If you’re reading this, there’s a 99% chance you are coming from a search engine and you’re looking for something that’s no longer here. Let me explain why…

Here’s to the sleezy marketers

A few years ago, I was caught into the content marketing, building info products and growing huge email lists movement.

I thought it was cool: you build an email list, then sell a product to those people and make some money. On paper, it sounds perfect, except it’s not.

To grow your email list, you need to pester your readers with pop-ups, signup forms, and sneaky techniques like promising to deliver amazing value to them if they sign-up for your newsletter, but guess what? Those content upgrades, as they’re called, are most of the time either useless, or something you could get elsewhere on the same site.

Another thing I didn’t like was the writing: even if you have something valueable to say, you’re encouraged to present it in a way which might increase the chances of your readers either subscribing to your newsletter, or sharing your content. So lots of clickbaity headlines, lots of images and other tricks to tempt the reader to share the article.

All in all, these techniques will make you look less genuine and more gimmicky, even though your intention might be good.

And don’t get me wrong, I believe having a newsletter is important: it allows you to keep in contact with people who like your work and it makes it easier to enjoy your content for those who don’t want to use an RSS reader. Which is why I still have a newsletter you just won’t be asked tirelessly to subscribe to it.

Going forward

So I decided to nuke my old website and start with a fresh slate. I’ll also be shifting my focus from entrepreneurship to whatever-the-hell-I-want-to-write-about.

What you can expect is more articles about Web development, which is what I truly enjoy doing, and other tech-related stuff. I might drop a kind of op-ed post every now and then to express my thoughts on important issues, but mostly it will be dev and tech.

As much as I like starting businesses and talking about it, I feel like the entrepreneurship niche is a bit of a dumpster, full of people trying to exploit other people’s dreams. And I don’t want to be associate with them.

Ad maiora…