Forget the Blueprint: How I Stopped Building a Blog and Started Cultivating a Digital Mycelium

Introduction: The Ghost of Blogs Past

It began, as so many doomed projects do, with a blueprint.

My first attempt at a blog was an exercise in architectural precision.

I envisioned a grand structure, a digital edifice that would stand as a testament to my expertise.

I spent weeks surveying the landscape, identifying a commercially viable niche with low-competition keywords—a plot of land ripe for development, or so I thought.¹

The blueprints were drawn from the collective wisdom of every “how-to” guide I could find.

Step one: choose a platform with customizable templates.²

Step two: select a hosting provider with impeccable uptime and bandwidth.³

Step three: design a sleek, professional logo and a visually stunning theme, because appearance, I was told, was paramount.¹

I meticulously crafted an editorial calendar, a rigid construction schedule dictating that a new floor be added every Tuesday and Thursday, without fail.²

The result of this painstaking labor was a digital ghost town.

A perfectly constructed, beautifully designed, utterly empty building.

The articles, written to satisfy algorithms rather than humans, felt hollow.

The passion I had for the subject—a subject chosen for its marketability, not its resonance with my soul—dwindled with each forced entry.

I was following every rule, ticking every box on the checklist provided by the supposed masters of this craft, yet the audience never arrived.

The silence was deafening.

The effort was Herculean, the rewards nonexistent.

It was a slow, grinding journey into classic blogger burnout, a state of profound exhaustion and disillusionment that so many aspiring creators experience.⁵

My architectural folly stood vacant, a monument to wasted time and a flawed design.

This failure left me with a paradox that I couldn’t shake.

If I had diligently followed all the “expert tips” ³ and adhered to the established “best practices” ², why had my project collapsed so spectacularly? The question gnawed at me.

It forced me to consider a terrifying possibility: what if the blueprints themselves were the problem? What if the conventional wisdom, the very foundation upon which I had built my failed enterprise, was fundamentally flawed? Research suggests this is often the case; best practices don’t make you the best, they make you the average.⁹

They are a recipe for mimicry, not for the creation of something truly remarkable and resilient.

My epiphany didn’t arrive in a flash of insight, but as a slow, dawning realization, a change in the very soil of my thinking.

The problem wasn’t in my execution of the plan; it was in the guiding metaphor itself.

We are told to build a blog, to be architects of content.

This is a trap.

It frames the process as a finite construction project, a rigid structure that must be perfect upon completion.

But a living, breathing, successful blog isn’t an inanimate building.

It’s a biological system.

It isn’t built; it’s cultivated.

This led me to a new, more powerful analogy: Blogging as Mycology.

Mycology, the study of fungi, offers a profound model for understanding how ideas and knowledge truly grow.¹⁰

In this model, the individual blog posts—the visible, polished articles—are merely the “mushrooms.” They are the fruiting bodies, the most obvious but least significant part of the organism.

The real life, the true intelligence and resilience of the blog, lies in the

mycelium: the vast, interconnected, often unseen network of hyphae that spreads beneath the surface, exploring, connecting, and drawing nourishment from its environment.¹¹

This single shift in perspective—from architect to mycologist, from builder to gardener—changed everything.

It offered a path away from the brittle, top-down blueprint and toward a resilient, bottom-up process of cultivation that embraced imperfection, valued connection, and made the entire endeavor joyful and sustainable.

Part I: The Blueprint to Burnout (The Struggle)

My journey into the desolate landscape of blogging failure began with an earnest and complete devotion to the conventional rulebook.

I was a model student, and the architectural blueprint was my sacred text.

The deconstruction of this failure is not an indictment of my effort, but of the flawed system that guides so many aspiring writers toward inevitable burnout.

Laying the Flawed Foundation

The first phase was intoxicating.

It was a flurry of decisions that felt like progress.

Following the standard advice, the first order of business was to “find the right niche”.²

This wasn’t a journey of introspection to discover my passions, but a cold, calculated market analysis.

I scoured the web for topics with high monetization potential and manageable keyword competition, a process explicitly recommended by countless guides.¹

The niche I landed on was something I was mildly competent in but felt no deep-seated passion for.

This was my first, critical error.

