Hacker News Reader

Comment by forrestbrazeal | Hacker News Reader

Read a version of this book pre-release and loved it!

Distills much of the best advice you can get if you hang out for a few years on HN into an easily shareable package.

Would recommend as a graduation gift or career starter for the new tech person in your life. But also super valuable for folks who have been in the industry as well. The chapter on "Marketing Yourself" contains some reminders that I found really helpful:

- Keep online presence 90% positive

- Be consistent (same profile pic everywhere, etc)

- Be "The Guy" (or non-guy) for a specific, unique, easily-grasped value prop

- Don't chase celebrity or short-term optimizations (posting times, weekly metrics, etc)

View on HN

thanks a TON forrest! your advocacy and lending your platform to help give a leg up to others in our industry has been super inspiring to me and I hope to do the same in future!!

edit: for those who don't know - forrest does a Cloud Resume Challenge where he helps people get started with a career in the cloud - laying out exact steps and offering his personal network to anyone* who completes them: https://forrestbrazeal.com/2020/04/23/the-cloud-resume-chall...

*he has 2 conditions, listed on the blogpost

There's a lot more than two conditions there, and turns me off trying. Even though, I could probably use the networking.

I mean, kudos to him certainly; who you know is more important than what you know to getting seen and heard. This is a great leg up for the right people.

what is meant by “easily-grasped” in this case, and why is being this type of person good? I.e. why would it be good to have a skill that anyone can easily grasp?

(I’m sure it’s mentioned in the book, but I couldn’t help but ask anyway :])

Poor choice of words on my part. Should have said something like "easily-grasped value prop". You want a very short elevator pitch for what you do, that makes it clear what value you provide.

I think of Corey Quinn, whose pitch is "I fix your AWS bill." Short, easily-grasped, specific.

this exactly. but Corey can also pitch himself in anywhere from 30seconds to 30 minutes. Marketing Yourself is about adjusting your message to your audience/situation, and it can and should be practiced because you do not leave things like this up to chance. (the public draft: https://www.swyx.io/writing/marketing-yourself/)

this is obliquely referenced in the book, but i believe the most effective pitch is if you can losslessly compress your entire value proposition into two words. https://www.swyx.io/writing/two-words/

Corey invented "Cloud Economist" for this purpose. brilliant. no one can compete in a category you invented.

Thanks. It's nice when your work is recognized!

I've argued that in some ways a more effective positioning statement would have been "I fix the horrifying AWS bill for SaaS companies in the Pacific Northwest" or whatnot; you want your prospective clients to see themselves in what you do.

Fortunately, "the AWS bill" is painful enough of a problem without too many other viable alternatives that this was "enough."

They mean

easily-grasped (value prop)

not

(easily-grasped value) prop

Reply on news.ycombinator.com