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mtlynch.io
Personal blog · mtlynch.io · on HN as mtlynchprogrammingcareer
mtlynch.io is a personal blog at mtlynch.io about programming and career. Since 2017, 137 different Hacker News readers have linked it 411 times, most often “Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 14 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link his solo-founder writing: the 'Why I Quit Google' post, yearly business retrospectives that are open about finances, and posts on code review and working with an editor.
- Recommended for · 14 comments
- Called posts 'great', 'fantastic', 'a good piece', 'interesting' and 'well worth reading'; one 'love[s] the openness'
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Updates about my life and what I learn about creating software
Most-linked posts?
- Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself19 people · 22 mentions · first linked 2018-02-28
- How to Make Your Code Reviewer Fall in Love with You12 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2020-12-02
- How to Do Code Reviews Like a Human8 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2017-10-12
- I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business7 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2024-05-29
- Litestream Eliminated My Database Server for $0.03/Month6 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2021-04-29
- Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-07-23
- I regret my website redesign6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2022-07-21
- How I Hired a Cartoonist to Make My Blog Less Boring5 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2018-01-19
- I Hired a Freelance Editor for My Blog (2017)3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2018-08-09
- No Longer My Favorite Git Commit3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-03-19
What Hacker News says?
There's a project that did that but for a different purpose - a network KVM using a Pi4 - https://mtlynch.io/tinypilot/ It had to use the one USB-C connector that's used for power for emulating the keyboard and mouse since that's the only one that supported USB-OTG. So you kind of either need PoE or another adapter to both power the device and be able to hae the Pi act as an input device.
Comment linking /tinypilot/
on “Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop PC”Submitted I regret my website redesign as a story · 2011 points
HN discussionOn the whole I agree with you. That said, margins on this kind of hardware product aren't great. The author has shared them before. https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-3/
Comment linking /solo-developer-year-3/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself as a story · 1767 points
HN discussionIf they thought I had a wide reach with my blog, why wouldn't they do good work from the start? My other blog posts about freelancers [0, 1] are to say that they did a good job and other people should hire them, so I'd imagine if they were thinking about the writeup, they'd want it to put more effort into making sure it's positive. [0] https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/ [1] https://mtlynch.io/editor/
Comment linking /editor/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted Stripe records user movements on its customers' websites as a story · 1134 points
HN discussionThanks for the feedback! > If we select the "Product" option from the top menu, we're taken directly to the order page for the TinyPilot Voyager 2. If we go to the root page for the products ( https://tinypilotkvm.com/product/ ) we get a page not found!!! Are you talking about if you manually change the URL? I don't think anything links to the /product/ route. > Although you're also selling something else, the TinyP…
Comment linking /retrospectives/2021/11/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder as a story · 1071 points
HN discussionThanks for reading! > I would like to ask how you made the correlation between the new site and the increase of sales, I believe that your product is a very good one and would have expected that your intended target, if anything, is less sensible to site design Yeah, I tried not to lean too hard on this because I don't have rigorous evidence that the redesign caused the improvement. But anecdotally, it seems like it…
Comment linking /retrospectives/2021/11/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted My Second Year as a Solo Developer as a story · 1066 points
HN discussionI talk about this at the bottom: https://mtlynch.io/tinypilot-redesign/#why-didnt-you-just-fi...
Comment linking /tinypilot-redesign/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted I sold TinyPilot, my first successful business as a story · 1016 points
HN discussionMy heart goes out to this guy ... For those unaware, the blogger left a high-paying job at Google 4-years ago [1] to start his own business and over those last 4-years, unfortunately, hasn't really made any money/profit [2] His blog is a treasure trove of insights and lessons learned along the way. Highly recommend for others to read. [1] https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/ [2] https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-ye…
Comment linking /solo-developer-year-4/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted Show HN: TinyPilot – Build a KVM over IP using a Raspberry Pi as a story · 756 points
HN discussionWell he had a 32% increase (vs. the previous month) in June [1]. I'm not sure how the increase was calculated but I don't think see how you can attribute 40% to the redesign - the graph is already up and to the right ;) [1] https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2022/07/#tinypilothttpstin...
Comment linking /retrospectives/2022/07/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted Show HN: GreenPiThumb – A Raspberry Pi Gardening Bot as a story · 537 points
HN discussionThanks for reading! > do you have any learning to share about how to better assess the character/ethics of whom you are selecting? I don't try to assess character because I don't think you can effectively. And I know others disagree with me here, but I don't think the agency I hired was lacking in character or behaving dishonestly. At the end of the day, if I'm hiring someone for $100/hr, they need to produce output…
Comment linking /freelancer-guidelines/
on “I regret my website redesign”Submitted How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant as a story · 473 points
HN discussionThis question may be an odd one, but how did you create the little cartoons in your blog post? I feel like they really improved my experience as a reader, and if I were to create content in the future I wouldn't mind knowing if there was an easy way to include something similar for someone with little to no artistic skill. Edit: Found my answer in this blog post of yours https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/
Comment linking /how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/
on “Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself”Submitted How to Make Your Code Reviewer Fall in Love with You as a story · 472 points
HN discussionIt was quite an ordeal! Our hardware engineering partner subcontracted the design to a team of industrial designers they'd worked with in the past. We ordered prototypes of the design from both China and vendors in the US. The Chinese versions were better by leaps and bounds.[0] We iterated a few times from there and eventually landed on a design we liked and worked with the Chinese vendor to produce the first few t…
Comment linking /retrospectives/2022/11/
on “My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder”Submitted Lessons from my first exit as a story · 410 points
HN discussionThanks for reading and for the kind words! > Have you always been so disciplined in life? If not, how did you improve it? No, I was a lot less disciplined when I was younger. I remember as a teen trying to learn Java several times and always getting bored a day or two in. I was a good student, but I would procrastinate work and distract myself while working. I probably became more disciplined in my twenties, but I u…
Comment linking /solo-developer-year-4/
on “My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder”Submitted My Third Year as a Solo Developer as a story · 385 points
HN discussionThanks for reading! I hadn't heard that about credit card rewards. I'll talk it over with my accountant. Thanks for the tip! > Also those cloud expenses look significant. That looks like an 80% increase year-over-year which is substantial. Is there a way to shave off a significant amount by moving to a different method for architecture? Or will that break your system? I worry about rapidly growing cloud expenses esp…
Comment linking /retrospectives/2023/04/
on “My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder”Submitted I quit Google to work for myself (2018) as a story · 381 points
HN discussionMichael, You are an inspiration. I have been following your journey since your post about quitting Google hit the HN front page. And what a wild ride it has been. You tried many projects ( https://mtlynch.io/projects/ ), and it took a while for you to find your winning idea. And I have read each of your retrospectives on TinyPilot ( https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/ ) and know that it wasn't easy. Your journey show…
Comment linking /solo-developer-year-1/
on “My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder”Submitted My Eight-Year Quest to Digitize 45 Videotapes as a story · 380 points
HN discussionThanks for reading! > I'd like to understand the steps leading up to these six years. What motivated you to create that particular product? was it simply something that interested you and that you believed had potential? What was the goal when you created TinyPilot? Thanks! It was a "scratch my own itch" kind of path. I had a home VM server[0], and any time I messed up its network settings or wanted to install a new…
Comment linking /tinypilot/
on “My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder”Submitted Building a Budget Homelab NAS Server as a story · 347 points
HN discussion