By choosing a topic for its external viability rather than its internal fire, I had built my foundation on sand.

The well of enthusiasm was shallow from the start, destined to run dry under the slightest pressure.

With the niche selected, the obsession with the technical scaffolding began.

This is a common and seductive form of procrastination for new bloggers.¹

Instead of grappling with the difficult task of writing, I poured my energy into the superficial architecture.

I agonized over which blogging platform was superior, comparing the templates of Wix with the plugins of WordPress.²

I spent days researching hosting providers, comparing the uptime statistics and bandwidth limits of Bluehost versus GoDaddy, as if these marginal differences would be the deciding factor in my success.³

Hours bled into days as I tinkered with themes, customized color palettes, and tried to design the “perfect” logo.¹⁴

This behavior is a classic mistake: prioritizing the aesthetics and the container over the substance and the content.⁴

The architectural mindset forces you to build the entire house before you have any idea what kind of life will be lived inside it.

I had a beautiful, high-performance, empty shell.

The Content Treadmill and the Tyranny of the Calendar

Once the digital stage was set, the second act began: the grueling, soul-crushing reality of the content treadmill.

My meticulously crafted editorial calendar, once a source of pride, became an instrument of torture.²

It demanded a relentless pace of publication, a constant churn of articles regardless of inspiration or insight.¹⁵

The joy of creation was replaced by the anxiety of a deadline.

This pressure to be relentlessly consistent is a primary driver of failure; it forces quantity over quality and turns a creative pursuit into a factory assembly line.¹⁵

My writing became a caricature of what I thought a “successful blogger” should produce.

I wrote for the algorithm, not for a human reader.

My process started not with a question or a story, but with keyword research.¹⁸

I would identify a target phrase and then construct a post around it, a practice that strips writing of its soul and turns it into SEO spackle.¹⁹

I was a sheep, mimicking the style and topics of popular blogs in my niche, hoping to capture a sliver of their success.²⁰

This resulted in content that was utterly generic.

It lacked a unique angle, a personal voice, or any real, lived experience.⁷

My posts were collections of regurgitated information, carefully formatted with headers to be “skimmable” ², yet offering nothing new or interesting to the reader who might scan them.¹⁴

I became adept at the art of the empty post.

I used fluff and redundant phrasing to stretch a 300-word idea into a 1,500-word article, believing that word count was a proxy for value.¹³

I crafted “killer” titles, as the guides instructed ², but they were often clickbait promises that the thin content within could never fulfill.¹⁷

I was performing the role of “blogger” without actually engaging in the authentic act of writing.

I was building the walls of my digital house with hollow bricks.

The Slow Collapse: When Metrics Become the Mission

The final stage of my architectural experiment was a slow, agonizing psychological decline.

The focus shifted entirely from creation to validation, and the numbers became my cruel master.

I was addicted to Google Analytics, checking my traffic statistics multiple times a day, a habit that fed a growing sense of despair.³

The flat line on the chart was a daily reminder of my failure.

I was shouting into a digital void, and the silence was eroding my motivation.⁷

This is a well-documented psychological trap: the more time you spend working on something without any reward or positive feedback, the harder it becomes to continue.²¹

My promotion efforts grew more frantic and less effective.

I followed the playbook, leaving generic “great post!” comments on other blogs with a link back to my own, a transparently self-serving tactic that builds no real relationships.⁸

I spent hours on social media, trying to push my content into feeds where it was neither wanted nor needed.¹⁵

These efforts were misguided because they attempted to solve a marketing problem when what I really had was a product problem.

The content itself wasn’t valuable enough to be shared organically; no amount of promotion could fix that fundamental flaw.¹⁷

This is when the final collapse occurred.

I was experiencing every symptom of severe blogger burnout.⁵

I felt a deep physical and mental exhaustion just thinking about the blog.⁶

The initial excitement had been replaced by a complete loss of joy.

I began procrastinating, finding any excuse to avoid the work.⁶

The thought of quitting became a comforting, constant companion.

Eventually, I did.

I abandoned the project.

My architectural folly was left to crumble, another statistic in the graveyard of failed blogs.

