Yo ,
Happy Thursday!
Last Friday I got an email from a company in San Francisco. They wanted to partner me to spread awareness about their product to pinoy freelancers.
The first line was "Hi Shoden."
Not Dennis. Shoden.
So I knew right away they didn't find me on LinkedIn, kasi my real name is on LinkedIN.
Where exactly did you find me?
They sent back two links.
The first was my about page. Okay, makes sense naman.
The second was an email I sent on August 14, 2023, titled "How I got my Slipped Disc."
Not a case study. Not a sales page. Not my folio.
An email about my back.
Quick context if you're new here: I slowly developed a slipped disc from my videography years. Hauling gear, hunched over a tripod all day — to which I later found out na HMOs literally classify videography as hazardous work.
There's even a selfie in that email, captioned "Selfie muna bago magpa MRI." lol
That was the whole piece. My back, then the thing most of us avoid thinking about: wala tayong health coverage.
I wasn't selling anything. I even wrote the words "I'm not going to sell you anything" inside it.
309 people received that email. 137 opened it.
309 people, .
Three years later, a company on the other side of the planet lands on that same page and emails me about potentially partnering up.
And here's the part that got me.
That company builds financial tools for Filipino freelancers and OFWs. So the page that convinced them I was worth partnering was me, in 2023, writing honestly about the exact hole in a freelancer's life that they're trying to fill.
it wasn't even a portfolio piece, that was just me being honest about something that happened to my body. Aguy hehe
It had exactly one thing going for it.
It was public. (Feature sya ni Sendfox if you want your emails to be discoverable)
Not in a Messenger thread. Not in a private group. Not in a folder on my laptop waiting until it was good enough. A page, with a URL, that a stranger could land on three years later without having to ask me for anything first.
That's the whole mechanic.
And it's the opposite of how you and me usually think about this. The reflex is to go build the better thing — the nicer folio, the cleaner LinkedIn, the portfolio site you'll launch once you have enough work to fill it. (tbh ako to, hehe.)
Meanwhile the thing that's already quietly working for you is some ordinary piece you published years ago and forgot about.
So here's what I'd genuinly check if I were you.
Think about the last three things you made. A video edit, a design, a caption that did well, a process you figured out, a lesson you learned the hard way.
Where does each one live right now?
If the answer is "a client's Google Drive" or "my camera roll" or "a chat with my friend," then nobody can find it. It can't work for you while you sleep. It's proof that technically doesn't exist yet.
One post. One page. One public link. That's all it takes for it to start counting.
So ikaw , what's one thing you made this year that nobody outside your own chat history has ever seen?
Reply and tell me what it is. Curious talaga ako what's been sitting in your drafts.
Cheers,
Shoden "Hazardous Work" San
P.S. The funniest part. That 2023 email had a PS telling people to reply to my personal Gmail instead, kasi I was in the middle of a hosting transfer that week. A temporary workaround lang. That's the exact address they used to reach me three years later. Even your throwaway lines keep working, as long as they're somewhere public. And some things never change. Mejo sira pa din reply email ko uggh.
P.S.2 Ignore the HMO offer inside that old email, 2023 pa yun hehe.
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