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Comment by 5350-uiop-1130 | Hacker News Reader

> "Today, I am excited to announce my 4-week daily guided program, The Anxious Developer Program!"

> "You can join our waitlist now, to be the first one to know when the pre-sale begins"

Talking about FOMO anxiety then announcing a pre-sale discount to your anxiety course is a kind of a bad look.

Agree, the article had me invested in the issue of anxiety but the sales pitch at the end made the whole article a little disingenuous. But it was still a good read. I think if the sales pitch was separated into another section below, so that it doesn't seem like it is part of the article, it might've worked a little better.

It makes me wonder a little bit. Does the author want to help the reader out of his good will or is it purely for profit (and a clever way of copywriting)? or is it both?

Thanks for the suggestion! I believe I gave enough tools and practical tips that someone can try and apply in their daily life for free and I was doing that before with my podcast too while not charging anything. I can see your concern, but I also don't see anything wrong with offering something while charging money for it. If the suggestions in my article helps at least one person to feel a little bit better and motivated to start incorporating some changes in their life, then, I accomplished my goal and I haven't charged anyone for anything. The program is optional, I didn't mention anything about it until the end after sharing my story and what helped me. But I can see your point!

I am sorry that you didn't get any value from reading my article. I only mentioned the program at the end and it's something optional if the reader is interested in. I am not forcing anyone to buy my program and also not saying that you can only overcome anxiety if you buy my program. The heading "How to overcome anxiety?" comes with tools and practical tips that helped me on my healing journey. If you have some recommendations on what helps you with deal with stress, etc., I would love to hear it as it will probably be beneficial to others too. Thanks for the feedback!

Not to mention no disclosures on using referral links to the mindfulness app and probably elsewhere. Bad look all around.

Lol, I have am no affiliate to those apps, I just thought it will be valuable for people to get free 30 days premium instead of none. I can take out the links all together. I don't make any money from that :D :D

Apologies, if that's so then it makes sense to provide.

you feel betrayed because he played on your emotions to promote his product ? yet that's how most of ads/marketing works

It's much worse because it took much more time from me than an ad. Usually ads look like ads, even when they're advertorials.

I agree. There's not actually a lot of content on the linked page, and most of it is generic stuff you can find searching for "how to overcome anxiety" on any search engine. Nothing specific to being an anxious developer at all (though, I admit, I did not click any of the other blog links links yet).

Thanks for the feedback. I am curious what kind of content were you expecting if my personal story and suggestions were not enough then?

So I am curious, it seems like you didn't get any value from that article. Do you have some suggestions that might benefit others or some feedback for me? Thanks!

Who said anything about betrayal? All the more reason to hate on ads/marketing then.

I would like to get your perspective on how did I exactly play with the reader's emotions, if I just shared my personal story and just gave suggestions on how to deal with stress at work? I am mentioning my program at the end of the article, after I made sure to provide value to the reader...

Since my original post, I also included a disclaimer that people don't need to buy my program in order to overcome anxiety and what other things they can do that might help.

I hope it all makes it clearer now. Thanks for the feedback!

I actually think it's clever marketing but I can understand how it can be disappointing for some ... I was just trying to understand why that person said what they said

Got it!

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