Top all-time · #2678
Jakob Greenfeld
Personal blog · jakobgreenfeld.comstartupswritingphilosophy
Jakob Greenfeld's personal blog at jakobgreenfeld.com covers startups, writing and philosophy. Since 2020, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 57 times, most often “Why the indie maker playbook is dead (or how I learned to spend money on ads)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-06-18, and you can follow it by feed.
Experiments in Permissionless Entrepreneurship
Most-linked posts?
- Why the indie maker playbook is dead (or how I learned to spend money on ads)4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-08-22
- Build a Business, Not an Audience3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-01
- Management by metrics leads us astray2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-01-21
- A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-02-14
- You shouldn't niche down prematurely as an online creator2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-01
- What’s The Point of Free If You Have Nothing to Sell2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-21
- No More “Insight Porn”2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-08-08
- I'm 100 failed experiments away from reaching my goals2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-09-12
- A Grand Unified Theory of Product Ideation2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-13
What Hacker News says?
nope, not only this guys examples are bad but he just tries too hard to be a contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. i called him that & he blocked me [1] for some reason. probably there's some truth in it that he got hurt. his examples are so bad. i've read paul graham's essays, naval's thread & alex hormozi's $100m offers book & all are quite good & easy to understand. naval's thread is a big hard but he has…
Comment linking /build_an_audience
on “No More “Insight Porn””Submitted A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people as a story · 828 points
HN discussionInteresting. They posted this not long ago: https://jakobgreenfeld.com/smart-web/
Comment linking /smart-web/
on “Three sites made 215,128 “best software” pages for AI. Perplexity cites them”Submitted No More “Insight Porn” as a story · 568 points
HN discussionHere is my setup. It is always in progress, and I keep tinkering. I treat most of my approaches as an Onion Layer of abstraction, from security to privacy to contacts. My final decision factor is to answer YES to my question, “Can I walk out of this?” Let’s do contacts for this discussion thread. I’m still in the Apple ecosystem, so I let the OSes (macOS, iOS, etc.) handle that. The sync is almost seamless, or rathe…
Comment linking /stay-in-touch
on “Ask HN: In 2024 what's the best way to manage contacts?”Submitted Effortless personal productivity (or how I learned to love my monkey mind) as a story · 429 points
HN discussionA post (not my own) I find worth revisiting in this very subject from time to time, on the various approaches to product ideation: https://jakobgreenfeld.com/gut
Comment linking /gut
on “Ask HN: How do you start researching for a project idea?”Submitted Management by metrics leads us astray as a story · 295 points
HN discussionManagement by metrics is what leads companies astray. [1] Right now it’s happening on Twitter and the process has just started on Substack. [1] https://jakobgreenfeld.com/metrics
Comment linking /metrics
on “Ask HN: Why Did Medium.com “fail"?”Submitted Build a Business, Not an Audience as a story · 208 points
HN discussionI personally feel that most “Personal CRM” is kinda tarpit idea because the moment you are “managing” and nurturing it, it becomes professional/commercial. And that professional/commercial space is kinda saturated with too many good options. For instance, the free CRM tier of Hubspot[1] will do a good job. Nonetheless, it is a good habit to maintain a personal network but then it will be lot less for any tool of tha…
Comment linking /stay-in-touch
on “Show HN: Kindest – Personal Relationship Manager for iPhone”Submitted A Grand Unified Theory of Product Ideation as a story · 79 points
HN discussionRelated: Jakob Greenfeld https://jakobgreenfeld.com/
Comment linking /
on “The mathematical reason why agencies get stuck at $50k MRR”Submitted Channel/offer fit instead of product/market fit as a story · 71 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Epsilon Method as a story · 30 points
HN discussionSubmitted A tiny badge led to dozens of sales and hundreds of new followers as a story · 25 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to win the metagame (in real life) as a story · 21 points
HN discussionSubmitted Build a Business, Not an Audience as a story · 20 points
HN discussionSubmitted Emergent vs. Transactional Conversations as a story · 11 points
HN discussionSubmitted Looking for startup ideas? Watch out for unbundlings as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Magic doesn't work that way as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted No More Insight Porn as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why the indie maker playbook is dead (or how I learned to spend money on ads) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted You don't need anyone's permission to succeed as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted I don't think where I work as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted 4000 Weeks: an unconvincing feel-good book for the lazy and unambitious as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Gum Problem as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted What I learned from Pieter Levels about indie entrepreneurship (2020) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Musk’s texts as a treatment for imposter syndrome as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Reminders: Keep going, listen only to the market, it's okay to quit and pivot as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
