Hello! This is the first article in my #buildinpublic series. I’ve never done this before - so let’s see how it goes. 

Who am I? I’m Elliot and I’m the CTO for a SaaS company that focuses on optimising conversion rates on websites and email and SMS retargeting. I’ve been a part of the journey since its inception, being the founding developer. I have since worked with the team to grow the product past £1,000,000+ turnover and supporting over 700 clients. We’re based in the North East of England, our primary client-basis is in the UK, though we have a growing international audience.

My day-to-day consists of supporting the development team and moving the product offering forward - ensuring we deliver what our customers need to succeed and continuing to introduce innovative tools to their armoury.

I’ve been building products for more than a decade now and I enjoy every minute of it. It started as a passion as a teenager, a fairly familiar story, and I was inspired by innovators such as Steve Jobs as I grew up. I’ve also created a couple of other products as a “indie hacker” on a much smaller scale — these have a small client base, but I’ve never built something in public before and I always enjoy exploring new things. I have no clue about writing content and marketing, so here I am, discovering how out of depth I am.

I hate being the centre of attention and in the lime-light so I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone making myself very visible. I also want to encourage feedback and accountability as I #buildinpublic.

Let me start with some background. I love creating products, however, I face two problems:

First, I spend a lot of time reinventing the mundane parts of any product: authentication, UI, billing, marketing sites, etc. Sound familiar? 

Secondly, with my hectic schedule, I’ve come to rely heavily on to-do lists and calendar events to keep my life organised. These do not work well for writing content and I need more support than a Note or Calendar app can offer.

ContentScout is going to focus on the second problem. Its goal will be solely focused on making writing content easier without doing it for me. Content is more personable when it's written by a human where tone and emotion can be felt. However, areas such as idea generation, scheduling, analysis and among other tasks can be improved. 

In summary, ContentScout must deliver the following:

- Research and suggestions on which topics to give focus.

- Recommended posting scheduling times.

- Backlink suggestions.

- Content quality analysing.

- And finally, a personal assistant to help me with all of these!

When will it be ready?

ContentScout is available today. It won't be a fully featured product from day one, however, you can be part of helping me shape the product to make our lives easier in writing content.

I am using it myself to power this blog. As I use it more and more, I will be adding features that cut away the time it takes to carry out the tedious tasks or can assist me in writing better content that is more relevant and engaging to my audience.

I will be posting as I start my journey learning to write content. Follow my blog to see my ups and downs and the learnings I make on the way. If you have any tips or ideas be sure to put them forward.

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Signing off for today

Day 1 complete. I’m pleased with the progress so far, and I’m excited to see how both my writing and this product evolve over the coming months and years. As my co-writer takes on more tasks, I’ll be able to focus even more on writing more content and offering better insight.

Until next time.

Elliot