That's not as surprising as you may think. "Truth is not a complete defense against libel".
Imagine I contacted someones workplace and business partners and told them about a drug conviction that occurred 22 years ago. Or if I took a statement you make after a some drinks in the pub and stuck a print out on poles all around your business.
There are cases where suing someone for libel even if what they say is true doesn't seem demonstrably wrong.
I thought this short video was pretty insightful. I have been focusing on pitching the benefits of my product and not reducing the risk of adoption.
By talking about all the different way my product can help perhaps I was making it look like it would be a dramatic change to the customers workflow.
I am going to focus on the single most significant benefit we offer and suggest a "one week challenge", where the customer uses our product for a week and then we discuss the benefits.
The techzing podcast is great easy listening for startup hacker types.
For those who don't know the techzing format is two developers having a regular chat about the startup projects they are working on, their consulting work and the stories they found interesting on hacker news.
There are also guest interview shows, sometimes with tech / startup people and sometimes with more exotic guests (one interview was with a geologist about peak oil and helium 3 fusion. Another was about the evidence behind alien sightings).
If you like startup podcasts I recommend you check out a few episodes of techzing and see if it's too your liking.
I think there is a lot of evidence they are improving personal freedom and the rights of the individual, not dramatically so, not as fast as many would like.
Looking at property rights for example, the ability of people to appeal the decisions of local authorities, the ability of people to complain about local corruption and have action taken is reported to have improved greatly as compared to 10,20 or 30 years ago.
Did the people who have achieved the success you expect do more or less work than you've done ?
"I expected at least 20 sign ups by now", "I expected at least 100 visits a day by now", "I expected at least $1000 a month by now".
Try and find out what other people had to do to get to those milestones, if you have done a lot less then perhaps you should push on, if you've done a lot more, maybe your on the wrong track.
A rough heuristic but better than gut feel, perhaps.
I am amazed at how google has created a virtuous incentive cycle in which experts are competing with each other to give away the best information and gather the most interest.
Compare that to television, radio or print advertising, do you get the impression anyone is competing to provide the most useful information ?
Lying and misleading people is wrong, but that doesn't seem to be a huge part of most SEO activity.
The most common activity I see is people saying "hmm what can I put out there that other people will be interested in", that's an absolutely amazingly positive result.