Essays/linkedin/24-05-03 why i write online

✍🏼 Last few months I became very active on LinkedIn and people started asking me why. Do I want to become an influencer? Nothing further from my motives, which are deeply personal.

First, I started writing more because I have the time. I left my startup in mid 2023 and I also moved from Amsterdam to Paris. Deep changes come with new (many) challenges, which lead me to having free time (perhaps too much) to think.

I'm not only dealing with the change in culture. As an entrepreneur, it's quite tough to understand what your next step could be. I've done so many things without specializing on any. But no standard job defined on an A4 paper really fits that description.

I thought I could gain some clarity on my own skills and the value I can bring by discussing publicly.

I started writing about my experience as a #scipreneur, because I believe in the value of sharing and, more importantly, the value of learning in public.

I am very reflective, I like thinking on how to improve, and I like learning from what others have done and how they've done it. I thought that, by increasing my online visibility, dialogs would naturally flow. Now I can conclude that's not the case. It may be a gloom conclusion, but after a while I can tell that people don't seek any meaningful interaction on social networks. In real life it's a different story.

I've had chats that started with "as you've posted last week." So I know they trigger some thoughts, just that the discussion will not happen in the comment section.

Most people that post a lot online have a strategy to capture value from the interactions they receive. They offer services, they sell a course, or a book. There is so much around, that I felt compelled to try it. I setup a website, a newsletter, but then realized none of that truly motivated me. It's amazing how much meta-advice there's around. How to increase the number of followers, what content performs better, how to format texts, etc.

You should add a selfie to increase engagement. A video once a week to keep the algorithm happy. You should leave comments on other's posts (even if extremely low value) to drive your visibility.

But in the end, I don't care that much. I don't need to do marketing of myself. I'm not trying to sell anything to whoever follows me.

LinkedIn became an excuse for me to sit down and write every day (or almost). The habit of thinking by writing down helps me with developing ideas. Often they are short-posts. Once in a while it's a longer article. And I share those rough fragments to see what happens.

In the end, I don't care about optimizing for the algorithm. But I can't avoid checking the stats every week.

If you've read this far, and you have a project to discuss with a physicist turned entrepreneur who is now located in Paris, don't hesitate to reach out.

-- 👋 Hi! I'm @Aquiles.

I'm a scientist turned entrepreneur. I share insights on the challenges of #scipreneurship

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