About the new website
I have decided to delete my old website and start from scratch. The only thing I kept is the purple elements here and there - which was in fact accidental, and in no way a deliberate choice, but I ended up linking it a lot so 🤷.
There are two reasons why I decided to move away from the previous iteration of my website:
My motivation has changed
The previous design was sleek - it took me quite a few hours of work in Webflow - and I was fairly proud of it. However, the feeling that it was there mostly for employability was strong: the content, the wording, the way I asked visitors to subscribe to my newsletter, the lead magnet to capture emails - everything was designed to trigger interest in a potential client or employer.
Nowadays, I'm less concerned about getting a web design gig and more concerned about sharing what I have learned. I just want to write to connect with likeminded people who share my ideas on business, marketing and startups. And writing is a powerful way to do it.
The newsletter
I love emails. I am lucky enough to work with email marketing every single day at Airthings, and I truly believe that email is the most underrated channel for marketers, even now that we are in the golden age of email platforms for creators like Substack, GetRevue, Convertkit, etc.
I have loved my newsletter efforts, and I really wanted to double down on it. No fluff, just delivering as much value as possible to an audience and engage with them on a personal level.
So what gives?
There is a renowned platform for publishing, called Ghost: they're open source, they're non-profit, and they have now released an extended set of features for creators, including email and gated content management, with a member area.
This means I can write as much as I want and choose who can access what. No need to build yet another landing page with a lead magnet; no need to build a 5-email course to send via Drip, or a downloadable PDF that nobody would have time to read anyway. I can just write and decide who would read it: perfect for publishing, and it fits my newsletter needs like a glove.
And so, in the end, I figured maybe the next iteration of my website could be more like a collection of writings about stuff that I like, rather than a portfolio website.
Let's see how it goes and how long it lasts, until I change again! In the meantime, feel free to roam around and let me know what you think.