Congratulations on being quoted in The Atlantic—such a well-deserved recognition for your valuable insights on starting a newsletter. And thank you for curating such a rich collection! Your diverse recommendations, from Jeremy Caplan's tools of 2023 to hidden gems, have me eagerly looking forward to diving into these reads.
That exactly happened to me. I provide technical services and had been using a Self-Hosted CRM (Contact Resource Management) system running on a Linux box. It was great in the beginning, maybe because I had more time and desire to learn those things. But as years past, I realized that I would constantly need to update and maintain it. And when it switched to a paid model completely, that was out of my price range, I realized I need to find another solution. I spent a year researching and testing other CRM options, on and off, because deep down, I really didn't want to continue to roll my own, but I didn't know that yet. When I did find a solution that I could implement there was so much friction around getting it deployed that I started to go into depression. It was then that I started to look for a way out. During my research, I looked a ZohoCRM, it was a online, cloud solution, but I was avoiding cloud solutions at the time because I didn't trust SAAS (Software as a service).
Finally I decided to just give in a bit, I did some research on the Zoho company itself and found that many of their customers thought they were pretty trustworthy, I also checked their support forums and found that they answered and resolve many of the important things their customers wanted. It took me 3 months to migrate my data and customize the platform the way I needed, this is in stark contrast to rolling your own which can take a year, maybe more, to get everything right.
This new platform has saved me more time then I ever thought possible. Not only because I don't have to worry about the hosting aspects of maintaining a server, but because of how mature their SAAS implementation was. Many of the integrations they have, improve the speed in which I provide my services, something I would have had limited time for if I hosted my own.
I just wanted to say, I make a point to read every thing you write in these newsletters, from top to bottom, because I know I am going to find things that are of interest and relevant to my particular writing style. You work is very valuable to me and I am forever in your debt. Thank you for taking the time out of your life to educate people on what you find interesting.
Hmmm. Julie Childs notebooks..I can see an "Elenor's Guide to top notch eating" coming :):). or MAYBE, the influence on Food Spices in Human History ( Wars have been fought over access to Spices).....The reason North America was discovered was Royals in pursuit of a shorter route to the Western Pacific/Indian Ocean region. And the history of Tea is fascinating....
I am definitely the wrong person for a cookbook, although I do have a binder where I keep all the (annotated) recipes I use in plastic page protectors... I mostly just toss in a bunch of what I've got and it's never the same twice.
Congratulations on being quoted in The Atlantic—such a well-deserved recognition for your valuable insights on starting a newsletter. And thank you for curating such a rich collection! Your diverse recommendations, from Jeremy Caplan's tools of 2023 to hidden gems, have me eagerly looking forward to diving into these reads.
> I was quoted in this article, on the topic of [what I wish I’d known before I started my newsletter](https://inboxcollective.com/what-i-wish-id-known-before-launching-my-newsletter/).
That exactly happened to me. I provide technical services and had been using a Self-Hosted CRM (Contact Resource Management) system running on a Linux box. It was great in the beginning, maybe because I had more time and desire to learn those things. But as years past, I realized that I would constantly need to update and maintain it. And when it switched to a paid model completely, that was out of my price range, I realized I need to find another solution. I spent a year researching and testing other CRM options, on and off, because deep down, I really didn't want to continue to roll my own, but I didn't know that yet. When I did find a solution that I could implement there was so much friction around getting it deployed that I started to go into depression. It was then that I started to look for a way out. During my research, I looked a ZohoCRM, it was a online, cloud solution, but I was avoiding cloud solutions at the time because I didn't trust SAAS (Software as a service).
Finally I decided to just give in a bit, I did some research on the Zoho company itself and found that many of their customers thought they were pretty trustworthy, I also checked their support forums and found that they answered and resolve many of the important things their customers wanted. It took me 3 months to migrate my data and customize the platform the way I needed, this is in stark contrast to rolling your own which can take a year, maybe more, to get everything right.
This new platform has saved me more time then I ever thought possible. Not only because I don't have to worry about the hosting aspects of maintaining a server, but because of how mature their SAAS implementation was. Many of the integrations they have, improve the speed in which I provide my services, something I would have had limited time for if I hosted my own.
I just wanted to say, I make a point to read every thing you write in these newsletters, from top to bottom, because I know I am going to find things that are of interest and relevant to my particular writing style. You work is very valuable to me and I am forever in your debt. Thank you for taking the time out of your life to educate people on what you find interesting.
I liked Zoho a lot when I used it, years ago in another life. I'm glad to hear their reputation is still good -- and that I'm able to be helpful!
Self hosting is a useful skill I'm glad I learned... But I'm also pretty glad I don't have to do it anymore 😂 good to hear I'm not alone!
Hmmm. Julie Childs notebooks..I can see an "Elenor's Guide to top notch eating" coming :):). or MAYBE, the influence on Food Spices in Human History ( Wars have been fought over access to Spices).....The reason North America was discovered was Royals in pursuit of a shorter route to the Western Pacific/Indian Ocean region. And the history of Tea is fascinating....
I am definitely the wrong person for a cookbook, although I do have a binder where I keep all the (annotated) recipes I use in plastic page protectors... I mostly just toss in a bunch of what I've got and it's never the same twice.