Most bloggers quit within the first three to six months precisely because this blueprint is a recipe for this exact outcome.¹⁹

It is a system that front-loads the effort, delays the reward indefinitely, and demands a level of performative perfection that is simply unsustainable.

The failure was not a personal one; it was a systemic one.

The blueprint was the poison.

Part II: The Mycelial Epiphany (The Turning Point)

After the collapse of my architectural blog, I entered a period of digital silence.

The burnout was real, a creative exhaustion that left me wary of ever attempting such a project again.²³

It was in this fallow period, free from the pressure of the content treadmill, that I stumbled upon a different way of thinking.

It wasn’t a single article or a new set of rules, but a constellation of ideas that orbited a new, more organic philosophy.

This was the epiphany that would allow me to return to blogging not as a builder, but as a gardener.

Discovering a New Ecology of Thought

My recovery began with the discovery of two powerful, deeply interconnected concepts that were quietly gaining traction in thoughtful corners of the internet: “Digital Gardening” and “Learning in Public.”

The idea of a Digital Garden immediately resonated.

Unlike a traditional blog, which is often a reverse-chronological “stream” of posts that quickly become outdated, a digital garden is an evergreen, interconnected space for cultivating ideas.²⁴

As articulated by pioneers of the concept like Joel Hooks and Tom Critchlow, it values process over performance, and connection over chronology.²⁶

The content isn’t published and forgotten; it’s tended to, refined, and interlinked over time, growing in value as new connections are made.

It’s a personal wiki, a notebook, and a public-facing knowledge base all in one.²⁸

This approach dismantled the tyranny of the “publish” button.

An idea didn’t have to be perfect or complete to exist in the garden; it could be a seedling, a work in progress.²⁹

If digital gardening was the what—the space—then “Learning in Public” was the how—the active process of tending that space.

Championed by thinkers like Shawn Wang (@swyx), this philosophy advocates for sharing your learning journey as it happens, not just presenting the polished final result.³⁰

The goal is to create “learning exhaust”—the natural byproduct of genuine curiosity.

This includes writing tutorials about things you’ve just figured out, sharing your notes, asking questions publicly, and documenting your process.³¹

This approach fundamentally subverts the traditional “guru” model of blogging, where the writer must project an aura of complete authority.

Instead, it encourages you to be a “guide,” someone who is simply a few steps ahead on a particular path and is leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for others to follow.³⁰

It embraces vulnerability and turns the fear of being wrong into an opportunity for collective learning.

The Mycology Analogy Fully Blooms

It was at the intersection of these two concepts that the mycology analogy took root and blossomed into a complete, actionable framework.

I realized that Digital Gardening and Learning in Public were simply the practical application of a mycelial mindset.

• Ideas as Spores: My process no longer began with keyword research. It started with capturing “spores”—small, raw, unpolished ideas and questions. A quote from a book, a fleeting thought in the shower, a frustrating bug in a piece of code. These were logged in a simple digital notebook, the equivalent of the “seedling” stage in a digital garden.²⁹ They were the tiny, potential-filled starting points of all future growth.
• Notes and Drafts as Hyphae: As I began to “learn in public,” these spores would germinate. I’d research a question, tinker with a problem, or outline a thought. Each of these actions created a “hypha”—a single thread of knowledge. These were my messy drafts, my collections of links, my half-formed arguments. Like the hyphae of a fungus, they were exploratory, branching out in response to new information and stimuli.¹¹ They were not meant to be perfect; their purpose was to explore and connect.
• The Blog as a Mycelial Network: The true “body” of my new blog became this entire collection of notes, drafts, and the links between them. This was the mycelium. It was a non-linear, resilient, and surprisingly intelligent network of interconnected knowledge.¹² The real value wasn’t in any single note, but in the web of connections that emerged between them. This is where the practice of bi-directional linking, a core feature of tools like Obsidian and Roam Research, became more than a gimmick; it was a practical way to visualize and navigate the growing mycelial network of my own thought.²⁴
• Published Posts as Fruiting Bodies (Mushrooms): Within this framework, a polished, public-facing blog post became something entirely different. It was no longer the primary output or the sole measure of success. It was simply a “fruiting body”—a mushroom. It was a visible, organized manifestation of a topic that had been thoroughly explored and nourished by the vast mycelial network growing beneath the surface. A mushroom only appears when the underlying network is healthy and has accumulated sufficient resources. Likewise, a good blog post emerges naturally when enough learning, thinking, and connecting has occurred. This radically lowered the pressure of publishing. A post wasn’t a monumental act of construction; it was a natural, occasional harvest from a garden I was tending every day.

