Jeff Atwood’s Coding Horror is one my favorite blogs. Today Jeff announced that he’s leaving his day job as a .NET* developer to build his own software (and blog about it).
I was wondering when he’d make the leap. In June he started advertising because the financial opportunity was too great to pass up (enough that he could donate $5,000 to open source projects without blinking).
The funny thing is that he didn’t even intend this outcome; he just built up so much momentum with his blog that he reached Day Job Escape VelocityTM anyway. At some point the financial opportunities, but more importantly, the influence blogging afforded him, made his choice to quit inevitable.
So what lessons can we learn from Jeff’s success? I don’t want to turn this post into a “how to blog successfully” guide because frankly, I’m still a novice, and you can get that information elsewhere.
Instead I’d just like to remind you that:
- Jeff started from zero just like everyone else.
- He became successful by writing well, early, and often.
Congratulations Jeff!
* But don’t hold his platform choices against him ;)
** Day Job Escape Velocity (DJEV) is an unregistered non-trademark of BowersDyneGlobalSolutions Inc., so feel free to use it everywhere, especially when you’re text messaging people under the table during interminable corporate meetings.
2 Comments ↓
Saw you over on Pam Slim and could not resist your mention of the precipice — you might enjoy my blog post “cusp or precipice”
http://makehope.typepad.com/makehope/2006/11/cusp_or_precipi.html
oldie but goodie — look forward to reading your blog!
Welcome Michael. I enjoyed your recent post where you said: “Human Resources [yes the words alone] denudes our unique, potentially remarkable talent(s)”.
It’s nice to meet another Godin fan. I first heard about him when a friend linked Godin’s talk at Google.