#WriteMyLife

Documenting My Life: From Nobody to Somebody

When people become famous, it’s easy to discredit them by saying they were lucky to be an overnight success. Often, we don’t see the hours, days, weeks, months and years that these people put in to hone their craft. We don’t see how much they struggled to become successful. It’s why people can believe that Gary Vaynerchuk was lucky to be successful even though he hustled for years without being noticed.

That’s why I decided to start this project, for now I’ll call it Write My Life. It’s a journal that’ll I’ll be adding to every now and then, documenting everything I do on the web and all the work I’m putting in. This post was inspired by an article I read by Gary Vaynerchuk called “Document, Don’t Create”. Instead of posting occasionally about my successes, I’ll be writing about every move I make, whether it’s successful or a complete failure.

I’m writing this in the hope that when someone starts spouting excuses about how he could never make something out of his life and that I was just lucky, I’ll send them a link to this post, showing not only the work that I put in but how I also predicted my success years before I made it.

This is going to be long and stretched out over years, so if you want to know whenever I update this post, you can signup to my newsletter now.

Or you can follow me or my publication for more content like this.

Day #1

I’m finally getting serious about making it on the internet. I create a publication on Medium and write a few drafts. I feel great, like this might not be so hard after all.

Day #2

Inspired by this video, I decide to get into the reselling business. I decide I’m going to resell flat-pack and modular furniture, I call it Nomad Furniture. Instead of building a website, I have the brilliant idea of writing a post that showcases all of the different furniture I’m reselling and then I guide them to a space on Plasso where I can charge them for it. I do this because I don’t want to build a full website for an idea that might not work, and experimenting on Medium for uses other than writing is kinda fun. I hope it works.

Day #3

The next day I decide to tweet this out to levels.io. For those of you who don’t know him, he’s a pretty deal in the digital nomad movement. I figured if there’s anyone I’m gonna share this with it should be him. It didn’t work out so well. I wrote a whole post about it, but if you don’t want to read it here’s a short summary of what happened.

Damn…

Day #4

I submit a new post to The Billfold titled “Fuck A Fuck Off Fund”. It gets rejected. I’m still waiting to know the reason it was rejected. I’m guessing it’s cause I’m pretty much trashing their idea of a Fuck Off Fund, but I was hoping they’d show an alternative way of thinking to their audience. There’s always two sides to a story after all. It also doesn’t help that I criticized the editor’s ideas on one of her posts.

Day #5

So it’s day five, I’ve taken a few Ls already. I’m thinking, “Say word I actually have to put in work. Shit.” I feel like I’m about to give up. That’s when I have the brilliant idea to document my life on Medium. It might not go viral, but it might give me the motivation to put in work, not matter how little, everyday. I hit publish on my Medium post/ biography.

Day #6

The Billfold finally got back to me about why my post was rejected. Here’s what they had to say:

We generally run stories that are more narrative in nature and less instructional and tips-based. We also prefer not to focus on what people are doing wrong with their money; instead we operate from a place of understanding and empathy, because it’s fine that not everyone’s good with money.

Fair enough. I take back what I said earlier, I should’ve done some more research to see if The Billfold was a good fit for my article. Now I just have to find a publication on Medium that writes about personal finance, or maybe I’ll just hit up an online magazine and get some more readers through there.

I do have some good news though! Jake Frey followed me on Twitter, so I hope that goes somewhere. If you guys don’t know him or what he’s worked on, he’s the creator of Neue Store, an alternative app store (check it out, it’s dope). I might hit him up on Twitter and ask if he needs any help with Neue Store. It’s important to reach out to people on Twitter, you never know the connections you might make.

Today, I started working on a website for Nomad Furniture. It’s going to be hosted on Shopify. It should be done in a day or two. Sike! Just found out Shopify isn’t free so nevermind. I’ll figure something else out.

Day #7

I reached out to Jake Frey (@frey on Twitter) to ask him if I could help out with Neue Store. He replied:

We have some ideas for a marketing initiative in the future but for the time being we are strictly focusing on the product side of things. When the time comes to begin marketing and blogs, may i reach out to you?

I reached out for a few reasons:

1. I believe in the idea of a new, better app store
2. You never know what could happen, I could become a co-founder or employee #1.
3. It’s always good to have a good reputation. Your reputation precedes you, if people like working with you others will know opening more doors for you in the future.

Day #8

I took the initiative of building a publication for Neue Store on Medium. If Neue Store is going to grow it’s going to need to use social media and other publications. By generating buzz we can position Neue Store as the place for your app to be which in turn brings more users looking for quality apps, which brings more revenue. The only thing I’m concerned about is that Neue Store hinges on the assumption that people are always looking for new apps and I’m not entirely sure that’s true. From what I’ve seen, I think apps usually go viral when they see people use them and decide to join because of FOMO.