Deconstructing “Conventional Wisdom” as a Monoculture

Armed with this new analogy, I could finally see the old, architectural model for what it was: an attempt to create an industrial farm.

The “best practices” of blogging are designed to create a monoculture.

They encourage everyone to plant the same profitable crops (niches), use the same fertilizers (SEO tactics), and follow the same rigid planting schedules (editorial calendars).

The result is a field of blogs that all look and sound the same.⁹

This kind of monoculture is incredibly fragile.

It is susceptible to pests (spam), disease (burnout), and environmental shocks, like a single Google algorithm update wiping out entire fields of content overnight.¹⁹

In stark contrast, the digital garden, the mycelial network, is a wild, diverse, and resilient ecosystem.

It thrives on biodiversity—the unique cross-pollination of ideas from different domains.³³

Its strength comes from its interconnectedness and adaptability, not from its rigid conformity.

This was the ultimate epiphany: true, sustainable success in blogging, as in nature, comes not from perfectly replicating a generic formula, but from cultivating something deeply personal, unique, and alive.³⁴

The goal was no longer to build a perfect, sterile structure, but to foster a thriving, complex, and fascinating digital ecosystem that was a true reflection of my own evolving mind.

Part III: Tending the Digital Mycelium (The Solution)

The shift from an architectural to a mycelial mindset is profound, but it would remain a philosophical abstraction without a practical method for implementation.

This final section translates the epiphany into a concrete, actionable framework.

It revisits the familiar steps of starting a blog but reinterprets them through the lens of mycology, digital gardening, and learning in public.

This is not a blueprint; it is a guide to cultivation.

The Minimum Viable Mycelium: Your First Spore

One of the most paralyzing aspects of the old blueprint is the sheer scale of the initial undertaking.

You are expected to build a complete, fully-featured website before you’ve even written a single word.

This is where the concept of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), borrowed from the world of lean startups, becomes an incredibly powerful tool.³⁵

An MVP is the simplest version of a product that can be released to gather feedback and validate an idea with minimal investment.³⁷

We can adapt this to our new model and call it the “Minimum Viable Mycelium.” Instead of trying to build an entire digital garden at once, the goal is to plant a single spore.

This means publishing one core idea, one small piece of your “learning exhaust”.³⁰

It doesn’t need to be a 3,000-word cornerstone article.

It could be:

• A 300-word post summarizing what you learned from a book or article.
• A short tutorial explaining how you solved a specific, frustrating problem.³⁸
• A simple list of resources you found helpful on a particular topic.
• An answer to a question you couldn’t easily find online, written for your past self.³⁸

The process is iterative and lean, designed to build momentum without causing overwhelm.³⁹

First, identify a genuine user pain point or, even better, a point of your own personal curiosity.³⁷

Second, create the simplest possible piece of content—the minimum viable “feature”—that addresses it.

Third, publish it.

The “feedback” you gather might not be comments or shares at first; it might simply be the clarification that comes from the act of writing itself.³⁸

Finally, you iterate.

You plant another spore.

You connect it to the first one.

Your mycelial network has begun to grow.

This approach transforms the monumental task of “starting a blog” into the simple, achievable act of “sharing one thing I learned.”

A New Set of Rules for Cultivation

With the MVP mindset in place, we can now systematically replace the rigid rules of the old blueprint with more organic, sustainable principles of cultivation.

