23 visitors
The first week was tiny
His first-year retrospective records just 23 visitors in week one. After 12 months he had published 142 posts while working many nights and weekends. [4] ↗
The bets, detours & strange details
109 interviews
The writing was not all his
In the first year, 109 founder interviews and 33 other posts produced roughly 350,000 words. Pat’s job was largely sourcing, editing and publishing other founders’ accounts. [4] ↗
10× traffic
Reddit worked, then the novelty faded
He says the move toward search-focused pages produced 10× organic traffic over a year. The lesson was not one magic channel; the channel changed when the earlier approach stopped scaling. [2] ↗
3,029 miles
The drive that reset his priorities
He describes an eight-day 2020 drive during burnout. He returned wanting to close distractions and concentrate on Starter Story rather than keep splitting himself across products. [8] ↗
Feb 2026
An audience became an acquisition
HubSpot’s announcement describes 800k+ combined YouTube subscribers, 300k+ newsletter subscribers and 100m+ annual content views. These are buyer-reported audience measures, not unique people or a sale valuation. [3] ↗
4 days
A very short Kanye chapter
On his personal blog, Pat describes working with Kanye West for four days, then leaving to focus on Starter Story. This is Pat’s public account of an unusual detour. [9] ↗