The update, and the plan I'm keeping deliberately vague
A real project update on what's working so far, and the shape of the thing we're building next — described in enough detail to be exciting and little enough to stay ours.
Friday: we are not starting a newsletter
Every dev log eventually faces the newsletter question. We answered it with a doorbell instead: a tell-me-first list that only rings when there is actually something at the door.
The short version
We are not starting a newsletter, because a newsletter is a job and nobody here applied for it. Instead the log has a tell-me-first list: no issues, no cadence, no exclamation marks — one email when there is something worth seeing, and silence otherwise. It is a small product decision, and I am disproportionately pleased with it.
- A newsletter is a publication with a schedule. We wanted a doorbell.
- Ask for the email at the moment of highest trust, not in a popup on arrival.
- Every send has to be worth the interruption, or the list rots.
- Small decisions compound: this one saves us four hours a month, forever.
The newsletter question
Someone asks me, roughly once a month, when the newsletter is launching. And every time I picture it: the template, the subject-line deliberation, the "happy Friday!" opener, the slow slide from essay to obligation to the graveyard where Issue #4 newsletters go to be quietly unsubscribed from. A newsletter is a publication with a schedule, and a publication with a schedule is a second job wearing the first job's clothes.
I did not start a dev log because I wanted a second job. I started it because writing down what actually happened, three times a week, makes the work better. The moment the log starts serving a send schedule instead of the work, it stops being a log and starts being marketing with homework.
The doorbell
So instead of a newsletter we installed a doorbell. It is the little form at the bottom of every page: "You can be told first." The contract is written right on it — no newsletter, just a tap on the shoulder when there is something to see, before the log gets it. It rings when there is someone at the door. The rest of the time it is silent, which is exactly what a doorbell should be.
Three rules govern it, and they are load-bearing. One: every send must be worth the interruption, or the list rots from the inside — trust is the whole product. Two: we ask at the moment of highest trust, which is after someone has read something good, not in a popup that fires before the page has loaded like an overeager shop assistant. Three: we never, ever send "just checking in." Checking in is what the doorbell is for not doing.
Is it smaller than a newsletter? Enormously. That is the point. Small decisions compound: this one saves us about four hours a month, forever, and the people on the list get signal instead of schedule. I will take that trade every time.
What I got wrong this week
The Friday tradition demands honesty, so: two things. First, I spent a month treating the newsletter question as a scheduling problem — when do we launch it — before realising it was a category error and the answer was a doorbell. A month of wrong question, ten minutes of right answer. Classic.
Second, I tested the signup form with my own email eleven times and am now the list's most loyal subscriber. I get every test email. I read them all. Five stars, would be notified again.
Asked and answered
Can I get the posts by email, then?
Only the ones that matter, and before the log gets them. That is the entire deal, and it is written on the tin: you can be told first.
How often will you send?
When there is something to see. Twice in a week means it was a good week. Nothing for a month means the month was quiet, and I am not going to invent noise to fill a template.
Why not do both — newsletter and the list?
Because "both" is how a doorbell becomes a newsletter with extra steps. Ask me again in a year, when I will have a longer list of reasons.
Is this GDPR-compliant and all that?
It is an email field, a button, and a promise. The promise is the load-bearing wall of the whole arrangement, and we intend to keep it standing.