• Instead of ‘Picking a Niche,’ ‘Choose Your Soil’: The old way forces you into a narrow, predefined box, often one you have no passion for, which is a primary cause of failure.¹ The new way is to “choose your soil.” This means defining a broad area of curiosity—a handful of related topics that genuinely fascinate you and that you want to explore over the long term.⁴⁰ This is your fertile ground. It allows for your interests to evolve. Perhaps you start with an interest in productivity, which leads you to psychology, which branches into neuroscience. A rigid niche would break; fertile soil simply incorporates the new growth.
• Instead of an ‘Editorial Calendar,’ ‘Tend Your Seedlings’: Ditch the oppressive schedule. Embrace the lifecycle of ideas as seen in digital gardens, often categorized by their maturity: Seedling, Budding, and Evergreen.²⁹ Your daily practice is not to force a finished post, but to tend your garden. Capture fleeting ideas as “Seedlings” in your notes. When you have time and inspiration, develop them into “Budding” drafts. Only when an idea feels mature, well-researched, and genuinely valuable do you “harvest” it by polishing it into an “Evergreen” public post. This transforms writing from a chore into a responsive, joyful process driven by curiosity, not the clock.
• Instead of ‘Writing for SEO,’ ‘Create Nutritious Substrate’: The old model has you chasing keywords and optimizing for bots.¹⁸ The mycelial model focuses on creating a “nutritious substrate.” This means focusing 100% on creating deeply valuable, authentic content by learning in public.³¹ When you write to clarify your own understanding, when you document a real solution to a real problem, you are creating content with inherent value. This is the kind of content that naturally demonstrates what Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework is designed to identify.¹⁸ Genuine, useful content created for humans is the best long-term SEO strategy. The search rankings become a byproduct of quality, not the goal itself.
• Instead of ‘Promotion,’ ‘Fostering Symbiotic Connections’: The old model’s “promotion” is a broadcast activity: shouting about your content on social media.¹⁶ The new model focuses on creating a network. The first priority is to foster internal connections by weaving a rich web of internal links between your notes and posts, strengthening your own mycelial network.⁴² The second is to foster external connections by engaging authentically with other “gardens” and thinkers in your space. The goal is not just to get a backlink; it’s to create a symbiotic relationship, to become part of a larger intellectual ecosystem where knowledge is exchanged and mutually reinforced.¹⁰

The Gardener’s Toolkit

While the mindset is the most critical tool, certain technologies are particularly well-suited to this method of cultivation.

• For Idea Capture and Network Building: The core of the mycelial method is the interconnected note. Tools like Obsidian, Roam Research, and Logseq are built specifically for this, with bi-directional linking at their heart.²⁴ They allow you to create a local, private network of notes that can then be selectively published. Even a simple system of text files in a folder, as advocated by some digital gardeners, can be incredibly effective and future-proof.²⁷
• For Publishing: When it comes to publishing your “mushrooms,” simplicity is key. The goal is a platform that doesn’t get in your way. Many in the digital gardening community favor static site generators like Jekyll, Eleventy, or Gatsby because they are fast, secure, and give you full ownership of your content.²⁴ However, a simple, managed platform that allows you to just write and publish without worrying about maintenance also aligns perfectly with the “minimum viable” principle.⁴³ The key is to avoid the trap of endless theme customization and plugin-fiddling that characterized the architectural approach.

Ultimately, the most important tool is the philosophical shift.

The technology should serve the process, not dictate it.

Choose tools that feel lightweight and enable you to focus on the act of thinking, learning, and connecting.

To crystallize the distinction between these two worlds, consider the following table, which summarizes the fundamental differences between the old, failed model and the new, resilient one.

Feature	The Architectural Blog (The Blueprint)	The Digital Mycelium (The Garden)
Guiding Metaphor	Construction, Manufacturing	Mycology, Gardening, Cultivation
Primary Goal	Performance, Traffic, Monetization 21	Process, Understanding, Connection 25
Content Model	Performative, Published & Final 25	Evergreen, Evolving, Interconnected 24
Core Unit	The Chronological Post 26	The Topical Note/Idea 28
Structure	Linear, Time-Based Stream 26	Non-Linear, Associative Network 24
Mindset	Guru (Broadcasting Authority)	Guide (Learning in Public) 30
Starting Point	Build a complete site structure 2	Plant a single “seed” of an idea (MVP) 39
Measure of Success	External Metrics (Views, Likes, Rank)	Internal Growth (Knowledge, Clarity, Community)
Risk Profile	High-risk, Fragile (Prone to burnout, algorithm changes) 19	Low-risk, Resilient (Adapts and grows organically) 11

Conclusion: The Harvest

Years after abandoning my architectural folly, my digital life looks completely different.

