Maximum Freedom 👊
👋 Welcome!
Balaji S. Srinivasan believes we should slowly exit Twitter and all set up our own paid newsletters on Ghost. Why? It’s not only the latest Bitcoin hack that bothers Balaji. It’s the “many overlapping issues around security, authentication, pseudonymity, distribution, incentives, and culture.” He greatly respects what Jack has built, “but we need change.” And despite Substack being a great platform, Balaji believes that the benefits of using your own domain plus the self-hosting option allow for Maximum Freedom. Going forward, “we may be able to knit these newsletters together into a decentralized media community, with individual sites as the new profiles.” Not so sure there will be the mass exodus from Twitter quite yet. Substack has also given a few writers the ability to use their own domain and might offer this option to more users. But if the last few months have shown anything, it’s the desire for a broad variety of people to express their thoughts in newsletters! let’s see where it goes. Read the full thread and his guide on how to set up a paid newsletter using Ghost.
😺 Product Hunt Update
July 19, 2020
🥇 Templatery: Templates for your Figma presentations.
🥈 Style Organizer: A Figma plugin for organizing colour & text styles.
🥉 Random TED Talk: Watch a random TED talk at the click of a button.
July 18, 2020
🥇 Priceless AI: All-you-can-eat image object detection @ fixed monthly price.
🥈 Brightland Vinegars: Living in a golden state.
🥉 Focus Mode by Geekbot: Set yourself to focus in Slack.
July 17, 2020
🥈 Lean Canvas Power-Up for Trello: Create a 1-page business plan.
🥉 Slazzer: Remove image background in just 5 seconds with A.I.
🚀 Maker News
Publishing
We’ve all seen the recent successful publications by Daniel Vassallo on Gumroad and Arvid Kahl on Gumroad and Amazon KDP. In an in-depth post, Hassan Osman looks at the differences between these two platforms. In summary, he writes that if you have a large audience and “want to maximize profits” then Gumroad is for you. But if you have a smaller audience and rely on organic traffic or care more about brand value, then he would go for Amazon KDP. Additionally, with Amazon, creating a paperback version of your book is easy. He points out, that despite more work, you could publish on both platforms and “gain double the advantages.” But if you decide to do this, you should be careful about different pricing. Easiest is just to use the same price on all platforms, although this might mean lower sales in Gumroad. Read the full post.
Audio Apps
In his latest newsletter Three Things For The Curious Mind, KP briefly discusses Chalk, the emerging competitor to Clubhouse and buzziest audio app of 2020. Chalk offers instant, secure voice rooms. When joining an audio room you have the option to just listen in or request to speak. Dan Rowden adds, that you can also text chat, which adds a “new dynamic layer on top of audio”. Additionally, it’s more open to new members and feels more inclusive; “it’s hip vs Clubhouse’s established vibe.” At the same time, “Clubhouse currently has the edge on content and the names in the conversations.” Read Dan’s thread and checkout KP’s latest newsletter.
NoCode Tools & AMA
Maker Quentin Villard from Paris has launched a new project. Tims is a database of over 200 FREE tools. The goal is to help new makers build and grow their online projects with NoCode and no budget. You can pre-order access on Gumroad for $29. If you're interested in learning how Quentin built his site, read this thread.
While on NoCode, Max Haining from 100DaysOfNoCode shared a helpful video from his latest AMA with the Michael Gill, the king of automation and make of Maker Minions and Integreat. Watch the video below.
💭 Afterthought
Last week we looked at the relationship between audience and assets as the cornerstone of social capital. In his Tweet below Adam J. Ceresko reiterates this well. Grow a community, then build the product that serves them. Additional value can be created by “monitoring metrics to identify problems” and “talking to users to understand the why behind the problems.” Take care and see you tomorrow.
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