Why I Switched Back to WordPress and What I Learned

If you read the blog through the web you may notice that, for the first time in about a decade, it looks different. If you get posts by email you hopefully don’t notice anything, but since it’s a whole new system… who knows.

A little over nine years ago, my good friend Todd and I released a new blogging platform called Sett. We worked on it for about three years, failed to make it commercially successful, and called it quits.

For almost seven more years I used it on my own blog. Every year or two I’d consider switching, look at the available options, and decide that it was worth just sticking with Sett.

Over the last year, and particularly over the last month, more and more Sett bugs have been cropping up. Most of them revolve around a package called Solr, which I ignorantly made critical to too many parts of Sett. Sometimes email notifications wouldn’t get sent, sometimes too many get sent. For the past three posts nothing has showed up on the front page, and I couldn’t easily figure out why not.

When confronted with the idea of spending more time tracking down the bug, I realized that my time was being poorly spent. People read this blog for the writing, not for the Sett features with which I’m enamored. If I was a reader and it wasn’t dead simple to get posts, I’d be annoyed. So I decided instead to spend the time to move to a different blogging platform.

I considered Substack, Ghost, and WordPress. Substack appealed to me because it was totally hands-off, but it was going to be hard to import my posts and I had too-little control. I also didn’t like that I didn’t have database-level access to my posts. Maybe that’s why some people didn’t want to switch to Sett.

I considered Ghost for a long time because I liked that it was focused only on blogging and had built in newsletter support, but it wouldn’t run natively on my server because it uses an older stable version of node, and it required me to send email through a specific provider.

WordPress won at the end of the day because it is stable, easily extensible with plugins, and still gives me a good amount of control. I also know the creator of it and he was really supportive when we were making Sett (while the creator of another blogging platform only got in touch once we failed…).

When I made the switch last night I was sadder than I thought I’d be. Sett had already failed, but at least I was still using it. Having that code all disappear into the ether felt different.

This whole process made me even prouder of what we built, though. Our execution was ok and our marketing was terrible, but Sett really was way ahead of its time. We had a bunch of features that are just now becoming popular or still haven’t been implemented by anyone else including native email / newsletter support, a built in mechanism to build your audience, live previews of themes, real time statistics by email, automatic image size optimization, integrated messaging, community forum integration, built-in monetization, automatic post buffering/scheduling, and a lot more.

Having all of that but still failing also just makes it much more obvious to me how important execution and marketing is, though. When we built Sett I think I had a “build it and they will come” attitude, but now I understand that ideas are cheap and execution is everything.

I’m not sure if it’s an effect of getting older, or if I just have too many systems to deal with these days, but I’m increasingly willing to not do everything myself. It feels good to know that the engineers at WordPress are working on all the stuff that I don’t really want to deal with anymore.

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Photo is a sunset from a golf course in Vegas.

There will be another Superhuman event in August! If you’re interested you can email me. I’ll put more info up in a week or two.

Tea Time with Tynan is BACK! I’ll be live this Sunday at 10am PST. Please join me!


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20 responses to “Why I Switched Back to WordPress and What I Learned”

  1. Noah Avatar
    Noah

    Hi Tynan,

    Looks like the email version I got didn’t include the photo I’m seeing here on the web version. Otherwise seems to be working well! Will miss Sett but glad to hear this will save you the hassle of countless bugs.

    Cheers!
    Noah

    1. Alexandra Avatar
      Alexandra

      Same as Noah: I noticed my email was missing the photo.
      Also, I received 4 emails! They were about 3-4 minutes apart from each other.
      But it’s sooooo nice that comments are back, yeay!
      Thanks!
      Alexandra

  2. Matt Szmaida Avatar
    Matt Szmaida

    Bittersweet. Good you’re getting this burden off your shoulders though. Keep trucking.

    After seeing your T Times with Noah and Nick, it appears that you sort of perversely enjoy the identity of being bad at marketing. Maybe it’s a friendly means of highlighting their strength compared to yours. Not sure.