I submitted my article to The Startup a few days ago still no response. I guess I should try The Mission.

Day #9

04/02/2013

I talked with Sean Everett from Humanizing Tech on Twitter. We talked about building a publication from scratch and why no one should invest in growth hacking. If you don’t do any growth hacking or any marketing, how do people find your content? Hopefully someone gives me a shout out soon. Until then I’ll just keep moving forward.

I finally figured how I’m going to market myself on Medium. You can find everything related to me by following this publication or signing up for my newsletter. So any moves I make or monthly income reports (for when I finally make some money) and other stuff like that. When I talk about other topics like finance, tech or product management I’ll post to other publications and repost here, that way I’ll attract some more viewers to this blog who might be interested in my writing.

P.S.: I started adding dates now, something I should’ve from the get go. I forgot what days I wrote the other ones but they’re only a few days apart, I take breaks sometimes.

Day #10

05/02/2017

I wrote Medium as an MVP and submitted it to Product Coalition, hopefully it gets accepted.

Today, I decided to not only have have my journal in one post but also in several other posts. They’ll be very short but now it won’t take forever to continue where you left off if ever you make it to day #365.

After talking with Sean Everett, I was added as a writer to Humanizing Tech, possibly the best and most informative publication on Medium. I can’t wait to publish some articles there.

I also wrote How To Flip Homes On Airbnb, an in-depth guide on becoming a real estate “tycoon”. Here’s a short preview:

This month, I’ll be running a few tests on Airbnb. I plan on renting out a few places on Airbnb. Only problem is that I don’t own any places.

Ooops…

Day #11

06/02/2017

Today, I created my first listing on Airbnb. This is part of my experiment on becoming a real estate tycoon. You can check out the listing here.

Also, Jay Stansell followed me on Medium today. For those of you who don’t know who he is, Jay is the editor of Product Coalition, one of the most popular publications on Product Management on Medium. I recently reached out to him by email to see if he would publish my article on his publication. I haven’t gotten a response yet, but maybe him following me is a good sign.

I’m guessing Jay just saw this post because only a few seconds after publishing this he added me as a writer and published my article to Product Coalition. Things are finally starting to turn around for me.

Day#12

10/02/2017

About a week in, I’m struggling to make any money on Airbnb. I didn’t expect to be making a lot of money in a week, but I thought I’d at least have one listing.

Oh well…

My article on Product Coalition isn’t performing as well, maybe I should try The Startup next.

Nothing is happening with Neue Store.

All in all, it was a pretty slow week for me.

I need a way to get access to Personal Growth or The Mission, the two most popular publications on Medium. I think it’s time I moved #WriteMyLife to Personal Growth and see how many followers that gets me.

Day #13

12/02/2017

I created a gig on Fiverr today. I’m hoping this helps me get a few customers add me as their co-host on Airbnb.

I tried sending my article over to Personal Growth but I doesn’t look they accept any posts cause I can’t find an email address to send my post to. Maybe I should give a shoutout to the editor and hope he sees it (s/o to Dan Pedersen).

Day #14

13/02/2017

I created a new gig on Fiverr, this about another experiment I’m conducting that I’m not writing about yet cause it usually takes time to generate any momentum on Fiverr and I’m not ready to write about it yet.

I was brainstorming ways to attract a bigger audience, here a few ideas I came up with:

• Interview people who are on the come up (I think this would go well with my publication since it’s called Underdawg). I not only get to interview interesting people, they might also share the interview with their audience therefore expanding my reach and bringing a new audience.
• I love long form articles (like this) which is why I considered starting a publication that only publishes long form content, sorta like The Backchannel but not only for tech (politics, science, finance). Content like this is highly informative and if I can grow this and make money from it, it will prove that there is indeed an large market for true journalism. I plan on inviting the best writers I find on Medium. The content should be 10–20 mins long (is that too long?).

Day #15

14/02/2017

I’m working on a longform post called Access to Wealth : Personal VC funds against income inequality. It’s a post tackling the problem of income inequality and the possible solutions to it and a product concept which could revolutionize investing. I’m going to post it to Humanizing Tech (Sean Everett’s publication). It’s gonna be lit (never thought I’d say that about a blog post).

Also, Numerai followed me today on Medium. For those of you who don’t know, Numerai is an AI based hedge fund managed by data scientists. Crazy, I know, but pretty fucking cool! I wonder if they read my stuff and liked it.

Unless they’re just following a bunch of random people to gain followers…

Day #16

15/02/2017

Today, I published my first article to Humanizing Tech. Check it out!

Access to Wealth For Everyone

I got a few more followers through that post. I now have 145 followers on Medium. So nothing pretty much. But I ain’t worried, my time is coming soon (I hope).

Day #17

17/02/2017

I’m making a special announcement today! I’m building a little side project I call Home Screen. It’s an alternative to Neue Store that I built using Medium.

