The first article I published on Elezea was called The dangers of “test and learn”. It was about A/B testing, it was badly written, and it went live on August 3rd, 2009. Since then I’ve posted 1,282 links and articles on this site (that’s an average of 2-3 posts per week).

It’s ridiculous to think that Elezea is coming up on being 10 years old. It is not an exaggeration to say that it sparked most of my career development and helped me meet countless people who I now consider friends. Starting this site was one of the best decisions I ever made. I wish I could go back in time and choose a less impossible-to-remember URL, but such is life.

So what do I do now, after all this time? On reflection I realized all I really want to do is keep writing. I took a couple of breaks over the years, but for the most part, this has been one of the few constants in my life. And I’d like to keep that going in a sustainable way.

So today I’m announcing two things to help set this in motion.

The Elezea Newsletter

For the past few years, the Elezea Newsletter has been simply a list of the articles that went on the site that week. That’s useful as a Twitter/RSS replacement, but not much else. Since my interests extend beyond the product management world into the broader impact of technology on our work and our lives, I am relaunching the Newsletter this Friday to include a wider variety of topics:

• Useful articles and resources about product management and software development.
• Resources for leading teams, and working better together.
• Industry-wide product and technology news you should know about.
• Book and tool recommendations.

If that sounds interesting to you, please sign up!

Monthly memberships

On the “sustainability” side of things, I decided to launch memberships to help cover the ongoing costs of running a site (and newsletter) like this. I have no ambitions for this to become my main job — I like my job! But I would very much like for the site to at least pay for itself in terms of domain, hosting, and subscription costs.

So if you’ve been reading Elezea for a while and have found it valuable, please consider becoming a member. It costs $4/month, and will help keep Elezea independent and free from advertising.

Whether you’ve been with me from the start, or if this is the second post you’ve ever read, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Elezea is a small part of the internet, but it’s a big part of my life. And it’s your encouragement and support over the years that make it so.

Here’s to the next decade 🤘

(Now go become a member!)