> this post is from late 2020, when I planned to start a startup, and when I had no idea I would be successful with my writing - it was maybe a month or two after publishing my first book.
The title of the article implies that the content is advice for starting a successful startup for a software engineer. It literally uses the phrase “a startup”.
Then you read the content and it’s about marketing an ebook. The fact that this was written only a month or two after getting some sales of your ebook is exactly the problem I wanted to point out: There is always a kernel of wisdom or truth inside of Pragmatic Engineer content, but I’m usually left feeling like the headline was hyper-optimized for maximum clickbait value, but the content doesn’t quite deliver what the headline promised.
In this specific example, I click because I wanted to read an article about starting a startup as a software engineer. Instead, I got basically a 1-2 month retrospective on marketing an eBook on HN that doesn’t even explain why the book took off, other than perhaps luck. That’s the type of disconnect between headline and content that degrades the sense of trust very quickly.