self-image is not free, it bears a huge cost. A compliment, for some, is far from free.

No 0028
Aug 23, 2024

The Asymmetries of Freelancing

Every new year, I can expect a slow period in my freelancing work. January and February end up being a great time for personal projects. Usually, the slowdown is short. Nothing to be feared.

No 0027
Aug 16, 2024

The Antidote to Serious Business

“If it doesn’t make money, it’s not a product, it’s a project.”
“You have to be ready for some gruelling months with a slow climb.”
“Build it and they will come, that doesn’t work. You have to dedicate half your time, maybe more, to marketing.”

No 0026
Aug 9, 2024

Your First Sale Was the Fourth

There’s a way to prepare for a scary sales conversation that resembles the world of user interface (UI) design.

Before UI designers can know whether a screen will work for their preferred users, they’ll navigate their choices, they’ll create prototypes, and then they’ll iterate.

No 0025
Aug 2, 2024

What Are You So Sure About?

It seems that without conviction, nothing would ever get done.

With conviction, though, you might overdo, underdo, or do the wrong thing entirely.

“I’m convinced that with more efforts, I’ll get more sales.” Maybe. Maybe you should not depend on those sales and put your effort somewhere else. The sales will be a side-effect.

No 0024
Jul 26, 2024

Not the Right When

When a person starts following you online, it might not be a good time to try to sell your product.

When a person asks you a question on your online forum, it might not be a good time to try to sell your product.

No 0023
Jul 19, 2024

Specializing in Journeys

There are plenty of generalist software devs on the market. And we’re told, that’s not such a great idea.

“You should specialize. You should clarify your positioning.”

And so these software devs start to specialize. “I specialize in domain modelling.”

No 0022
Jul 12, 2024

Generalize, Specialize, Minimize Tails

The culture of business comes with some strong, polarizing beliefs.

“You must maximize your revenue, any way you can.”
“It’s a game, there are winners and there are losers.”
“Attention spans are at the lowest they’ve ever been.”
“It’s a cut-throat market.”
“You should specialize.”
“No. You should generalize.”

No 0021
Jul 5, 2024

Waiting and Pricing

You can sell a $59 product, but if you depend on it for your livelihood, you’ll need to sell a lot of them each month.

You can sell a $5,999 product or service package, and maybe you can sell one or two per month and you meet your minimums.

No 0020
Jun 28, 2024

Un(common) Learning

There’s a common belief that many people have about learning. It might be common, but still, it’s invisible.

It goes like this: “To learn is to pile on more learning on top of the old learning.” Put differently: “Learning is an additive process.”

No 0019
Jun 21, 2024

Progress Comes in Hops

To visualize what happens when someone buys a product for the first time, it helps to think of someone making a hop.

There was a before, the “before” side of the hop. And there was an after, the “after” side of the hop.

No 0018
Jun 14, 2024

Slamming the Brakes on Mental Spin

The thing about a brain paralyzed by thoughts is that it is stuck in beliefs. And one belief surely stands out among others:

“I am my thoughts.”

The thing about a belief like that, is that it is completely invisible to you. It lies below the surface. It’s like a lens that colours your vision, like a pink-coloured lens or a green-coloured lens, and you don’t know that your perception is changed by that belief. That is, until you shed light on the lens, and you take it out or swap it for a better one.

No 0017
Jun 7, 2024

Not Looking Like the Competition

The white sticky tape doesn’t look like the drill bit.

The massage oil doesn’t look like the bottle of wine.

The expensive pen doesn’t look like the metal watch band.

No 0016
May 31, 2024

Adding zeros

Starting something new, for me, has always meant being comfortable with the number zero.

Zero new subscribers to the mailing list.

Zero new followers.

Zero retweets.

Zero sales.

The first zero you get is expected. The second zero feels wrong. And the tenth you get is bad news. You will get a zero that you categorize as “the worst”.

No 0015
May 24, 2024

Ways to Add Value For Service Offerings

When putting together a freelancing service, or a consulting offering, you can offer different options, and each option can be a package of value. Let’s define a few of the ways your clients might define value.