    Unclear whether the weakness even matters anymore since you might be done focusing on earning, though near the end of this post it looks like it might be ripe for improvement.

    Maybe Noah can help you if you threaten to keep his fancy pants watch.

    1. tynan Avatar

      Interesting observation. I don’t think it’s true, but it might be so I’m going to reflect on it a little bit more. I try to highlight weaknesses I have, because I think otherwise it’s easy to come off a little too know-it-all, and I definitely like to highlight my friends’ strengths because that’s a part of what I love about them!

      I think at earlier points in life I thought I was so good that I didn’t need marketing, but Sett and other projects proved me wrong. I suspect that in my future I won’t need to do much marketing, but who knows for sure?

      1. Bojack Avatar
        Bojack

        To be honest Tynan, you’ve come across as a know it all and a bit of a narcissist for a while, now. Your site used to be about cool adventures, but now it’s just an advice column, trying to advise readers on how to do anything and everything.

        Even name dropping (in a way) that you know the creator of WordPress? And another blog platform emailed you after it failed? Who cares? How is that relevant at all?

        It comes across in your gear posts too, harping on about how you know this person or that. The blog has shifted completely away from the stories of a cool dude doing cool things and writing about it… And having a conversation with his readers.

        And now it’s just a place to stroke your own ego. It’s sad. I used to be such a big fan, but you don’t even seem like a person anymore. You’ve gone back to being a social robot, but instead of espousing PUA things, it’s now all this weird preaching, sepf-aggrandising rhetoric that is posted because you want to post.

        The writing quality has dropped considerably, it all feels so impersonal, and as if you’re just talking into a mirror. Bragging to your reflection, and thinking “yeah, this is what people want to hear.”

        You remind me of Patrick Bateman a bit in American Psycho in that regard. Mixed with Mr Peanut Butter from Bojack Horseman, who seems so far from being a personable person.

        Not moving on from Sett is just another symptom of all that.

        I don’t think you’re this kind of weird, one-way, one note guy in real life. Can’t you put yourself out there on your blog like who you are offline? Instead of being a budget Tony Robbins?

        I hope so. I miss that Tynan.

        1. Tynan Avatar

          I’m replying to this because I think it’s probably meant to be constructive, even though it feels a bit like an attack.

          One thing to consider is that I’ve been writing for almost 20 years now. 40 year old me is a lot different than 20 year old me, so I can’t write about the same stuff that I used to. I’m just not climbing radio towers and going out to clubs every night. And though my life is a lot better now than it was then, in many aspects it’s less exciting. I’m sure that translates to some extent.

          I think it’s a little weird to be accused of name dropping because I feel like I go way out of the way not to do it. I’ve known Matt from WordPress for 10 years and this is probably the first time I’ve mentioned him (and not even by name), because I don’t want to build my own reputation on top of anyone else’s. When I was thinking about what blogging platform to move to I favored WordPress because I met Matt while I was building Sett and he was really supportive and gave good advice, whereas another major platform came in like vultures when we failed. Seems like a reasonable factor to me and I feel like I explained it in the post with the least possible name-dropping.

          The blog isn’t a place for me to stroke my ego. Believe me or not, but it just doesn’t move the needle in that regard. Maybe I do have too big of an ego, but it’s pretty much all self-generated and has nothing to do with posting. My life would be a lot easier if I didn’t write this blog and the main reason I do it is to try to give back because my life is a lot better thanks to my readers. Think about how little I do to promote it or monetize it. Once it’s not useful to people, I’ll pack it up. I did a survey earlier this year because I was considering shutting it down and hundreds of people asked me not to.

          I agree somewhat that the quality has dropped, honestly. I’m not as hungry as I used to be, and I have fewer topics that I’m bursting at the seams to write about. This is also complicated by the fact that these days some of the big factors in my life are my marriage, my family, and financial stuff and I have limited willingness to write about any of them.

          Probably no point in defending myself against being called a narcissist because even a narcissist would argue that he isn’t one.

