I spent 2 months optimizing my startup's SEO.
Landing pages. Content. Keywords. All the comfortable stuff.
Then I ran an SEO audit:
- On-page SEO: A+
- Backlinks: F
I'd been avoiding outreach because it felt awkward. Finding sites. Writing personalized emails. Getting ignored. Following up. Getting ignored again.
But I forced myself to do it anyway.
Results after 30 days:
- Domain rating: 7 → 23
- +415 quality backlinks
The Uncomfortable Truth
Google doesn't just rank good content. It ranks content other sites vouch for.
You can have a perfect site and still lose to someone with better backlinks.
The thing I avoided was the thing that actually moved the needle.
Why This Matters More Now
Ryan Dahl (creator of Node.js) said it last week: "The era of humans writing code is over."
If anyone can build a product with AI, what's actually left as a moat?
Distribution.
Your SEO (or GEO). Your audience. Your brand. Your ability to get attention in a world full of noise.
The next decade won't be won by the best engineers. It'll be won by the best marketers who can also ship.
The Pattern
Most founders do this. We optimize the comfortable stuff and ignore the uncomfortable stuff.
For me it was backlinks. For others it's cold outreach, posting publicly, or talking to users.
The pattern is the same: the thing you're avoiding is usually the thing that moves the needle.
Building Convo (AI meeting assistant) and MyPicNow (AI headshots) from Barcelona. Zero ad spend, all organic.
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