I really enjoyed ’s reflections on crowdfunding his work: craigmod.com/essays/success
One favorite detail comports with my experience: not feeling “beholden” to members, but that they “formalize” my activities—a sense of seriousness and earnest responsibility.
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Interesting to see how much more serious Craig is about promoting and enriching his membership program than I am. I wonder sometimes about how much I “leave on the table” by keeping mine at greater distance—but I’m terrified of the “cage” he describes, and I feel its proximity.
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On cynical days, I fear that almost everyone everywhere (incl me) is accidentally spending most of their time pursuing fake goals (being an artist -> “doing” a membership program), and that one must summon tremendous obstinacy, determination, and inconvenience to do otherwise!
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As a silly example, I’m pretty sure that the majority of my patrons would actually prefer that I focus on building and releasing software for them to use, rather than “distilling generalizable insight” or whatever. And it would be so much easier to do! Takes daily will to resist.
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Writing software is easy, millions do it. Coming up with generalizable insights is hard, and few are up to it. I for one prefer you focus on the insights, not the software.
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The dilemma is that the proof of the value of a generalizable insight, in the software domain, is successful software.
There’s also no shortage of people espousing ideas about software, that avoid the burden of proof by never actually testing them in the market.
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I hereby cast one vote in favor of distilling generalizable insights, or whatever!
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Both are incredibly important and support each other. And once you find an activity replaceable/no longer important, you will stop doing it anyway.
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Distilling generalizable insight is invaluable to those who would use the software. Understanding this is the difference between brilliance and genius.
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