          All that said, I’m 100% open to ideas for stuff you’d like me to write about. I write a mix of stuff I just want to get out there and stuff people ask me about.

          Tynan

  3. GEORGENE Avatar
    GEORGENE

    This is the first time I have been able to respond in ANY way to your blogposts – YAY for WordPress! With Sett, I was sent running in circles and finally, every single time, just gave up. I could not even find a way to contact you and say that I was having this trouble. While I don’t think it’s literally true, the impression I got was that you didn’t really want interaction.

    And maybe that’s true (and if so, it’s a choice you get to make) but you don’t really give off that “leave me alone” vibe. In any case, now that I see I can comment, I can’t remember what I wanted to say before!

  4. Sanjo Avatar
    Sanjo

    Great move, Tynan! If you consider 80/20 in your life, fixing bugs is probably a 10 USD task, whereas you could spend the same amount of time on 10000 USD decisions/topics. I had problems to get your notifications through Sett, so it’s good to know that may be a topic of the past by using WP and plugins.

  5. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    Long time reader, first time commenter. I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts and get a lot from them, although I’ve always been behind and am just slowly catching up to present posts. Last couple days when I couldn’t see the posts on Sett I was confused and thought it was down. Happy to know now what happened. Sad to see you let Sett go but it makes a lot of sense. People glamorize the idea of not quitting but sometimes stopping doing something is the right move. It can take a lot of maturity and wisdom to make the move so congrats and best of luck going forward.

    Steve from Canada

  6. tynan Avatar

    Wow, it’s so cool to see all of these comments. The only reason I had comments off on Sett for the past two years was because I never nailed spam detection and I just got sick of the spammers winning. You are all great and I appreciate you reading and commenting!

  7. Neville Avatar

    I always thought that it was interesting that you rolled your own blogging platform, but I agree. The “build vs buy” calculus these days has shifted. Unless you’re doing it for fun, or you are building something extraordinary, it’s pretty hard to make the case for “build”. Which is sad in a way, but it also forces us to focus on what actually matters to the user, instead of refactoring the back end or whatever.

    I’m kind of surprised you didn’t choose Ghost. I get the Node thing. It just seems very ideologically aligned. Then again, Matt’s awesome too of course. Happy blogging.

  8. Pasindu Avatar

    Hi Tynan!

    Met you through Noah’s first podcast he did with you. Ever since I’ve been a fan. I’m glad you made the decision to move to WordPress, and that’s a smart decision on your end, in my opinion.

    Well, here’s to a lot more writing and commenting! 🥂

  9. Pasindu Avatar

    P.S. Areas you can fill on the website: about/contact page and newsletter form.

  10. 18GJ Avatar
    18GJ

    I was skeptical of Sett when you announced it. I thought it was an unnecessary thing. But it turned out that the idea was actually spot-on: A blogging platform with a community so that new bloggers get better visibility faster. Several months later Medium.com launched with this exact idea.

    In hindsight, their execution was better, because they removed all the customization and probably had the funds and early adopters from Silicon Valley. You focused on bloggers who want to customize. They focused on writers who just wanted to publish easily. Both of you focused on the community-aspect.

    Hats off to you: You were really close I think.

  11. Siobhan Avatar
    Siobhan

    Tynan,

    Your website is still showing your article on WordPress as your most recent one

  12. Snat Avatar

    Long term reader here, a first-time commenter but regarding SETT I did think about using it but the database is a major no-no. I always like using a solution where I can mitigate over should the worst happen and no access to the database itself was off-putting.

    It’s a shame as the community idea of it seemed pretty cool 🙁

  13. Wyman Avatar
    Wyman

    Great new look!

  14. John L Avatar
    John L

    Now that Sett has been retired would you consider making it Open Source? I’m sure people could learn a thing or two by seeing the code.

  15. ProdCon Avatar
    ProdCon

    I discovered your blog in 2020 through your book Forever Nomad. Before this move to wordpress, the blog had a warped look like so https://web.archive.org/web/20120823013601/http://tynan.com/uid/. Any idea why that may be?

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