Remember when I said building MVPs with Medium is the way to go? Well, this is me putting that to the test.

I also published How to Start a Startup on Medium.

P.S.: My side hustle on Airbnb ain’t going so well, I’m thinking of trying for one more week, but it makes no sense to keep going until I get a place of my own.

Day #18

18/02/2017

I just finished building Home Screen, my alternative to the Apple App Store. Check it out!

Home Screen

I plan on launching on Product Hunt soon. Let’s see if Home Screen is positively received.

Day #19

19/02/2017

Today, I wrote a short article called No One Is Going To Save You. I plan on featuring it on Better Humans.

Day #20

26/02/2017

Hey guys, sorry for the long break. I didn’t post anything in a week cause nothing happened much.

Today, somebody solicited me on one of my Fiverr gigs to write a review for him. She said she’d pay me $5 to do it and leave a positive review on my gig. So, I obviously refused cause paying people to write fake reviews for you is wrong, right? Wrong! I’ll definitely write that review for two reasons:

1. I’m being paid to do it (this is key)
2. This positive review could give my gig the kick start it needs to start gaining traction on traction.

Other than that, I’ve been working on a new side project called BRDIVIU (bird eye view). It’s a gallery of aerial pics. It’s inspired by wlppr.co . Check it out (hint: it’s cooler on mobile):

BRDIVIU by @ghiliweld

P.S.: The editor from Better Humans (Tony Stubblebine) ain’t hit me back up yet about publishing my post.

Day #21

04/03/2017

It’s finally March. I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a whole month.

Here are some updates:

I got my first customer on my Fiverr gig. Hopefully, more customers should follow.

I have 165 followers on Twitter now.

I’m prepping for the Home Screen and BRDIVIU launches.

This is what I’m planning for march:

1. Launching Home Screen.
2. launching BRDIVIU.
3. Starting a new publication.
4. Becoming active on Snapchat and Instagram.
5. I might try freelancing.

Day #22

06/03/2017

As of today, I’m going to be more active on social media.

Not only have I decided to reach out to more people on Twitter, but I also created an Instagram account so I can cover what I’m up to at the moment.

My social media strategy is pretty simple:

1. I interact with people and influencers on Twitter so that I can build relationships with new people.
2. These people stumble onto my blog on Medium or one of my side projects and decide to follow my moves more closely.
3. These people then find me on Instagram where I post updates to my story and my timeline. These will be things like behind the scenes coverage of what I do and how I do it.

I won’t be super active on Instagram until I get the hang of it, cause I’ve never used it before so I wanna be comfortable with it before I do.

For those who are curious, I do have a Snapchat account, but that’s for personal use only. I add people I know (friends, family, etc…). I post about my personal life on Snapchat and business on Instagram. I might decide to start posting about my personal life on Instagram and eventually abandon Snapchat.

Why would I choose Instagram over Snapchat for business? Because I’ve taken a look at the differences between the two, and Instagram seems to be the app that priorities features like external links and other things which will help me direct followers to buy my things in the future.

And I also believe Instagram is here to stay, while Snapchat’s future is still uncertain.

P.S.: Follow me on Instagram

Day #23

08/03/2017

I’ve been on Instagram for 2 days now, at the time of writing I have 43 followers. I don’t consume much on Instagram, I mostly just watch people stories cause I don’t like scrolling through an endless feed.

I noticed that a lot of people follow you but will unfollow just as quickly if you don’t follow back.

So far so good tho

P.S.: I’m launching BRDIVIU tomorrow on Product Hunt tomorrow. Tune in for more!

Day #24

19/03/2017

Hey guys, sorry I took a long break I forgot to keep this updated.

Here’s what happened in the past week:

1. I published “I Redesigned Instagram To Cure Feed Addiction” to Product Coalition.
2. I launched BRDIVIU on Product Hunt. It received 54 upvotes and some interesting feedback.
3. I managed to hit up Tobias van Schneider, an excellent designer, on Twitter. I found that the best way t get in touch with someone is by commenting on their work, maybe even giving them advice. It’s the best way to network today. Don’t spam, only reach out if you have something good to say.
4. I also got my first customer on my Airbnb gig on Fiverr. I then managed to convince them into making me their co host. This proves my hypothesis that if I want to be someone’s co host I need to be there on day one.

I’m going to be making some changes to this series. Starting today, I’m going to be moving my daily recaps to my Instagram account. I’ll be writing monthly recaps on Medium. The reason I’m doing this is because the only way I’m going to grow my Instagram account is I post regularly, and it’s also quicker to post on Instagram than Medium.

Day #25

03/06/2017

I have stopped writing monthly on Medium and have decided to move completely on Instagram because it’s much easier to post frequently. If you want to follow my daily moves follow me on Instagram (@ghiliweld).