Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2012. It refers to Messenger, Google+ (shut down in 2019), the old blog’s email subscriptions and its volume of reader mail at the time.
I got into blogging “by accident”. During a long spell when I had to stay at home (3 months), I started visiting websites in my professional field (investing and business). I found lots of bloggers writing about these subjects. Admittedly, some were very good and others less so, although each had a loyal audience.
In the end I asked myself a question: could I bring something different? The answer was yes. The person who inspired me to start this adventure was Edwin Amaya, author of 1000ideasdenegocios.com, after I came across his blog. I was struck by how devoted he was to his readers and by the great job he did motivating people who needed a little push to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. He also showed me his worth as a human being: when I was nobody on the internet and he was already somebody, he was one of the first to add me to his list of friendly sites.
Let me explain why this matters: “When your content is terrible, nobody links to you, and when your content is good and on the same subject, it’s also hard to get links, because you’re the competition.” In this respect, Edwin showed real human quality.
I hadn’t reckoned with how hard it is to get people to read what you write, especially when my only link to the internet was an abandoned Facebook account and a Messenger I barely used.
I knew nothing about web design or search engine optimization, and I didn’t even know what the term social media meant (now I know what it means, though I don’t know how to use it properly). In short, nobody knew me online. You can write great articles, but writing them and having nobody read them is a bit demotivating. I think many of you will know that feeling from the early days.
However, with a little patience, the results start to come. You start climbing the rankings, your visits multiply and the number of comments grows, some more positive and some more negative. The truth is that when you approach topics from an unusual angle, both kinds of comments are necessary, because, as Risto Mejide says: “If nobody is bothered when you speak, you haven’t really said anything.”
Once you reach a considerable number of visits, the money comes on its own, although in my case money wasn’t the motivation. I won’t be a hypocrite about it, though: I love it when my hobbies pay. I don’t have dollar signs in my eyes, but I get up every morning to make money. Even so, with blogs it isn’t the main motivation. So what has really kept me motivated?
My main and earliest motivation was also my greatest agony: opening my email in the morning to an average of 25 messages and comments to answer. Later that number multiplied considerably, to the point where it’s now impossible for me to answer every email (although I can’t keep up, I’ll try to reply to each and every one). Clearly, your loyal readers are a big part of your motivation.
The second thing that motivates you is meeting other people in this world, and if those people have human quality, the feeling is twice as good. Through a controversial article on investing in Nueva Rumasa (the Ruiz-Mateos family’s business group), which it seems I approached from the wrong angle (I got it wrong and I admit it), I met Gregorio Horga, of MyFinanzas. We had different views on that investment, but thinking differently in our long debates didn’t make us fight like cat and dog. Today you could say we’re good friends, even though we’ve never met in person.
He’s another person of real human quality. More recently you meet other people who give you much more than they get back from you, at least in thanks (it’s a lack of time), such as Karla from Compartidísimo or Laura Carvajal from Potencia Líderes (among many others). People who don’t know you and one day congratulate you. Even if it’s just a simple compliment from ordinary people (not rock stars), it keeps you motivated and in a way brightens your day. They’re also people who go out of their way for their own readers.
The road isn’t always easy: we also had a hard day with a certain prominent internet figure whom we apparently offended. I’d like to apologize for that, but when you write an article from the heart and with the right approach, and what’s more, as constructive rather than gratuitous criticism… well, in other cases I would apologize, but not in this particular one.
The high point of my motivation
A few months ago a young man from South America wrote to me. He comes from an extremely poor family. He has no internet at home and can’t afford it. One day he came across the blog and felt motivated, so much so that, as he told me, he tries to scrape together a dollar and a half every Friday to go to an internet café and download the articles we email to subscribers. He prints them and takes them home to read.
On the one hand, I feel motivated and grateful for this young man’s story. On the other, I feel sad (and I can’t help it) about the situation he described. And on top of that, it’s now as if I were working under pressure, because I’m aware that I don’t cover truly relevant and important topics for entrepreneurs or investors every day; as you know, we sometimes talk about the Spanish economy, the European crisis and so on. I’m always under the pressure of thinking that one Friday he might go to download what we’ve written and not find anything truly useful. The simple thought that this young man makes a physical and financial effort creates a moral obligation for me.
My other motivation is 13 years old
One of the first followers of our Google+ page is 13 years old (we assume Google missed it), and the words on her profile are these:
“I’m only 13 and I think I’m very creative… get ready for when I’m the best architect in history.”
This girl may achieve her dreams or fail, but it’s a mindset that’s very hard to find in a 13-year-old. In a way, whether she achieves her dreams won’t depend only on her parents but on all of us who write on the internet, because a single piece of advice from someone, a single pointer on the steps to follow, can push her to achieve her dream, or at least keep her from losing heart. If she follows our page, I imagine it’s because something we say motivates her, and she’s probably not aware that it’s people like her who motivate me far more.
These details, these people, are what at times make me think that not everyone has lost the plot, that there’s still human quality in every corner of the planet, and that in some way we can help thousands of people stay on the right track. So thank you all, and especially those people who, without even meaning to, give you a bit of oxygen simply by being who they are: people, above all.
Featured image: Nicolas Nova, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