I am no longer a builder haunted by an empty structure.

I am a gardener, and my blog is a thriving, sometimes messy, endlessly fascinating ecosystem.

The pressure is gone.

The daily practice is not about forcing a finished product but about the simple, joyful act of tending to ideas.

I capture spores of curiosity, nurture them into threads of understanding, and watch as they weave themselves into a complex and resilient network of knowledge.

The harvest—the traffic, the recognition, the consulting gigs, the speaking invitations—still comes.

But it is no longer the goal.

It is a natural, unforced consequence of a healthy system.

It is the mushrooms appearing on the forest floor after a good rain.

They are a sign that the unseen, underground work is paying off.

The most successful, most shared, most impactful articles I have ever written were never planned on an editorial calendar.

They were the ones that grew organically from the deepest, most well-nourished mycelial network of genuine curiosity, patient learning, and interconnected thought.

The mycology analogy is more than a clever rhetorical device; it is a more accurate, more humane, and ultimately more effective model for creative work in a networked age.

It understands that value lies not in isolated artifacts but in the connections between them.

It understands that resilience comes from diversity and adaptability, not from rigid conformity.

And it understands that the most profound creations are not built from the top down but emerge from the bottom up.

If you are standing before the daunting task of starting a blog, I urge you to throw away the blueprints.

The pressure to erect a perfect skyscraper of content on day one is an impossible standard designed for failure.

It will lead you down the same path of exhaustion and disillusionment that it has for millions of others.

Instead, change your metaphor.

Change your mindset.

Don’t build a blog.

Start a garden.

Find a small patch of intellectual soil that genuinely excites you.

Plant one seed today.

See what grows.

