Elixir Radar transparency report — October 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 October/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 October/2020, Elixir Radar had an average of 9,714 subscribers. We sent 4 issues of our weekly newsletter to our subscribers. Our open rate is around 49%. So, I believe we generated value for at least 4,700 Elixir developers. What kind of value?

I believe that the main value we generated for those 4,700+ Elixir developers was 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 6 Elixir job listings we promoted in the newsletter in October/2020.

Through the job board

In October/2020, our job board had 824 unique visitors that together generated 3,480 pageviews.

I believe we helped those 824 Elixir developers to find a new Elixir job.

How we generated value for Elixir content creators

In October/2020, we curated and promoted 28 pieces of content in our newsletter

Those 28 pieces of content were produced by 26 Elixir content creators.

We sent a sum of 8,836 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 October/2020, 29 Elixir companies submitted 30 job listings to our job board.

We showed those job listings to 824 Elixir developers through our job board and to 4,700+ 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 October/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$ 1,659 in revenue in October/2020.

Here’s the breakdown:

• US$ 229 from Elixir Radar Individual Sponsorships
• US$ 930 from Elixir Radar Sponsored Links
• US$ 500 from Elixir Radar Newsletter Job Listings

Here are some thoughts about that financial part

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.

The Elixir Radar Individual Sponsorships line of revenue continues to be 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.

Elixir Radar Sponsored Links was the biggest line of revenue. AppSignal continues to be a great partner here!

This is the second month of Elixir Radar Newsletter Job Listings. It's more or less stable compared to last month.

What Elixir Radar is about

Elixir Radar is about helping the Elixir ecosystem to move forward by generating value for 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 happy Elixir Radar subscriber and would like to know how to support us financially, you can take a look at the 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 your company to attract 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! 👋