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Don't write or build what you don't have to

I've been make the Automation Cookbook, a newsletter about stories of indie hackers automating tedious business processes.

It's been nice being able to iterate quickly and try out new ideas with a newsletter. It's been teaching me the delight of iterating quickly.

Before, I think I just liked writing code too much, and all my delight came from building the product. This can be detrimental because as you iterate faster, you get more ideas, and you have more shots at bat.

I mentioned last time, that I changed the format to shorten the details of how to implement any particular workflow. The reasoning was that most of the value came from the concrete ideas of problems to solve with automation, rather than the specific implementation, because everyone's stack is wildly different.

It's just as well, because it was the most time consuming part of writing the posts. But if I was a reader, I'd want some implementation details. What to do?

I ended up where I'd outline a solution at the high level, and then added email links for readers to request implementation details.

But since IH doesn't allow mailto: links in markdown, just click either request like below to see a sample post, scroll to the bottom, and you can see the mailto links.

Request Zapier Howto · Request Integromat Howto

That way, I don't have to spend time writing what give readers little value, and those that really care about an implementation will get one. It saves me a ton of time, which helps me get my cadence up.

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