How A Group of Strangers Can Help You Create Some Of Your Best Work: ProductHunt ‘s Makers

I am grateful to a collection of people I most likely will never meet in person. With their constant presence, I was able to create both lighthearted and serious in-depth work about subjects I care about. Allow me to explain.

I am not talking about remote workers, help desk, or stalwart customer managers with Zendesk at the ready or even a tireless bot. I refer to a special collection of people who joined a community within Product Hunt.

Ryan Hoover spun up a room to encourage writers: Maker Goals.

As I understand it, Ryan wanted to write more and started Maker Goals as a way to encourage others eager to create more. He announced it on twitter and I jumped at an opportunity to join. In my case, the timing was perfect. Just days before a very dear friend was in town for meetings and I was his first stop. He had encouraged me to resume work on a venture that was dying on the vine thanks to me taking too seriously some inner demons about what I was doing.

There have been moments in our lives where we seem to surprise ourselves in a good way — a bell curve busting moment of personal excellence. The stars almost seem to align and we can do no wrong — but then those stars seem to fade. And over the last few months I traveled that arc. In one sitting at the end of last year, during a tempestuous moment in life, I found some calm and within less than day wrote something which surprised myself. I found out from others that it was good. And the friend I mentioned had urged me to start something new and unexpected from the seed of that brilliant moment.

But then the moment began to fade. The ennui, the excuses and little voices of doubt pushed aside the confidence, good intentions and a basket of great ideas in need of disciplined execution. That’s when my friend and I talked again but I needed something more. And that’s when I saw Ryan’s tweet.

Joining a group on Product Hunt was part of what I did to help relight the fire and recapture some magic. It worked.

The potential of Maker Goals: You are not alone with your excuses and ennui. You have fellow “makers” to keep you company, to offer encouragement and acknowledgement. And they are kind and trusting too.

But that’s not all, you might be able to get help with feedback. And when you accomplish a goal you will receive cheers — for what can be encouraging than knowing you held yourself accountable and followed through? Rinse & repeat.

Surprise, you have started and reinforced some good habits as a “maker”.

You can clap and encourage your fellow writers. Everyone has court-side seats to everyone else working on their writing game. Everyone can be both writer with dozens of fans and friends, and act as assistant editors for others. There are no critics, just colleagues. And perhaps strangers become friends.