🔬 Biological Scientist & Chemist | 🎩 Aspiring Magician | 💻 Building SaaS with AI | 💡 Sharing insights on life, personal growth & more
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Joined August 2009
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If someone were to reply to this out of nowhere months or years later, then I might actually make physical copies on CD for my creator-CMS portfolio boilerplate (if it's not too big), even though it's a joke.
This is my stance on physical media.
Michael Leon | Building an Alternate CMS Platform retweeted
Marc Lou is a huge inspiration for why I build in public.
But I didn’t know Beehiiv is expensive than I thought since I’m on the free tier.
Now I’m thinking of expanding my paid newsletter feature after I finish version 1 of my CMS boilerplate and forking MailCheap somehow.
Bye bye Beehiiv 👋
I vibe-coded my own newsletter platform:
📧 Campaign management w/ editor
🖥️ Web archives (newsletter.marclou.com)
🔗 API support
🫧 List cleanup, deliverability reports
It took a few prompts with Opus 5.5.
I left Beehiiv because they raised prices for the 3rd time in 2 years.
- My first yearly bill was $1,000.
- My future bill would have been $4,000.
Now I'm using AWS SES + MongoDB, and I will pay less than $300/year.
Newsletter platforms charge per subscriber, when in fact the real cost is the number of emails sent. Subscribers will naturally become inactive, so you end up paying more for something that hurts your deliverability (sending to dormant subscribers = spam trap).
So I've set a cleanup cron job for my newsletter alternative. It marks inactive subs as dormant, sends one last re-engaging email, and stops emailing them. Money saved. Deliverability increased.
I also gain a priceless feature: Freedom. I can change the UI, add features, connect all my apps - anything is possible with just a prompt.
I'm replacing Resend next. I love it, but it's very expensive ($400/mo)
Marc Lou is a huge inspiration for why I build in public.
But I didn’t know Beehiiv is expensive than I thought since I’m on the free tier.
Now I’m thinking of expanding my paid newsletter feature after I finish version 1 of my CMS boilerplate and forking MailCheap somehow.
Bye bye Beehiiv 👋
I vibe-coded my own newsletter platform:
📧 Campaign management w/ editor
🖥️ Web archives (newsletter.marclou.com)
🔗 API support
🫧 List cleanup, deliverability reports
It took a few prompts with Opus 5.5.
I left Beehiiv because they raised prices for the 3rd time in 2 years.
- My first yearly bill was $1,000.
- My future bill would have been $4,000.
Now I'm using AWS SES + MongoDB, and I will pay less than $300/year.
Newsletter platforms charge per subscriber, when in fact the real cost is the number of emails sent. Subscribers will naturally become inactive, so you end up paying more for something that hurts your deliverability (sending to dormant subscribers = spam trap).
So I've set a cleanup cron job for my newsletter alternative. It marks inactive subs as dormant, sends one last re-engaging email, and stops emailing them. Money saved. Deliverability increased.
I also gain a priceless feature: Freedom. I can change the UI, add features, connect all my apps - anything is possible with just a prompt.
I'm replacing Resend next. I love it, but it's very expensive ($400/mo)
Michael Leon | Building an Alternate CMS Platform retweeted
Hot take: It's hard to steal ideas from people building in public.
Why?
This one line from The Backrooms struck me.
It's like describing a dog to someone who's never seen a dog, then asking them to draw it.
They'll get some things right. But never the whole thing.
Hot take: It's hard to steal ideas from people building in public.
Why?
This one line from The Backrooms struck me.
It's like describing a dog to someone who's never seen a dog, then asking them to draw it.
They'll get some things right. But never the whole thing.
Michael Leon | Building an Alternate CMS Platform retweeted
Hot take: going “viral” does matter.
People often say “oh you only need 1,000 true fans to make a living online.”
Sure, but your first 1,000 followers are probably NOT going to be your first 1,000 true fans.
You’re probably going to have to get 10,000 or 100,000 followers and nurture them into fans.
There’s 2 approaches:
1. Stay super niche, only talk about ONE thing. Become known for that one thing.
Downside: Only reach people who are interested in that one thing RIGHT NOW.
2. Be yourself. Reach many people. Educate them about your interests. Raise their awareness level. Turn them into customers.
Downside: will take more TIME to nurture.
Personally, I’d rather build cities than one skyscraper. I think you have more fun, can do it for longer, and build a more durable brand.
Michael Leon | Building an Alternate CMS Platform retweeted
Two water hydration calculators on my website had real bugs and messy code I never knew about.
And I couldn’t change a single number they output.
Modifying the results people relied on was risky.
Here's how I fixed it:
Two water hydration calculators on my website had real bugs and messy code I never knew about.
And I couldn’t change a single number they output.
Modifying the results people relied on was risky.
Here's how I fixed it:
The Result
Same math as before. Much cleaner code, better accessibility + proper SEO.
A small detour that needed polishing up a bit. Currently have a few more polishes left now that I'm on my next downtime (Day 174).
(Fixed where it said overweight for people building muscle)
Michael Leon | Building an Alternate CMS Platform retweeted
Recent changes to Codex drained my usage to 0% in 9 hours.
I finished a batch of security documentation despite the issues.
This is for a coding project I started since March, which prompted me to start building in public
I resumed work on August 16 (Day 155-163 [now Day 168])
Recent changes to Codex drained my usage to 0% in 9 hours.
I finished a batch of security documentation despite the issues.
This is for a coding project I started since March, which prompted me to start building in public
I resumed work on August 16 (Day 155-163 [now Day 168])
PR 5 – Cleanup, Monitoring Windows & Final Hardening
Removes transitional paths left by earlier PRs, runs the longer monitoring windows, reconciles all ledgers, and closes the batch with independent review and evidence requirements.