My move to Substack, a bit about how the newsletter has grown, and a great story about how I helped drive down errors across dozens of systems, without my team lifting a finger.
I'm glad to see you here. A big thank you for your invaluable articles that have significantly aided my interview preparation. The landscape pictures are truly awesome too!
I always look forward to your posts and now more than ever as I just made the switch to manager.
However something I’ve learned is that you don’t need to be a manager to be a leader. Everyone can lead and influence regardless of if they have the title or not.
Your story was actually a great example, you didn’t have direct ability to change the error rates, but were able to influence others to do so.
Really enjoyed that. 🤝
And again I look forward to seeing you around here!
Dec 6, 2023·edited Dec 6, 2023Liked by Dave Anderson
This was a beautiful read, giving everyone visibility into how their systems were doing and they also rising up to tackle the challenges shows the power of visibility and people taking ownership. I love your strategy.
Love your articles and glad to have you on the same consumption and payment platform as a few others I subscribe to. Congrats on the amazing growth you’ve had.
Curious how your experience was with the migration, both in porting over your old articles and moving over paying subscribers (especially annual plans).
Not too bad Carlos. Both Ghost & Substack use Stripe for the payments platform, so the move itself isn't crazy. As far as I'm aware (and observed), everyone is ported over as-is, both monthly & annual.
Substack did the port for me (it's technically self-service, but they did the work for me), so I can't speak to the complexity if I had to do it all myself.
The biggest issue I've seen is small, random things. Like old links which don't work (because I have since deleted the page). So far so good :)
Dec 20, 2023·edited Dec 20, 2023Liked by Dave Anderson
I've avoided using Substack in the past for reasons you cited in the article; I'm a (soon to be ex!) manager who did a lot of OTJ learning (in a new department, just to make all the acronyms especially confusing), and I loved your writing on the biggest ROI investment you made at Amazon being one that did not require "quickly skilling up in the most complex engineering topic" which many similar stories seem to imply is the only way to achieve greatness.
However, being naturally frugal I figured I should see if a subscription is worth paying for by subscribing to the zero effort tier. :)
Although, I am leaving a comment, because I did want to thank you for a great newsletter read! I look forward to the next one. Thank you!
We're all influenced by our own biases. I've been successful not because I learned the most complex engineering topics, but because I figured out how to get things done. And I'm sure there are engineers who were successful by learning the most complex engineering topics.. so they write about what their experience has shown them.
Great thing is that we can all learn from what has worked (or not worked) in each other's experience!
Glad to see you on Substack! Yet more evidence I made the right call (in the middle of a move myself). You’re motivating me to get it done and write my version of “why I moved to Substack.” 🤣
Speaking of which, very nice intro. Fun to read and impactful. 👍
I’m glad you moved here, Dave. You’re right, the search feature was lacking from your previous platform. I learn a lot from your articles around interviewing. It’s not just for the sake of interviewing but I can reflect on myself, what can I improve, etc. Keep those coming
Good to see you here. Now, I can start listening to your posts on my phone using Substack app instead of having to find time on a Sunday to read it!
I completely forgot about that feature! I should have listed it :)
I'm glad to see you here. A big thank you for your invaluable articles that have significantly aided my interview preparation. The landscape pictures are truly awesome too!
Thanks Toan! I'm glad to hear that your interview prep has been aided :)
Amazing to have you here on Substack!
I can safely say out of my newsletters, yours has been the most influential when making decisions in my career.
I look forward to taking advantage of all the new features and ways to interact!
Thanks so much! I appreciate the kind words :)
Awesome having you over on Substack Dave!
I always look forward to your posts and now more than ever as I just made the switch to manager.
However something I’ve learned is that you don’t need to be a manager to be a leader. Everyone can lead and influence regardless of if they have the title or not.
Your story was actually a great example, you didn’t have direct ability to change the error rates, but were able to influence others to do so.
Really enjoyed that. 🤝
And again I look forward to seeing you around here!
This was a beautiful read, giving everyone visibility into how their systems were doing and they also rising up to tackle the challenges shows the power of visibility and people taking ownership. I love your strategy.
Wonderful to have you on Substack, Dave! Thanks for coming over.
Thanks Hamish! I appreciate the warm welcome here!
Great story, I think the measurements and visibility lesson is extremely valuable!
Good to have you, Dave. Think this was definitely a "when", not "if".
Glad to see you here also, along my other subscriptions, which are exactly those from Gergely and Alex 🙂 Pretty great content from all of you👌
Thanks Adrian! I appreciate being in such great company!
Love your articles and glad to have you on the same consumption and payment platform as a few others I subscribe to. Congrats on the amazing growth you’ve had.
Curious how your experience was with the migration, both in porting over your old articles and moving over paying subscribers (especially annual plans).
Not too bad Carlos. Both Ghost & Substack use Stripe for the payments platform, so the move itself isn't crazy. As far as I'm aware (and observed), everyone is ported over as-is, both monthly & annual.
Substack did the port for me (it's technically self-service, but they did the work for me), so I can't speak to the complexity if I had to do it all myself.
The biggest issue I've seen is small, random things. Like old links which don't work (because I have since deleted the page). So far so good :)
I've avoided using Substack in the past for reasons you cited in the article; I'm a (soon to be ex!) manager who did a lot of OTJ learning (in a new department, just to make all the acronyms especially confusing), and I loved your writing on the biggest ROI investment you made at Amazon being one that did not require "quickly skilling up in the most complex engineering topic" which many similar stories seem to imply is the only way to achieve greatness.
However, being naturally frugal I figured I should see if a subscription is worth paying for by subscribing to the zero effort tier. :)
Although, I am leaving a comment, because I did want to thank you for a great newsletter read! I look forward to the next one. Thank you!
Thanks Phoebe! I'm glad you liked the writing! :)
We're all influenced by our own biases. I've been successful not because I learned the most complex engineering topics, but because I figured out how to get things done. And I'm sure there are engineers who were successful by learning the most complex engineering topics.. so they write about what their experience has shown them.
Great thing is that we can all learn from what has worked (or not worked) in each other's experience!
Glad to see you on Substack! Yet more evidence I made the right call (in the middle of a move myself). You’re motivating me to get it done and write my version of “why I moved to Substack.” 🤣
Speaking of which, very nice intro. Fun to read and impactful. 👍
Thanks much Zac! I'm always glad when someone explicitly mentions that they like something I wrote :)
By the way Gergely (Pragmatic Engineer) sent me here and I subscribed right away.
Gergely's newsletter is great :)
I love how you added some squeak to the wheel. I recently instituted a "name and shame" report and the response was as dramatic as you describe.
Super interesting read, Dave!
I’m glad you moved here, Dave. You’re right, the search feature was lacking from your previous platform. I learn a lot from your articles around interviewing. It’s not just for the sake of interviewing but I can reflect on myself, what can I improve, etc. Keep those coming