Back to Writing: My New Chapter on Substack
With over 15 years of experience in the tech world, I aim to share practical and insightful content for everyone through this platform. Welcome!
I have great news to share: Today marks the beginning of a new project that represents an evolution in my career in the world of technology: my newsletter on Substack.
A Passion Turned Into Reality
Over 15 years ago, I launched a digital consulting company with a simple idea: to create my own job. What started as a small personal project soon became much more: the venture grew, providing me not only with a source of income but also the opportunity to offer employment to others, forge lasting friendships, and build a client base that allowed us to dive into various areas and projects.
Through this venture, I immersed myself fully in the world of technology. I participated in open-source software projects and events, experimented with new tools, and most importantly, connected with a vibrant community of tech enthusiasts around the world. This experience eventually led me to the corporate world as a professional software developer, a journey I will always be grateful for. Having worked in large corporations, startups, “unicorns,” and renowned tech companies, that journey shaped me to get where I am now and has influenced much of who I am as a professional and person.
The Legacy Goes Beyond the Business
However, beyond the local and business scope, my consulting firm became an international community of tech enthusiasts, mostly united by open-source software. The digital channels (our blog, YouTube, social media, etc.) through which we reached so many people in Mexico and beyond were meeting points where we shared knowledge, debated ideas, and grew together (both us creating content and our followers interacting through comments and other means); Without much thought, I can say this was my favorite part of running a business. For me, one of the greatest satisfactions was creating content as a form of expression: writing a detailed technical article for the blog or doing a "distro review" (of GNU/Linux) for YouTube were processes I enjoyed a lot (albeit in different measures) because I knew I was making a lasting impact (no matter how big or small) on an international stage.
The Challenges of Change on the Internet
But, like everything in life, things changed one day: The internet evolved, and with it, content consumption preferences. Written format lost ground to videos, which demanded increasingly sophisticated production and specific durations: Blogs became video blogs, and little by little, attention cemented itself as the de facto currency of the internet, leading to the creation of a new content economy that, due to high levels of competitiveness, made content increasingly shorter, more visual, and faster to digest: Instagram Stories, TikToks, YouTube Shorts, and similar formats now dominate the audiovisual landscape on the internet.
For me, this transition (from its beginnings to its current evolution) was not easy. My passion has always been in writing, not so much in video production. Additionally, the idea of creating this type of content as a means of livelihood never really resonated with me... What did resonate was that, even though the AdSense or YouTube income was always minimal, my love for sharing knowledge never faded.
A New Horizon: Substack
And this is where Substack comes in.
The world of technology doesn’t stop, and with my years of experience, I still have a lot to share. After much research and reflection, I’ve decided to use Substack as a new channel to write, create audiovisual content, and share knowledge with you. No longer as a corporate entity (or necessarily part of one), but simply as Manuel Escudero, with all kinds of content formats condensed into one place.
I see Substack as the potential "YouTube of written format," reviving blogging and the community around it, but in an evolved way adapted to the current times (with relevant additions like podcasting features and video creation, use, and management in one platform); as a whole, Substack offers me the opportunity to reconnect with the previous community of my venture (and also with a new audience) in a way that feels authentic and fits perfectly with my love for writing as the main form of expression and content delivery.
What You Can Expect
1. Frequency: My plan is to publish about one or two articles per week. Quality will be my priority.
2. Topics: I’ll focus on practical issues I encounter in my daily endeavors, covering topics such as:
Programming
Open Source and GNU/Linux
Machine Learning Ops
Artificial Intelligence
Cryptocurrencies and other relevant tech trends
(Also occasionally branching into topics outside the main editorial line)
3. Approach: I’ll share knowledge in the same way and with the same line of thinking as before: "This is a new challenge, a new project, a new problem I faced, and this is how I solved it." My goal is to foster discussions on ideas, techniques, and strategies in the realm of technology applied to real-world scenarios.
4. Free and Premium Content: I’ll offer both free articles and paid content. I believe a good balance can be focused on delivering high-quality free articles of general interest to most of the audience and dedicating the paywall to more specific topics like courses or similar formats of in-depth exploration and serialization. However, this strategy is flexible and something I’ll measure over time to adapt as needed.
A Bridge Between the Old and the New
While I already have some articles in the pipeline mainly centered on Artificial Intelligence (reflecting a recent personal project) and, interestingly, Evernote (something I’ve recently revisited after leaving personal knowledge management systems for quite some time), for those who have read me before, I say: Don’t worry! I won’t abandon the topics that brought us together in the first place, it’s important to clarify that:
I’m still an active GNU/Linux user (mainly on servers)
I maintain a homelab with a personal server on RHEL 8 for experiments (from which there’s plenty of material to write about)
Although I now use OS X professionally, my main personal device is an iPad Pro that I use for everything, from web browsing to programming (I’ve always liked the idea of fringe computing, and that hasn’t changed)
And for those who are unfamiliar with my previous publications, I warmly welcome you and appreciate your attention to this project. I will strive to make the content useful and interesting for everyone who comes across it.
A bit of housekeeping: by the way, there will be a publication in both English and Spanish, you can visit the Spanish version here:
And if you’d like, I’d appreciate your proactive support by purchasing a subscription to this publication with over a 40% discount (22% additional lifetime discount added to the annual subscriptions for premium content); this promotion is intended for early adopters at the following link:
Conclusion
I’m excited about this new beginning and grateful to everyone who chooses to join me in this new experiment. Technology continues to evolve, and with it, we must adapt and grow. The internet may have changed, but my passion for sharing knowledge remains intact. I’m sure this will be an interesting journey for all of us.
Talk soon!
Manuel.