In 2008, I had a friend who was the co-founder and CTO of a startup. He was getting a lot of pressure from the other co-founder to get into TechCrunch. I said, “Why the fuck does anyone want to be in Techcrunch?1 The only people who read it are your competitors.”2
…
This morning just before I woke up, I dreamt that I found out that TechCrunch had made it into the top ten most popular websites.
In my dream, Michael Arrington still owned them and through a systematic analytically-driven approach of A-B testing subject lines, content, and marketing, they had applied it to an entire network of blogs to make it very popular. Michael had picked up ballroom dancing as a hobby and even his ballroom dance blog, through this approach, had become far more popular than it deserved to be.
I started thinking, “Wow, that’s crazy. I remember back in 2005 when TechCrunch was so unknown Michael had to comment on Scoble’s blog to get traffic.3 Who would have thought it could become so popular?”
…
Then I woke up and remembered that nobody reads TechCrunch.4
- Usually it’s because they have a tiny ego and need to be a big fish in a very tiny, tiny pond. BTW, I remember at the time Tagged was really obsessed with TechCrunch. ↩
- I suppose given the big Valley circle jerk, another valid reason is if you are seeking funding from investors. ↩
- This part is true. ↩
- Not even your competitors. Because even if TechCrunch does write about you, they won’t catch it before it scrolls off the front page an hour later. ↩