Luca Rossi, founder of refactoring.club and a writing expert, shares his journey from developer to full-time writer. He discusses the challenges of transforming a side project into a successful newsletter with over 25,000 subscribers. The conversation dives into the importance of feedback, community engagement, and finding one’s niche when writing. Luca also emphasizes the transformative power of consistent writing for personal growth and the skills it develops, making a compelling case for why engineers should embrace writing.
Luca Rossi highlights the dual nature of flexible work schedules as both liberating and challenging, affecting accountability and productivity.
He emphasizes the importance of community engagement and authenticity in building readership, showcasing effective strategies for organic growth.
Deep dives
Navigating Work Flexibility
The conversation highlights the complexities of maintaining a flexible work schedule, especially for those who are self-employed or working independently. While flexibility can be liberating, it also presents challenges such as increased friction when it comes to accountability and productivity. Without the structure of a conventional team environment, individuals may find it harder to remain motivated and focused. This duality of flexibility being both a blessing and a curse shapes how one approaches work and time management.
Starting the Newsletter Journey
The newsletter began during the 2020 lockdown, driven by Luca's desire to share insights from his decade-long experience as a CTO in the travel industry. Faced with unprecedented downtime, he saw an opportunity to reflect on his learnings and engage with a wider audience. The initial intent was to foster exchange and discussions with readers, which blossomed from a biweekly publication to a weekly one. This spontaneous yet thoughtful decision-making led to an unexpected rapid growth in readership.
Building an Audience from Scratch
Luca emphasizes the importance of community engagement in gaining subscribers for his newsletter, particularly since he had minimal existing network prior to starting. He actively participated in various forums, providing value without overtly promoting his work, which gradually led to organic growth through word-of-mouth recommendations. Additionally, investing in targeted ads, particularly on Twitter, helped further establish his presence. This multifaceted approach underscored the significance of authenticity and relationship-building in audience growth.
Evolving the Writing Process
Over time, Luca refined his writing process to counteract the common writer's block, focusing on structured note-taking as a foundation for article development. By maintaining a collection of draft ideas and related research, he ensures he never faces a blank page without guidance. This method allows him to maintain consistent writing output while enhancing his thought organization skills. Luca underscores that adaptability in his process has been pivotal for long-term sustainability in his creative endeavors.
I know many developers that blog, or have ever thought of blogging. I’m in that group as well.
But the people I know that have turned writing into their full-time gig is a lot smaller.
Luca Rossi belongs to that group and he comes on to share how he started refactoring.club, how he optimised his process and also what challenges he faces: ivory tower writing, solo perspective and being a liability to name a few.
I’m happy to have had such an open and honest conversation with him about his process, learnings and these challenges. I’m sure you’ll love it!
New episodes every Wednesday with our host 🎙Patrick Akil!
Big shoutout to Xebia for making this episode possible!
OUTLINE:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:30 - Flexible schedules
00:02:15 - Accountable to deliver
00:03:34 - How Luca started his newsletter
00:05:54 - Newsletters that inspired Luca
00:07:30 - Deciding to write full-time
00:09:20 - How people find Luca's newsletter
00:11:19 - Getting feedback
00:12:42 - Finding your niche
00:16:16 - Connecting with the person
00:17:46 - Editing the podcast episodes
00:18:57 - Tying feedback to your vision
00:20:18 - Advice & feedback that stuck with Luca
00:22:07 - Skills you develop while writing full-time
00:24:36 - Should engineers write?
00:26:39 - Writing to stand the test of time
00:30:03 - Staying away from ivory tower writing
00:32:36 - The challenges of a single perspective
00:35:04 - Luca's optimized writing process
00:38:54 - Increasing quality incrementally
00:40:30 - quality AND consistency
00:42:19 - to push or go easy on yourself
00:43:21 - Conversations can energize you
00:44:49 - long-term planning vs. enjoying the ride
00:46:13 - Treating the newsletter like a product
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