Justin, I just read your essay while sitting in one of my favorite local coffee shops in Seattle. The walls are painted bright marigold. A leather couch behind me holds two old friends catching up over cappuccinos. I held a smile nearly the whole time I was reading.
My favorite part of this read was how vividly you used the metaphor of Land Before Time (a childhood favorite of mine). The poisonous berries are my favorite comparison.
I once shared with a friend how excited I was to have launched my Substack—FINALLY—after talking about wanting one for the last year. She asked me how I was going to honor the occasion. I was stunned! HONORING the occasion hadn’t crossed my mind. Before talking to her, I’d been obsessively looking at my dashboard metrics.
To honor the occasion I decided to close my eyes and imagine sharing the Substack with my younger self, my child self. I swear to you she lit up so brightly. She was asking me how I made all the cool graphics, and how fun it looked, and if she could help me next time. I teared up. It was such a nourishing experience compared with checking metrics. Since then, I’ve never felt quite the same about looking at metrics. Seeing them as poison berries makes them even less interesting to me.
Thank you for this lovely thought starter! I am grateful to have met you on the 🦕 journey.
That’s so encouraging to hear that you enjoyed it, your feedback really helped shape the latter half of the essay, so thank you!
I can’t tell you how much I relate to the metrics thing, it can be so demoralizing sharing something like this essay (which I spent months on) and then getting confronted with that dashboard every time I go to the admin, hard not to feel inadequate when something so personal and vulnerable doesn’t feel like enough to move the needle.
I’ve actually been using this tool called stylebot to try to hide the CSS elements with the metrics in Substack, but I’ve been thinking of making a chrome extension that’ll hide vanity metrics across the whole app experience.
Justin, I just read your essay while sitting in one of my favorite local coffee shops in Seattle. The walls are painted bright marigold. A leather couch behind me holds two old friends catching up over cappuccinos. I held a smile nearly the whole time I was reading.
My favorite part of this read was how vividly you used the metaphor of Land Before Time (a childhood favorite of mine). The poisonous berries are my favorite comparison.
I once shared with a friend how excited I was to have launched my Substack—FINALLY—after talking about wanting one for the last year. She asked me how I was going to honor the occasion. I was stunned! HONORING the occasion hadn’t crossed my mind. Before talking to her, I’d been obsessively looking at my dashboard metrics.
To honor the occasion I decided to close my eyes and imagine sharing the Substack with my younger self, my child self. I swear to you she lit up so brightly. She was asking me how I made all the cool graphics, and how fun it looked, and if she could help me next time. I teared up. It was such a nourishing experience compared with checking metrics. Since then, I’ve never felt quite the same about looking at metrics. Seeing them as poison berries makes them even less interesting to me.
Thank you for this lovely thought starter! I am grateful to have met you on the 🦕 journey.
That’s so encouraging to hear that you enjoyed it, your feedback really helped shape the latter half of the essay, so thank you!
I can’t tell you how much I relate to the metrics thing, it can be so demoralizing sharing something like this essay (which I spent months on) and then getting confronted with that dashboard every time I go to the admin, hard not to feel inadequate when something so personal and vulnerable doesn’t feel like enough to move the needle.
I’ve actually been using this tool called stylebot to try to hide the CSS elements with the metrics in Substack, but I’ve been thinking of making a chrome extension that’ll hide vanity metrics across the whole app experience.
I LOVE that idea! I'd add that extension.
Wow, what a terrific exploration & description of Substack’s value proposition - well stated, Justin!
Wow, this final draft is gold and the closing sentiments of this piece ended up being the perfect curtain close ⭐️💛
Thank you! The closing was the hardest part to stick the landing on, I’m glad it resonated ☺️