One of my subscribers has a side hustle running a “learn to code” website. And he’s feeling frustrated about making the jump to working for himself. He writes: I struggle a lot with managing time. I work full time as a programmer and the business (iLoveCoding) does not make enough to cover my personal expense. […]
Continue readingLast week I tried an interesting experiment with the Simple Programmer email list. Over the course of 2 days, I sent out 3 “broadcast” emails with just one major difference between them. And just check out the difference in open rates: Email #1 got an abysmal 1.8% open rate (yes 1.8%, that’s NOT a typo). […]
Continue readingBewildered subscriber Aziz writes: Josh, I am asking you for the last time (for the day) How do you constantly keep on coming up with mini meaningful and actionable advice almost daily? Seriously? I have been drowning in analysis paralysis and you keep on cranking things out. HOW? Unfortunately I am no stranger to Mr. […]
Continue readingLast week I wrote up an email for Simple Programmer about a topic all developers love to hate. Namely, “coding puzzles.” Coding puzzles are these annoying riddles they hit you with during job interviews. Most developers hate these puzzles because they’re so far outside the type of problems you actually encounter day to day as […]
Continue readingGot two emails recently that I wanted to share. The first email is about a sales page I wrote where I told a story about a frustrated developer that I called “Mike”: I told a friend of mine about what you guys were doing. So they checked out your site and your “learn anything” product. […]
Continue readingI need to clarify something: This list and my blog are *not* my main business—more like a hobby, a labor of love. I write these emails because I enjoy sharing what I’m learning in my “day job” at Simple Programmer, and because I enjoy interacting with fellow entrepreneurs like YOU. Because of that, there are […]
Continue reading“How bad do you think we burned our list?” My business partner John recently posed the question during a “post-mortem” on our most recent Simple Programmer product promotion. This time we’d launched, of all crazy things, a T-shirt. I typically hate “branded” T-shirts, but this one is actually really cool. The shirt is emblazoned with […]
Continue readingOne of the quirkier hobbies that I’ve gotten into over the years was hand-crafting knives and straight razors. (Yes, the kind you shave with.) When you ask an experienced “bladesmith” how they make such beautiful razors, you’re likely to get the following response: Well, you start with a hunk of steel, and you grind away […]
Continue readingTrue or false: A good product will sell itself. Get people to “sample” of your product and they’ll buy in droves—and you won’t have to say a word. Michael is a marketing consultant who’s wondering about this idea of sampling: I’ve recently decided to take a shot at creating an online program (more like an […]
Continue readingIn my early days of “blogging for dollars,” I got some advice about affiliate marketing: If you’re going to promote a product like, say, a standing desk, you should ALWAYS include a “clickable” picture that links to the product. The reasoning being: People like to click on pictures. So if you make sure to link […]
Continue readingEvery 17 years, Western Pennsylvania where I make my home gets *invaded*. These nasty-looking bugs the size of your thumb called 17 Year Cicadas crawl up out of the ground and start buzzing around everywhere. Unfortunately they’re slow, clumsy fliers. When you’re out driving around, they splatter on the windshield. It’s not so bad when […]
Continue readingEver read “Moby Dick”? One of the characters in the novel, a peg-legged seaman by the name of Captain Ahab, is obsessed with hunting and killing Moby Dick, the huge white whale that bit off his leg in a previous battle. Ol’ Cap keeps chasing Moby Dick, convinced that if he can just harpoon that […]
Continue readingWord to the wise: Whenever a marketing “expert” starts talking about their solution *before* they understand your specific situation—your business, your customers, your previous marketing efforts… Hang onto your wallet. Cuz “one size fits all” is a myth. I talk a lot here about tactics like list-building giveaways and email courses. They’re excellent tools that […]
Continue readingIn chemistry there’s a concept called a “half-life.” From what I understand, the half-life is the amount of time that it takes for radioactive material to decay to the point where it’s giving off half as much radiation as it did on day 1. This happens at a very steady, predictable rate. Well, emails have […]
Continue readingLately my wife and I are binge-watching our way through “Parks and Recreation” for the fifth (possibly sixth?) time. (“Parks and Rec” is my all-time favorite sit-com—sorry, Seinfield lovers, George Castanza can’t hold a candle to Ron Swanson.) The other night we watched an episode from season 7. And in one of the sub-plots city […]
Continue readingSubscriber Sönke says his #1 problem is: My super-sensitive market when it comes to marketing… I am offering online support for psychotherapists. Many standards of email marketing don’t fit that well. Giveaways? To sales-y. Survey participation? Depends. Just trying to figure out how things work well with my audience. The #1 advantage of this market? […]
Continue readingEver buy a book—only to stick it on the shelf and forget all about it? C’mon, get those hands up… Recently I read an analysis by Barnes & Noble showing that 60% of the ebooks people buy are never even *opened*. Not read, OPENED. 60%! Now here’s the scary thing… You know that lead magnet […]
Continue readingBack in August I did a “digital purge”: – I massively unsubscribed from email lists and email notifications that weren’t providing consistent value—nearly 150 subscriptions in all. – I cut social media out of my life almost completely. – I slashed my consumption of “news” to next to nothing. – I stopped listening to almost […]
Continue readingSeveral times a month, I get a skeptical email that goes something like this one from a guy named Carl: Hey Josh, quick question. Why did you stop the sublime text tips site if you got so many email subscribers from the giveaway? Did they not convert to become buyers so you pivoted to your […]
Continue readingNothing makes me happier as a teacher than seeing a student take the ball and run with it. Subscriber Chad is one of those. He’s been paying attention and implementing—and his list is starting to perk up and take notice. Chad recently forwarded me an email he got from one of *his* subscribers. Chad says: […]
Continue readingSeveral years ago I moved my still-tiny “Sublime Text Tips” email list from Aweber to MailChimp. MailChimp had a feature where they’d send you a daily email update on your list growth. Seemed cool, so I set it up. Every morning I’d get a message: 4 New Subscribers 4 Unsubscribed 515 List Subscribers Let me […]
Continue readingRecently I started mentoring a programmer-entrepreneur named Dan. Last year Dan wrote a book about Sublime Text for the Python programming language, and he thought I might be interested in promoting it to my large email list of Sublime Text fans. I said, I’ll go ya one better: Let’s team up on this. Turn that […]
Continue readingA consulting client of mine named Geneve offers a high-end marketing service for photographers, and she’s looking to haul in some new clients. She asks: Do you publish any of your work/articles/insight anywhere else? Just curious. I’m thinking of doing a series of articles on the photography business on Medium?? I want to start getting […]
Continue readingFew weeks back I sent out a survey asking whether you had any questions about launching and marketing a book. I happened to be traveling the day the email went out. Heh. Pro-tip: Don’t ask your list for replies when you’ll be away from your computer. Took me *days* to dig out from that. But […]
Continue readingOnce I had a chance to interview one of the best-known bloggers in the programming niche. Toward the end of the interview, I made a rookie blunder: I asked a question with the main purpose of trying to impress the guy, who at the time I really looked up to. I don’t remember exactly what […]
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