Do you know where they are? Do you trust who they’re with?
Among my new circles on Medium and elsewhere, minimalism is all the rage.
I’ve even adjusted my kinda-regular newsletter Solid Cash Tips on a minimalist model, based on what I learned in Evan Kelly’s Skool community.
The bumper sticker for minimalist businesses, side hustles, newsletters, books, and so forth is that “simple and quick” trumps “complex and involved.”
Minimalism applied to the tool stack
The tool stack, or app stack, is the set of tools and services that a creator uses for their business. A lot of these come at either a one-time cost or a recurring cost.
Choosing tools that do the job needed is likely most important factor in choosing a tool. Beyond that are other considerations like cost and ease of use.
Finding a tool that serves several functions can be a big win. Just like smartphones replaced a whole bunch of single-use tools, finding a website or service that combines, say, newsletter delivery, publishing, and promotion, is very appealing.
Fewer tools mean fewer places to keep track of, and potentially less cost. It’s a win in several ways.
Eggs and baskets
Fewer tools also means that each tool stores, and provides access to, more information, as well as more important information.
No tool provides complete control over the information, but some definitely provide more control than others.
Let’s compare a self-hosted WordPress blog with a third-party platform like Blogspot. (These were two viable options when I started blogging in 2005. There are many other similar platforms now, such as Substack, Medium, Quora, and others.)
The WordPress blog requires a domain name and hosting, each of which cost money. Then there’s the cost of any customization to purpose, as well as ongoing maintenance. The advantage is that as long as you pay for your domain and hosting, you largely control its ongoing existence on the internet.
A third-party platform may be low-cost or free, and may handle all of the maintenance. The disadvantage, though, it that the platform is not one you own. You are subject to the terms and conditions of the owner, which may change over time. They also can disable access to your account for pretty much any reason.
My first hosting gave me a scare
My first hosting for my blog was with 1&1 Internet, now Ionos. I signed up with them with a very inexpensive offer for three years. It worked for quite a while until the traffic to my blog grew.
The deal also included a free domain name for the first year, which I also took advantage of.
That was the part that ended up giving me the scare.
At times the hosting struggled to serve my website, and sometimes went down for extended periods of time.
But when the site went down, I was really stuck, because my domain was registered with the same company. Both keys to my online kingdom, the domain name and the hosting, rested with them.
At first opportunity, I transferred the domain to Namecheap, and never looked back. Now, if my hosting really went south, I could point the domain to a new host.
And then there was Jose, and more recently others
Two decades ago I was involved in some MLM programs (yeah, I know) and related promotion techniques.
One guy named Jose had invested substantial money in someone else’s platform for promotion. He ticked off the owner, and the owner unceremoniously shut him down.
More recently, I’ve seen others have their Twitter / X accounts, their Facebook Groups, and other accounts taken down. Sometimes they get them back, and other times they don’t.
Consolidation has its risks. Are you aware?
So most recently I see other creators moving to all-in-one platforms like Substack and canceling accounts to their email list managers and even their hosting. For minimalism, and for saving money.
As long as Substack keeps everything running for these creators, it was a good move.
It’s a calculated risk to rely on third-party platforms for critical pieces of your business. The fewer the number of platforms, the greater the risk each one carries.
If having a service go down would severely impact your business, then you may be carrying too much risk.
Risks like this can be mitigated
Regular backups of key data keep more control over the information that’s important. Like email lists, all forms of content, and links.
Flexibility in implementation lets you change services if you need to without a lot of rework. Maybe a centralized link repository to avoid fragmenting SEO-friendly links. Or exporting content to a common format that can be imported elsewhere.
Redundancy can mitigate risk. Publishing content on multiple platforms reduces the dependency on any one platform.
Bottom line: Simplify and minimize where you can, but make sure you have firm control of the keys to your online kingdom.
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I’m John and I encourage entrepreneurship in people, including myself.
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