Works cited

1. 15 Common Mistakes New Bloggers Make (And How You Can Avoid Them), accessed August 10, 2025, https://samanthanorth.com/mistakes-new-bloggers-make
2. How to start a blog in 10 steps: a beginner’s guide – Wix.com, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.wix.com/blog/how-to-start-a-blog
3. 30 “Expert Tips” that I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Blog – WPBeginner, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/expert-tips-that-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-a-blog/
4. 30 Tips for Starting a Blog: What I Wish I’d Known – One Girl, Whole World, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.onegirlwholeworld.com/blogger-resources/tips-for-starting-blog/
5. On Blogger Burnout & How to Get Out of a Creative Rut – solosophie, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.solosophie.com/blogger-burnout/
6. Blogger Burnout: The Tell Tale Signs (And How to Avoid Them) – Editing Abode, accessed August 10, 2025, https://editingabode.com/blogger-burnout/
7. How to start a blog (the right way) and write posts people actually want to read [+ free templates], accessed August 10, 2025, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-start-a-blog
8. How to Start a Blog in 2025 – Easy Guide to Create a Blog for Beginners, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.theblogstarter.com/
9. Lessons to learn from 5 failed bloggers on why blog fails – Luca Tagliaferro, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.lucatagliaferro.com/post/failed-bloggers/
10. Mycology – Wikipedia, accessed August 10, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycology
11. MYCOLOGICAL METAPHYSICS. FUNGAL TEMPORALITIES AS CREATIVE ACT OF BECOMING – EventsAir, accessed August 10, 2025, https://airdrive.eventsair.com/eventsairseasiaprod/production-expertevents-public/060c0016466f40d289509f61a341fccc
12. The fungal mind: on the evidence for mushroom intelligence | Psyche Ideas, accessed August 10, 2025, https://psyche.co/ideas/the-fungal-mind-on-the-evidence-for-mushroom-intelligence
13. 103 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid (To Get Results in 2025), accessed August 10, 2025, https://masterblogging.com/blogging-mistakes/
14. Blogging Gone Bad: 7 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make | Full Focus, accessed August 10, 2025, https://fullfocus.co/blogging-gone-bad/
15. 6 Common Reasons Why Business Blogs Fail – circle S studio, accessed August 10, 2025, https://circlesstudio.com/blog/6-common-reasons-why-business-blogs-fail/
16. 15 Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid – WP Rocket, accessed August 10, 2025, https://wp-rocket.me/blog/blogging-mistakes/
17. Percentage of Blogs that Fail – Why 80% of Blogs Will FAIL this Year and How NOT to FAIL!, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.astutecopyblogging.com/percentage-of-blogs-that-fail-why-80-percent-of-blogs-will-fail/
18. Why Blogs Fail — And How to Make Sure Yours Doesn’t – HubSpot Blog, accessed August 10, 2025, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/why-blogs-fail
19. In your opinion, why do some bloggers fail? : r/Blogging – Reddit, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/Blogging/comments/17dywn0/in_your_opinion_why_do_some_bloggers_fail/
20. What all of my failed blogs have taught me | by Sarah Aboulhosn | The Startup | Medium, accessed August 10, 2025, https://medium.com/swlh/what-all-of-my-failed-blogs-have-taught-me-913259587252
21. Why Bloggers Fail – Social Triggers, accessed August 10, 2025, https://socialtriggers.com/why-bloggers-fail/
22. 22 ways to avoid blogger burnout (and get your blogging mojo back!), accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.productiveblogging.com/avoid-blogger-burnout/
23. Blogger Burnout | Coming Back to the Blog After a LONG Hiatus, Plans, & More, accessed August 10, 2025, https://sincerelyjulieanna.com/blogger-burnout-coming-back-to-the-blog-after-a-long-hiatus-plans-more/
24. How to set up your own digital garden – Ness Labs, accessed August 10, 2025, https://nesslabs.com/digital-garden-set-up
25. What is a digital garden? – Thunk Notes, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.thunknotes.com/blog/what-is-a-digital-garden
26. My blog is a digital garden, not a blog – Joel Hooks, accessed August 10, 2025, https://joelhooks.com/digital-garden/
27. Building a digital garden – Tom Critchlow, accessed August 10, 2025, https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/02/17/building-digital-garden/
28. Are Digital Gardens Blogs? – Brain Baking, accessed August 10, 2025, https://brainbaking.com/post/2021/10/are-digital-gardens-blogs/
29. Digital Garden | Walter Teng, accessed August 10, 2025, https://walterteng.com/digital-garden/
30. Learning in public – Fork My Brain, accessed August 10, 2025, https://notes.nicolevanderhoeven.com/Learning+in+public
31. Learn In Public – Swyx, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public
32. Learning in Public — How to get started – Anais Urlichs, accessed August 10, 2025, https://anaisurl.com/learning-in-public/
33. Beware the False Comfort of Conventional Wisdom – Life and Whim, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.lifeandwhim.com/first-moments-blog/beware-conventional-wisdom
34. F*** Conventional Wisdom: How to Get Shit Done as A Freelance Blogger by Breaking the Rules, accessed August 10, 2025, https://beafreelanceblogger.com/f-conventional-wisdom/
35. The MVP Formula: 10 Examples On How To Build A Minimum Viable Product That Stands The Test Of Time – eLearning Industry, accessed August 10, 2025, https://elearningindustry.com/advertise/elearning-marketing-resources/blog/mvp-how-to-build-a-minimum-viable-product-examples
36. 13 Successful Minimum Viable Product Examples | RocketDevs Blog, accessed August 10, 2025, https://rocketdevs.com/blog/minimum-viable-product-examples
37. How to create a minimum viable product – Statsig, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.statsig.com/perspectives/create-minimum-viable-product
38. On the benefits of learning in public – Giles’ blog, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.gilesthomas.com/2025/02/20250223-til-deep-dive-posts
39. 3 minimum viable product (MVP) examples to inspire you – Nulab, accessed August 10, 2025, https://nulab.com/learn/design-and-ux/how-minimum-viable-products-can-kick-start-your-startup/
40. Planting Your Digital Garden – Conor Dewey, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.conordewey.com/blog/on-digital-gardening/
41. Digital Gardens. Seriously? – Daniel Sieger, accessed August 10, 2025, https://danielsieger.com/blog/2021/05/30/digital-gardens.html
42. 8 Common Blogging Mistakes And How To Avoid Them – Wix.com, accessed August 10, 2025, https://www.wix.com/blog/8-blogging-mistakes-you-must-avoid
43. Minimum Viable Blogging – David A. Kennedy, accessed August 10, 2025, https://davidakennedy.com/blog/minimum-viable-blogging/