The Pseudocode
A tech podcast... for your eyes! 👀
It's 1AM here and I've finally finished manually scheduling the first newsletter to go out to all of the subscribers.
The companion site is up and running (https://thepseudocode.com), and the emails are ready to be sent at 5:30AM ET.
This is the first project I've seen to completion in a long time and it feels good! Hopefully the newsletter makes for some good Sunday reading!
I don't want to track people. It's VERY important to me that when someone reads The Pseudocode, they can do so without worrying whether or not I'm spying on them. Email tracking is pure vanity. If you're business requires those numbers, you're business is propped up on fragile, mania-inducing, crud.
That being said, every tool I find to help my build The Pseducode includes tracking by default. Even worse, tools like Tiny Letter don't give you the option of turning it off!
I want to launch this thing. Contributors are waiting for their piece to go live, but I find myself backed into a corner and needing to build a solution for myself. I love building tools, but I was hoping this newsletter wouldn't require so much technical work.
-
1
Your newsletter sounds super cool! I don't think there's anything wrong with tracking if it helps you develop your platform. Simply getting data on how many people open your emails is not a breach of privacy IMO. Perhaps you can add a note to your emails clarifying this but would assume most people wouldn't mind. Best of luck!
-
2
Thanks @forrestgumpz! I don't see how open rates would help build a newsletter, or any email conversation for that matter. Maybe people won't mind, but for people who do they'll either 1) unsubscribe or 2) take preventative actions that would throw of the accuracy of any metrics.
I think the tide is turning rapidly on this: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1248723555832848384
-
Before the launch of the first issue, The Pseudocode has four contributing writers!
From a community standpoint, I love the idea of building something for folks to rally around. From an organic growth standpoint, it will be great to have these contributors share The Pseudocode with their network!
So far, The Pseudocode is up to 15 pre-launch subscribers!
Sign up here: https://thepseudocode.com
As signups keep rolling in organically through the Tiny Letter form, I finally got my own landing page setup. It still goes through Tiny Letter's signup flow, but for a bootstrapped MVP that able to actually get people to sign up, I'm happy!
I set up an easy signup form with Tiny Letter (I had an old account from 5 years ago!) and posted about my new idea on Twitter:
This got the attention of someone I met a while ago at a conference, and they signed up right away!
It's definitely motivating when even one person shows support!
I love writing and I'm lucky to have a decent readership on my Medium blog where I write long detailed technical pieces, however, I have so many small breadcrumbs of ideas I'd love to share, too. That's where the idea of a newsletter came in.
More than a newsletter, The Pseudocode has a companion website that allows readers to join in on the conversation—taking the seeds that are published and turning them into a collective garden.
Comment