Elixir Radar transparency report — end of September 2020

What is this about

Hi, my name is Hugo, I’m the person behind Elixir Radar!

One of my values is transparency. This report is a way to practice that value.

How Elixir Radar generated value in September/2020

I believe value is not generated, it's perceived. So I can’t say exactly what is the value that we generated, but I can at least say how we intended to do it.

Here’s how we intended to generate value for Elixir developers, Elixir content creators, and Elixir companies.

How we generated value for Elixir developers

We use mainly our email newsletter and our web job board to generate value for Elixir developers.

Through the newsletter

In September/2020, Elixir Radar had an average of 9,686 subscribers. We sent 5 issues of our weekly newsletter to our subscribers. Our open rate is around 47%. So, I believe we generated value for at least 4,500 Elixir developers. What kind of value?

I believe that the main value we generated for those 4,500+ Elixir developers was by helping them with their professional development, by connecting them with quality technical content from Elixir content creators.

I also believe that we helped those that were looking for a new Elixir job, through the 7 Elixir job listings we promoted in the newsletter in September/2020.

Through the job board

In August/2020, our job board had 821 unique visitors that together generated 2,392 pageviews.

I believe we helped those 821 Elixir developers to find a new Elixir job.

How we generated value for Elixir content creators

In September/2020, we curated and promoted 39 pieces of content in our newsletter

Those 39 pieces of content were produced by 34 Elixir content creators.

We sent a sum of 10,766 unique visits to the content produced by them.

I believe the way we generate value for Elixir content creators is by helping them to reach a broader audience.

How we generated value for Elixir companies

By Elixir companies I mean companies that are using Elixir to develop software.

In September/2020, 17 Elixir companies submitted 19 job listings to our job board.

We showed those job listings to 821 Elixir developers through our job board and to 4,500+ Elixir developers through our newsletter.

I believe we generate value for Elixir companies by helping them to attract and employ Elixir developers.

How Elixir Radar made money in September/2020

Generating value to all of your stakeholders is the goal, but it needs to be financially sustainable. That's why I also talk about money here.

Elixir Radar made US$ 2,369 in revenue in September/2020.

Here's the breakdown:

• US$ 219 from Elixir Radar Individual Sponsorships
• US$ 1,550 from Elixir Radar Sponsored Links
• US$ 600 from Elixir Radar Newsletter Job Listings

Here are some thoughts about that financial part

First, as you can see in the last section of this post, I view money not as a goal, but as the fuel to sustain and grow the value we generate for Elixir developers, Elixir content creators, and Elixir companies.

Second, this month we made 62% more revenue compared to last month. That's cool! 😎

The Elixir Radar Individual Sponsorships line of revenue is the smallest one, but it is what gives me the sense of safety that we’ll have at least enough revenue to pay for the infrastructure and tooling costs every month, because it’s recurrent revenue. In a nutshell, that I won’t lose money in a given month. Also, how cool its to be supported human-to-human style, right?! 🎉

Elixir Radar Sponsored Links was the biggest line of revenue. Besides the number itself, a really cool thing is the relationship I've been building with the customer that bought the slots for September, AppSignal, they're super nice!

Elixir Radar Newsletter Job Listings is a new one, we didn't have it last month. This was the first month I was experimenting with it. The success criteria for the experiment was selling at least one paid job listing, I sold six! 🤟. That's one of the revenue-generating areas I'm planning to invest more in the next weeks/months.

What Elixir Radar is about

Elixir Radar was born in 2015 as a content curation newsletter for Elixir developers. It’s still that, but a little bit more.

Elixir Radar is currently about helping the Elixir ecosystem to move forward by generating value to different agents of the ecosystem, in a sustainable way.

By generating value, you can read what I mean in the sections above.

By different agents, I mean:

• Elixir developers
• Elixir content creators
• Elixir companies

By a sustainable way, I mean:

To have the means to keep doing that work. That means making money to sustain the costs and the work behind Elixir Radar for now and for the future.

My inspiration for my thoughts around financial sustainability comes mainly from two books.

The first one is “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek. Here’s an excerpt from the book that inspired me how I think about money:

Money is the fuel to advance a Cause, it is not a Cause itself. The reason to grow is so that we have more fuel to advance the Cause. Just as we don’t buy a car simply so we can buy more gas, so too must companies offer more value than their ability to make money. A company, like a car, is more valuable to all constituents when it takes us somewhere to which we would otherwise be unable to go. That place we envision going to is the Just Cause.

The second one is “Reinventing Organizations”, by Frederic Laloux. Here’s an excerpt from the book that inspired me how I think about money:

Profit is like the air we breathe. We need air to live, but we don’t live to breathe.

That’s all for today.

If you’re already an Elixir Radar subscriber, thanks for your support. If you’re not, you may want to take a look at it.

If you're a satisfied Elixir Radar subscriber and would like to know how to support us financially, you can take a look at Elixir Radar Individual Sponsorships page.

If you’re an Elixir content creator, you can send me your content and I can help you to get an audience for it.

If you’re part of an Elixir company, I can help you to connect your company with potential new hires.

If you have products/services that can be used by Elixir companies or Elixir developers, I can help you to get visibility within the Elixir community.

See ya! 👋