Why Blog?

Just under a decade ago, when I was still single, I started a personal blog. It focused on nothing in particular, it was kind of all over the place. I reviewed books I had read, talked about events in my life -- it was kind of a public journal. Actually, I guess it probably could only be called “public” if more than my mom read it, who I think was my sole subscriber. I soon gave up on it because I ran out of content, discovering my life wasn’t actually very interesting.

This time around I’ve decided to narrow the focus of my blogging to building a software as a service (SaaS) business -- which I know almost nothing about. And really that’s the beauty of it. I’m going to use this blog as a platform to share my experiences, mistakes, and musings on my journey to trying to start a successful SaaS business. Now, at my day job I work for a SaaS business, so I guess I know something about it. But I just do the work on the product, I don’t get to manage the business.

I’m a software engineer by trade so there will certainly be technical articles about the things I’m working through while building the product. Down the road, once I have a product, I’m hoping to have more of the business-related content as I stumble through the process of trying to convince people to try out my product(s).

The Why

Now, you might be thinking, or maybe it is just me that is thinking this: what if no one really cares about what I have to share? Even if no one -- except my mom and hopefully my wife -- reads my blog, I still want to continue writing for several reasons.

First, I want to improve and expand my written communication skills and I’m hoping to achieve that by regularly sharing what I’ve learned.

Secondly, I have found that writing down what I learn is a critical way for me to solidify it in my head. The process of trying to organize the ideas bouncing around in my head into words that make sense in a sentence and can be understood by others is crucial to me remembering what I learned. Also, for me, just the act of teaching someone what I have learned activates that same solidification process. So, to use the cliché, I’m killing two birds with one stone.

Lastly, I’d like to document the process of building a web application so people can be inspired to do the same with their ideas. I want people to ask themselves: “If this unlearned clown can do it, why can’t I?”. I want to encourage people that are like I was and sometimes still am. I lacked the motivation to start a project because I felt I would run into a wall I couldn’t get over and then give up. I probably won’t be able to document it in a step-by-step, tutorial-like fashion. But I want to show solutions to the tough problems I run into, those problems that seemed like the walls I’d never get over. They probably won’t be the most elegant or optimized solution, but they keep me from giving up and that’s what is important -- at least to me.

The What

That’s the why. Now some specifics on what I want to focus on. The majority of my articles, especially early on, will probably be technical: things I’m learning, best practices I have developed or adopted, etc. relating to database systems, frontend frameworks, and DevOps. DevOps is a weaker area for me, so more articles might revolve around that.

As I already mentioned, I’d like to get into the business stuff too, assuming I get my product off the ground. Things like how to market a SaaS product, how to price it effectively, product-led growth, etc. These are all things that will be completely new to me and I’m excited to jump in and share my experiences (mistakes) and what I learned from them.

I also might throw in some productivity/life hacks relating to software development and business. I tend to have a focus on efficiency in my life and squeezing every last ounce of productivity out of my day. So, posts about creating good habits and working on character traits are likely. In fact, I’m hoping this site will be the successful product of a good habit. I have made a 2021 goal to start (and continue) the habit of writing for at least 10 minutes every day.

The Won't

Now, for things you won’t see out of this blog.

As you have probably already gathered, I don’t use perfect grammar or punctuation. This is a technical blog, not an English site. That probably (hopefully) won’t be changing.

I’m not going to try constraining myself by having a target word count like I have read is important. That will just give me one more reason to quit, and I already have more than enough reasons to do that. I’ll write about the topic until I feel the topic is sufficiently explained and try not to drag it out too long.

Good humor. I try to be funny, it usually isn’t any good though. So, you can definitely expect attempts at humor probably falling somewhere on the “dad joke” spectrum, but don’t expect yourself to laugh out loud about anything here.

That’s all I’ve got.