EP55: Patio11 on promoting your product

This week you’ll hear from Patrick Mackenzie (Patio11 on the internet), an influential member of the self-funded, bootstrapping community, as well as a high profile member of Hacker News. Patrick is a great guest: he’s a great storyteller, and is always completely himself. (He does some great voice impressions too) Our topic was: how to market yourself, make connections, and promote that app, SaaS, or other product you’ve just built. Notable quotes: “I like to play League of Legends. The vast majority of people will never make a living off League of Legends. If you want to build your business on something like LoL, that’s probably not the best things.” – Patio11 “Self-promotion is not accepted by the community at every watering hole on the internet. Hacker News is a bit of an anomaly, because Hacker News is a community who are making or starting businesses.” – Patio11 “I haven’t submitted my stuff to Hacker News in years. I’m also really careful about what I publish. Before I publish a blog post, I ask: ‘Is this post worthy of being in the top 5 of Hacker News?'” – Patio11 “The Hacker News launch is like a mini version of the Techcrunch launch. But I wouldn’t bet the success of my business based on whether or not it gets to the top of Hacker News.” – Patio11 “My first internet business launched to a total of 76 people the first day. You can build your reputation organically, by building awesome things over time.” – Patio11 Show notes Patrick’s email list Patrick’s blog Patrick’s book on conversion optimization Appointment Reminder A note from Justin: A big thanks to Patrick for being on the show! Cheers, Justin Jackson @mijustin PS: I’m writing a new book right now called  Marketing for Developers.  Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF). 🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!