No 0014
May 17, 2024

The Scary Version

Say you’re launching a new piece of software. You’re thinking of all the quality variables you can optimize for.

You optimize for the quality of the visuals, the edge cases, the robustness to a variety of uses. It should be like this, it should do that. It has to accommodate users like these. It has to have more features.

No 0013
May 10, 2024

Overthink, The Partner

The other day on Twitter, a guy mentioned that he had trouble with overthink, that his mind was often on overdrive.

I replied. I said that often you think you should think less, but instead I think we should focus on thinking better.

No 0012
May 3, 2024

Shortness and Attention

Today’s attention spans are short.

Shortest they’ve ever been.

So you better make your point.

Better keep it short.

A little like these paragraphs.

These short paragraphs don’t feel too good, don’t they? Something feels off. Is it that they’re too short? Curious, because when we read poetry, we’re used to shorter lines. But those lines don’t rhyme, that must be it. Maybe. How about this: those lines feel manufactured, trying to make a point, and your mind is distracted by that effort. Whatever the reason, your mind noticed the flaw. You should keep things short, but not like this.

No 0011
Apr 26, 2024

Judging Ideas by Their Risk Curves

You can be uncertain about a project. You can be uncertain on the details of the future of a product’s success. You can be uncertain about the side-effects of your business decisions.

No 0010
Apr 19, 2024

Beyond Features, Beyond Outcome

If you want to build a software product like everyone else, make a landing page, show features, show the benefits, maybe highlight the outcome.

But if you want to go beyond, you can go in these two directions:

No 0009
Apr 12, 2024

Juggling, Toggling, and the Myths about Focus

Being a beginner at anything feels about the same: you feel like you don’t master any of the important aspects, you feel like you’re out of your depth, you feel like somebody has the truth, surely not you.

No 0008
Apr 5, 2024

Two Purchase Stories

A home owner bought something completely unexpected, something they weren’t thinking about buying even a week ago. While they had been spending weeks looking at the market for bigger houses, they bought two pairs of high-quality headphones to watch TV late at night.

No 0007
Mar 29, 2024

High-Functioning Idealism

This article contains spoilers.

BBC’s modern re-telling of Sherlock Holmes had me hooked. Here we had Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) meeting in the smartphone era. Instead of sending telegrams from Baker Street, Sherlock flung texts from London Black Cabs. He used social media to sway cases to his advantage, the Internet to do his research.

No 0006
Mar 22, 2024

Not Selling, Most of the Time

The car salesman. The type of salesman I told myself I’d never turn into. The type that uses pressure and misdirection to make every sale. Aggressive. Determined. Sleazy. The hustler.

No 0005
Mar 15, 2024

The Brain, Sequential Data, and Long Sales Pages

A friend of mine, a software engineer, took a bit of a detour from his career path. After making a good buck from a stint at a large tech company, he decided he’d take up acting for a bit. Completely different mind exercise, and that was the point. He needed to explore new parts of himself.

No 0004
Mar 8, 2024

Focus: Make Sure You’ll Have Kept It

We’re spoiled that we can learn from some top-notch productivity principles.

Here’s a list.

Getting Things Done by David Allen taught me about always identifying, in a project, the immediate next step.

No 0003
Mar 1, 2024

The Backseat Buyer

“$99 a month! Whoa that’s expensive.”

“You find? But you’re going to make a few hundred more per month just by using this tool.”

“Yeah, maybe, but still, I’m going to have to pay this amount every month.”

No 0002
Mar 1, 2024

Manufacturing Confidence

To beat doubt, there’s little point in trying to create confidence.

That’s because you could say that doubt and confidence are two sides of the same coin. The coin of “results”. They both grow from prior conditions—you can manufacture neither.

No 0001
Mar 1, 2024

This Article is Below Average

If you’re creating something for others, there’s going to be a strong pull to publish only the best you can make.

That’s a bit of a mistake.

That’s because the best products are awful at many things. They’re awful at all the things they’re not meant to do. And they might only be good enough for the thing they’re built to do. And yet, they’re bought, and they’re used, and they’re raved about by the buyers who tell others.

Next article this Saturday