By Joel Dare ⟡ Written November 27, 2025
I’ve been writing here for more than twenty years. That archive, plus my newsletter list, is the closest thing I have to a durable asset. I want to use it as the foundation for a handful of small, focused businesses instead of treating it as a random stream of thoughts.
Friends keep telling me the site feels unfocused, and they’re right. I’m interested in programming, note taking, 3D printing, weird side projects, and the occasional rant. Rather than narrowing the topics, I’m going to narrow the context. JoelDare.com becomes the central hub where I publish first, pitch my technical work, and link to whatever is freshest. From there, each piece can be syndicated into a sub-brand that speaks to a focused audience.
Those sub-brands are where future leverage lives. If I do this right, any one of them could be run by a family member later or even sold outright. That’s the wealth play: build assets that keep going without me. But the writing stays consolidated so I never lose momentum or forget what lives where.
Past attempts, like notes.joeldare.com, fizzled because I asked myself to write in multiple places. This time the workflow is simple. I draft everything at JoelDare.com, tag it, and let automation push it outward. Each property gets an index file that lists the slugs it needs. A script copies those files from the main site into the property’s repo. It’s one more build step, but I’m already running git push and GitHub builds anyway. Copying files is trivial compared to the cost of context switching between sites.
This approach lets me keep writing about all the things I enjoy, while presenting them through clear lenses for the readers who only care about one slice. The newsletter ties it all together. Every issue can highlight new posts, point people toward the right sub-brand, and remind them that the mothership is still where everything starts.
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