The first sun drop - where I share what I've learned working for myself for nearly 12 years and life as an artist. At first I wasn't sure I wanted to send this kind of writing because of all the stories I was telling myself:
1) I'm not that successful so who am I to share anything?
2) There are hundreds of people out there doing this already.
3) Why would anyone care?
But the stories, are just that - stories. So I asked myself the question most entrepreneurs ask themselves before starting anything: Why am I doing this?
There are many reasons, but honestly I just like sharing knowledge. I've gotten paid multiple times to share knowledge. I've taught art, entrepreneurship, digital media marketing to youth, students, newcomers and seniors - using 12 week curriculums I designed myself. A decade ago I once taught zero waste living to teachers.
I taught what I learned on my own by trial and error and figuring things out myself - like building a website. The first "real" website (outside of MySpace and Tumblr) I ever had was the one I built myself at the Algonquin School of Business on a platform called Tripod. My second website was for Dream Love Grow, a social enterprise turned media production company that I started in 2011 (it's now Kilam Media). Back then, I hired a college friend from business to design it for me. I had very little cash and, at the time, very little patience. I think he got so frustrated with me that he handed me the keys to the domain and recommended that I try doing it myself on Wordpress. Since then I've built countless websites for myself and people using Wordpress, but eventually it felt clunky. I've also used everything from Wix, GoDaddy, Squarespace, Cargo, Google Sites and countless others depending on what clients start with or can afford.
As someone hired for marketing, it's part of my job to learn new trends, test software and programs. When I used to build websites for clients, I wanted them to have autonomy - to feel comfortable managing it on their own when I was done. When Squarespace came along (again from the recommendation of my friend) it felt like a dream. I built websites for my non-profits, my businesses, my clients businesses and it was easy to teach users how to manage it. Because I was so loyal to Squarespace, I would get discounts to pass on. Their email marketing feature is what I used to send all my past Moon Mails to you. And for most people, I still recommend Squarespace - but I felt ready to switch to something else for my own sites.
So why'd I switch?
1) Money. They raised their prices and it was starting to get really costly for someone who wasn't selling products anymore but still had a lot of websites. I was spending at least $500USD/yr on one website alone.
2) I wanted to write more and I'd get in there to blog and just get distracted. That's one thing I loved about Wordpress, it was easy to blog and find readers organically.
3) Everyone's website started to look the same because Squarespace got really good at marketing using influencers.
What do I use now?
For my domains, I used GoDaddy but a few years back, I switched to Rebel (a Canadian company based in Ottawa) because I wanted to support local.
For my hosting, I switched to Carrd because:
1) It gives me 10 sites for the cost of $19/yr.
2) It was really easy to teach myself how to use it.
3) It does everything I need, no fancy bells & whistles.
For blogging/newsletters, I switched to Ghost because:
1) It's meant for blogging, meaning less distractions.
2) It's simple and basic.
3) It's $108/yr. This works for what I want until I want to upgrade for paywalls and subscriptions. For now readers can subscribe for free.
For selling products or receiving donations, I use Stripe or Paypal. Most e-commerce sites have a platform fee plus a processing fee. Using Stripe cuts my fees in half and until I have a complex e-store again, selling this way works for me.
As a business owner in this current economy, saving money is a priority and so is simplicity. Until something else comes along that serves my purpose, Carrd is what I use for now.
You can check out my new Carrd sites here:
www.mailyne.ca | www.kilammedia.ca
Thank you for reading <3
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