Val Sopi 👋

Hey friends, a quick intro about me — I am a dev by trade + designer by edu. Currently work with the TALL stack but also a forked CI3 + jquery combo (love me some nostalgia) I run BlogMaker.app I blog at valsopi.com Podacast solo at bootstrapping-saas.transistor.fm Could you intro yourself? 👋

Is anyone still here 👀

Don’t get caught up in chasing a goal that might not be your actual goal any longer… constantly reevaluate your goal’s goals 👇

Blogmaker is 5 years this April. These are some of the key lessons I could think of that I picked up along the way: valsopi.com/saas-5-year-...

FYI PSA …

Earlier I launched the updated /showcase section in Blogmaker 90+ customer blogs ranging from business, to products, services, culture, news, hobbies, journals... It's wild to me that I made something others are making their own thing with it 🤯 Check it out: blogmaker.app/showcase

Bsky content is so much better than twitter lately / but still engagement is so low. There’s literally zero to 1 comments on posts. Maybe removing them altogether is not a bad idea. People post, people see, and that’s that. Maybe it’s also a result of people posting and not coming back to engage 🤔

Every seasoned dev I am speaking to, they’re still coding their code and using AI incrementally. Unless they are forced to by their FOMO leads at their job. Is my sample what is happening across the board?

While reading a really bad Hemingway short story, I had a quick business thought about the importance of “who” is behind a product.

Things I tell myself — Nothing is promised. Hard work guarantees nothing, but it puts you in the best position possible. Getting lucky makes a few things easier. Distribution and momentum are king. Keep chasing the belief and put your best foot forward. One solid step at a time. ✊

Look at this passage by Jason @asmartbear.com longform.asmartbear.com/chaos-at-start

Hey friends. I want to be more active on here. How do I do it? I know you’re going to say “well, be more active!” / but I have tried and not many people reply. Has it changed?

I am not as active on here as I want to, but peeking through the curtain once in a while and I like 🌊

Is this thing still on?

It’s so refreshing to be on bsky compared to anything else. No one on my feed is pushing anything, just thoughts and takes, experiences, lessons. Not sure how long this will last, but I like.

Highly recommend this / first time I came across this

Having my coffee turkish style is such a game changer for me. Love the texture of the actual coffee. Highly recommend it, if you want to give it a try. A quick yt short / and you can use your espresso coffee to make it. www.youtube.com/shorts/jrbH7...

wait bsky has bookmarks! have i been gone for that long?

Man @justinjackson.ca @jonbuda.com it was great hearing you guys talk shop. Inspiring me to record an episode on my pod. Prob the reason I started podcasting was because of yous.

There are literally zero comments on +95% on the posts of the people I follow. Are people only cross posting here or just posting regardless of zero interactions to their posts?

Oof I have not been active on here in a while. How’s everyone doing?

Duped time and again from replying to ghost cross–posting accounts 🤦‍♂️ Not sure how to ask them kindly, since they’re not here, to not keep doing this because it ruins bsky for the rest of us. 🙏

What if “everything is predetermined” but not in a religious way, only in a way that our processing is delayed and something we have already done we didn’t get to experience it yet. And deja vu is when we experience it slightly earlier. Exploring neuroscience a bit and this came to mind.

Got to use my iPhone 16 as a webcam today, and just wow! The out–of–focus background, the colors, all of it. Phenomenal.

** if anyone sees my liking my own posts it’s because I use the like button as a bookmark. And yes I bookmark my posts because i want to keep up with something I have said ** @bsky.app pls bookmarks

A BlogMaker.app client posted this on their Linkedin and I'm way over the moon 🚀🌕🥳 There are times when I've asked a happy client to write a testimonial for BlogMaker, this was not one of those times. What a wonderful surprise 🏆

Super excited about leaning into the mission that has been there waiting for me this entire time. It's been a nerve racking few months, with price changes and positioning. Back to the roots: The reason behind it all and back at the initial price of $39/year, for 5 blogs! PS: Yes, that's my hand!

The irony on this post 🥹 It asks for blogs without paywall, yet you can't comment on it 🤷‍♂️ We've over engineered products / looking at you @bsky.app

There's something about the ocean that wakes me up, helps me believe, and makes me realize how small I am so I don't get tangled up in my ego. Sadly I don't live close to an ocean any longer. I hope to soon get back to it. But, for the moment, this playlist is getting me through it all.

Hey friends, if you work at a 20+ person company, can you please DM me. I have a question or two about my new B2B SaaS / a thing or two I want to clarify. Or reply below and I'll DM you.

Finally managed to put this into words. Something I've known to be true for me for ages and I hope it makes sense to you. —There is a sort of freedom in which you do things the way you want to do them because that's how you believe they should be, which ultimately ties into who you really are.

Done and done! BlogMaker has plenty of value to back up this pricing. It's a premium product without any gimmicks and I want to be more upfront about it all ✊

Conundrum: Low pricing $39/year brings a ton more activity, sales, but a ton of dirty baggage of random support tickets, refund requests. Normal pricing +$19/month, brings serious clients, but less pace of growth, and a calmer business. What do I do? I already know the answer yeah. 🤔

When I grew up, sports were fun, and a good hang with friends, traveling to the next town over etc. My son (13) plays tennis and we’ve been going to a few tournaments. The level of parent involvement with coaches in tow and the demands of the sport at this young age are just insane.

Here’s something interesting. BlogMaker gives the user the power to tweak every element’s color, padding, and especially font — which makes it possible to match the design of your existing website, but you have to diy (which I like a lot) but I am not ppl and ppl like it done for them.

One of the ways to stay relevant throughout is having a personal blog. Being active on social media is super important, but social media is ephemeral. Your blog is forever. People will learn more about you from a single thoughtful piece you wrote on your blog than they will from your tweets.

My office for the day: the shopping mall 🛍️ I’ve been not going to my coworking recently. Just mixing it up between home office and other random spots 😅

Was talking to a founder friend earlier, how BlogMaker's position might be low–cost + ready to go. And if that's that, then so be it. I'm all in for it ✊ Want to see how this experiment goes and if so, potentially stick with it. I have a few more thoughts, but I'll try to rec a pod episode.

Did this new H1 for BlogMaker.app in tandem with experimenting with a $39/year price point for 5 blogs — so clients can run their biz blog(s) and personal blog within the same account and for one single yearly price! Is BlogMaker worth more, you betcha! But, cost–wise, I can do this, so why not.