Developers, If You Can Master Writing, You Will Be Dangerous

For years, I have dismissed what I knew to be extremely potent, if only I implemented it in my life, as something that I could never do;

that’s not me; that is something I don’t enjoy

was always my refrain.

And yet here I am.

Hi, I am Mohan, and I am a chronic developer who couldn’t be anything else. But I have recovered.

How?

Because it needs to be done.

As developers, we are there to solve problems. We are not there to be good at C or JAVA or Python or some such tool. We have to address the issues. If you could use pixie dust and your pixie dust could solve all problems, your clients and I could care less about your fondness for Python or your identity as a ‘Linux guy’. We are here to solve problems.

In a broader sense, the business is there not only to solve a problem (represented by an excellent working product) but also to tell people that it exists and can solve the said problem.

So business has 2 problems. And it needs to solve these two problems at the meta-level.

1) Solve the problem customers have.

2) Reach them and let them know you have something that solves their problem.

The 2nd one is called marketing.

But who cares?

It is just problem-solving.

Does it matter that you don’t like it?

Because it solves a problem.

Ok. So we agree on that point at least. Let us look at this further.

“Marketers” will tell you there are many different types of marketing.

Digital marketing, SEO inbound, outbound, PR.

I can see that you are about to have seizures. YOU can NEVER do all that. Don't worry.

Instead of all this jargon, let’s return to the original problem of reaching and telling people you have something that solves their problems.

Let me now, gently propose the idea of Writing. Because, in my mind, Marketing is nothing but Writing.

The internet is a prominent place. It has only two functions when you reduce it to the basics.

“Someone writes something into it” Or “Someone reads something from it.”

Like, right now. I am writing this, and you are reading this. That’s it. This action, repeated a million times, is the internet. Everything else is arbitrage.

We don’t want anything to do with these other shady forms of marketing.

But we surely can’t have any problem giving something to the place that offers something to us?

Like, I am writing this (giving), and I will get some readers and maybe some clients (getting), right?

Fair transaction. Nothing shady. It is the most innocent form of the web. It is the most natural, honest, unbiased, and evergreen form of marketing.

So here is what I urge you to consider now.

Solve the 2nd problem I listed by simply writing into the web.

Just write. And it will give back to you.

I know you won’t like it.

But those are only in the beginning and remember, so what? So what if you don’t like it. It solves the problem.

Consider it. Let this not happen today.

Let this idea seep into your mind slowly over time.

Start slow and ramp up, accumulate writing over time. Like I did. After years of resisting, fighting, throwing tantrums, I think today I get it.

It has allowed me to build something that has given me financial freedom. Writing has.

All I did was solve both those problems I listed earlier. I have built my SAAS product Proxies API as well as the habit of writing.

Coding plus Writing makes me dangerous.

The author is the founder of Proxies API the rotating proxies service.