I’m Planning to Shut Down DesignToStartup.com

I had big plans.

Since July, 2012 I wanted to create a site to document my journey of learning design and then going on to start my own company. It took me long enough. I finally did it in December of last year.

Since then I’ve had 3,744 pageviews and 2,526 unique visits (more stats below). Pretty cool that a couple thousand people read my stuff, but thats really not a TON of people. But thats not the issue.

The issue is that I’m just not into it. I like writing, sure. And my 500 words/day goal is going strong. But I can write the same stuff on BradyMower.com and get that same type of traffic there. Don’t believe me? Consider that:

1,448 visits came from Reddit
740 were direct visits
262 visits came from Hacker News
232 visits came from Twitter

So it seems to me that most of my traffic came from those links I posted. I could have just as easily written those posts on BradyMower.com and linked there. Traffic would have been much the same.

The point is this: I like DesignToStartup, its been good, but its just not what I thought it would be.

BUT, I’m really glad I launched it. I would have never learned all I’ve learned if I hadn’t actually done something about it. I’ve learned a little bit more about what it takes to have a successful site, what it takes to get started, and what I would rather do instead. I wouldn’t have figured all of that out if I didn’t start DesignToStartup.

Seth Godin’s article, The Best Way to Get Unstuck still inspires me. Let me quote:

The way to get unstuck is to start down the wrong path, right now.

Step by step, page by page, interaction by interaction. As you start moving, you can’t help but improve, can’t help but incrementally find yourself getting back toward your north star.

You might not end up with perfect, but it’s significantly more valuable than being stuck.

Don’t just start. Continue. Ship. Repeat.

I did that, thank goodness. I started down the wrong path, and now I realize that it was the wrong path and am making a course correction.

I don’t want to make money on the site. I could. If I worked hard enough, I honestly could. But thats not where I want to pour my effort. I have better things in mind. There are already a lot of great resources out there for learning design, and I don’t want to work on creating another Smashing Magazine. Thats a huge task, and its just not for me. Thats what they love doing, but its not what I want to do.

I would rather post that same content on BradyMower.com and have that lead to a few more people looking at my portfolio and possibly contacting me about work. Then focus my efforts on other projects of my own.

I think its important to focus on a few things and do those things WELL. So I’m simplifying and focusing.

My plan is to move the posts from DesignToStartup.com straight over to BradyMower.com and redirect all the old locations to their new locations on BradyMower.com. Then I’ll write my stuff at BradyMower.com. Kind of like what these guys have got going:

Try to talk me out of it if you’d like, but I feel pretty good about the decision.

Here are some analytics from DesignToStartup for the 2.5 months of its life, if you are interested (Dec 2, 2012 – Mar 8, 2013):