I’ve contemplated putting together a tech blog for a long time but have yet to put rubber to road and make it happen. I had previously hosted a blog on ghost.com and I liked it for a lot of reasons but I didn’t devote enough time to it. Then there was also the problem of cost while $30 a month won’t break the bank, it made it easy for me to take money away from that avenue when I was in a tight spot. Right now they are holding my content hostage unless I pay them to get it back so I can move it here. That is not something I will do. I am now hosting it myself.
Goals
I think anything worth doing should have some goals. Here are some goals I have thought about.
Content
- Make exceptionally readable content
- When I talk about tech make it as approachable as possible
- Have fun!
- Make my readers more proficient developers
- Make my readers more money
- Do what I can to be as inclusive as possible
- Be transparent
Technology
- Make my blog affordable and sustainable
- Make it “fast” even on 3G
- Minimize bloat
- Collect as much data as possible
- Automate as much as possible so I can focus on content
Other Goals
- Video Content
- Podcast
- Courses
Financial
- Get consulting leads
- Sell relevant products that readers would care about
- Put all side money towards paying off my house
- Pay off house by Jan 1 2025
- Put money into retirement
- “Retire” by Jan 1 2030
OMG, you want to make money from this? Well, yes. I am a big believer in getting paid for value, if I’m not bringing you value you won’t pay me, easy.
My first goal is quality content but through that the goal is to increase audience to a size that I can bring marketable tools, courses, products, and services to and offset my primary income.
So what happens next?
I have some tasks I have to take care of. I still have a little cleanup to do on the site (bio, contact, etc.) but I didn’t want to stand on formality to start writing content. It’s been awhile since I’ve written so I feel like this would be a good chance to get back into the swing of it and also help me get my thoughts out.
Once I’m done with the cleanup I will start my first tech post which will be a series on how I created this site, what tools I used, what marketing tools I’ll be using, and what I’m using for content and image management. My goal is to be as close as possible to zero dollars.
I will also have a post on migrating content off ghost.com and hosting it yourself for $0.00 to $0.30 a month. In both posts I will probably have a template of this site for sale and then a digital tip jar for the ghost article. If you planned on having a blog on ghost.com for the next year I saved you at least $300 and if you were gonna do it for the next 5 I will save you at least $1,800 so asking for a lunch doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
I think I’m also going to make certain asset-type items based off a pay what you want model. I’ll give a recommended payment for what I think the value is and why. Then, I’ll let the reader pick their own price. Back to one of my goals being data collection I think this will bring some interesting data.
You keep talking about data
What are you going to do with it?
Short answer is, I have no idea, but I have been in tech long enough to know having data is always beneficial. I may never know what I want to do with it, but by having it I can always decide later what I want to do with it.
If you ever want to reach out to me please, DM me on twitter, or add me on Linkedin links are in the footer.