Top all-time · #324
Patrick McKenzie
Personal blog · training.kalzumeus.combusinesswritingcareer
Patrick McKenzie's personal blog at training.kalzumeus.com covers business, writing and career. Since 2012, 157 different Hacker News readers have linked it 233 times, most often “How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Sometimes recommended · 14 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Patrick McKenzie's newsletter for B2B sales, pricing SaaS and consulting, selling a small software business, and money and finance. Commenters mostly cite individual issues as the answer to a question.
- Recommended for · 14 comments
- Called a great article, 'best write-up' on selling a small SaaS, and 'candid and knowledgeable'.
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.
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) has an exclusive mailing list. Sign up to get a free video about optimizing your software's first-run experience to increase conversion rates, and regular updates to improve your business.
Most-linked posts?
- How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting40 people · 48 mentions · first linked 2012-11-19
- Selling to the Fortune 500, Government, and Other Lovecraftian Horrors23 people · 24 mentions · first linked 2013-08-22
- SaaS Pricing (2013)17 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2013-08-22
- What I Learned Selling a Software Business15 people · 33 mentions · first linked 2016-03-23
- Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)13 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2014-02-04
- Sell more software with actionable techniques that actually work10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2012-05-02
- How To Validate Product Ideas Before (And After) Building Them8 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2013-09-20
- Making Your Writing Work Harder For You8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2014-05-19
- Investing for Geeks7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2016-09-16
- /4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2012-05-31
What Hacker News says?
patio11's post over at https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s... provides a bit more color too. Also, a friend of mine used FE International to sell a moderate side project of theirs and they were very happy with using FE as the brokers.
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/selling_software_business
on “Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?”Submitted How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting as a story · 1034 points
HN discussionI hadn't heard of patio11's points against it. So I looked it up. https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/content-m... Is this the man responsible for the popularity of dateless blogs? (I tried to check the date on the post but... alas! ;) Just kidding, we still have the Internet Archive (for now) so I am able to get the same information ("2014") in a much less convenient way... (I suppose my willingness…
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/content-marketing-strategy
on “Microfeatures I love in blogs and personal websites”Submitted Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014) as a story · 824 points
HN discussionHere's a link (I think?) to patio11's thoughts, since I went looking for it out of curiosity because of your comment: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/content-m... I also really like dates on things as a user of them.
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/content-marketing-strategy
on “Microfeatures I love in blogs and personal websites”Submitted Investing for Geeks as a story · 797 points
HN discussionThe answer depends on what you sell. If you sell an enterprise product to big corps then the patio11's guide [1] would be a good starting point. Otherwise, selling is simple - just solve the customer's problem as if it was your problem. What's really hard is marketing. And you will need marketing because marketing generates leads and without a stream of leads you can't do sales. [1] https://training.kalzumeus.com/ne…
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/enterprise_sales
on “Ask HN: How to learn sales?”Submitted How I went from programming to consulting (2012) as a story · 780 points
HN discussionPatio11 talks about charging more a lot: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-... http://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/ https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin... His argument basically is that, businesses/consultants/employees fail because they charge/bill/demand in salary negotiations too little WAY more often than they fail for charging too much. Ther…
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/consulting_1
on “Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already”Submitted Don't End The Week With Nothing as a story · 456 points
HN discussionLet's say you've got five projects on the go right now. Maybe one of them hit it big enough to justify starting a company to wrap it in, so you run the other 4 under that umbrella. Now project #3 hits it big, someone wants to buy, and you want to sell... Get ready for months of trying to detangle your various business assets, server accounts, etc. in attempt to legally and properly give them the bits they've bought.…
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/selling_software_business
on “I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas”Submitted What I Learned Selling a Software Business as a story · 439 points
HN discussionhttps://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s... might be most useful.
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/selling_software_business
on “Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?”Submitted Selling to the Fortune 500, Government, and Other Lovecraftian Horrors as a story · 295 points
HN discussionCovered here: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s... in a bit of detail and here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/12/30/kalzumeus-software-year-... in briefer detail under the Appointment Reminder part. Short version: would absolutely use them again; they richly earned their fee both times by de-risking the process and getting me probably a better valuation than I would have gotten if I had ju…
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/selling_software_business
on “Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?”Submitted Selling Software To Large Businesses as a story · 227 points
HN discussionIf I'd have stumbled upon that shady-looking website ( https://training.kalzumeus.com ) anywhere other than HN, I wouldn't have spent a minute on there.
Comment linking /
on “How I went from programming to consulting (2012)”Submitted Making Your Writing Work Harder For You as a story · 222 points
HN discussionWith such a high monthly churn, you should consider testing out a discounted 1-year pricing plan. Oh and read everything by Patrick. Here are a few worth reading in your situation [0,1]. [0] https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/free_book... [1] https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pric...
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/saas_pricing
on “Three Years as a One-Man Startup”Submitted Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes as a story · 206 points
HN discussionhttps://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing...
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/investing-for-geeks
on “How Discount Brokerages Make Money”Submitted Productizing A Freelancing / Consulting Business as a story · 199 points
HN discussionThere's a link to https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing... which discusses this: Vanguard is one of the two Right Answers(TM). My experience with roboadvisors is that the pretty user interfaces encouraged me to save more. Your mileage may vary.
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/investing-for-geeks
on “How Discount Brokerages Make Money”Submitted Patio11 launches his lifecycle emails course as a story · 193 points
HN discussionNo, he does (did) software marketing: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin... Japanese startup culture would be a terrible niche to try to make any money in.
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/consulting_1
on “Talking About Money”Submitted Rainy Day Ideas For Things You Can Build To Grow Your Business as a story · 184 points
HN discussionRead Patrick McKenzie's blog. In particular, this: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/consulting_1
on “Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a consultant/freelancer?”Submitted An A/B Testing Story as a story · 166 points
HN discussionI ask these questions and it works well: 1) What is a price for this product that would be too low for you to trust? 2) What is a maximum price for this product that would that would still seem like good value? 3) What would be a maximum possible price for a this product? They can help to get you to a good starting point regarding your pricing strategy. Also this is a great article about it: https://training.kalzume…
Comment linking /newsletters/archive/saas_pricing
on “Ask HN: How do you set prices?”Submitted Selling to the Fortune 500, Government, and Other Lovecraftian Horrors as a story · 146 points
HN discussion
