It was nearly a disaster.

Spam! Bewildering spam.

The software company will say they warned me, and that’s true.

But I followed their instructions, and the spam still arrived.

When someone subscribes to my newsletter, they automatically receive a welcome email. This means dozens of strangers received an unsolicited email from me with the subject line:

“You just made a new friend.”

Fortunately, I turned off the welcome emails before it got out of hand, otherwise my emails would have been sent to hundreds or even thousands of people who would (rightly!) mark my emails as spam. These spam reports would destroy my domain rating banishing my emails from inboxes.

I don’t know why spammers do this. I’m sure one of the LLM’s would tell me but I don’t care enough to ask. I found myself saying:

I don’t want to learn, I just want it to work.

And as the thought entered my mind, I experienced a new wave of empathy for my nonprofit friends who say versions of this all the time.

My cohort teaches people why software often doesn’t just work for us. We must become wielders of tools who are always willing to learn.

(But I’m not always willing to learn…)

Instead of doing fun stuff this week, I’m going to change email service providers. It’s a hassle and I think it’s important to share because I’m VERY tech savvy and still run into challenges like this.

It’s humbling. I don’t have all the answers.

If you find yourself muddling through the software wilderness this week, I’m with you.

The balance of power is changing

As I research alternatives, I’m moving in a fundamentally new direction. One reality I’m facing, Claude Code could have fixed my spam problem in minutes—but doesn’t have access to my tools.

I’m using Webflow for my website and Audienceful for my email marketing.

I pay $70/month for Audienceful and $60 a month for two Webflow sites for a total of $130/month.

I pay $200/month for Claude code on the MAX plan.

Instead of replacing Audienceful and Webflow with new SaaS platforms, I’m going to use Claude Code to work behind the scenes.

I’ll use an open source CMS called Astro for my website and I’ll host it on Cloudflare. Both of these are free!

I’ll replace Audienceful with Resend (an email tool for developers) which will cost around $20/month.

I’ll save roughly $110/month on software and give Claude Code more access and control of my tech stack so that I can respond faster to problems in the future.

When I upgraded to Claude Code max plan last summer, it was the most expensive software I’d ever purchased. As it absorbs more responsibility and I’m able to use more free and open source software, it will pay for itself many times over.

We all know that the balance of power is shifting from traditional software companies to AI companies, but sometimes it’s hard to understand how.

This is a clear example.

My Claude Code subscription now represents my website and email marketing spend. As I continue to consolidate tools, that $200 a month will look like an even better deal.

I don’t think we are going to spend less on software, but I do think we will buy different software. (Tools that are AI native.)

While I don’t expect most nonprofit leaders to pick up a Claude code subscription, you have to be tinkering with LLM’s.

Here’s a hunch: the elusive one stop shop that everyone is chasing might look more like Claude code orchestrating open source software than a massive ERP system.

If you want help experimenting with AI or scheming up ways it could solve problems for you, reply to this email and we can setup a brainstorming call.

And if you accidentally ended up on my list because of the spammers, I’m sorry. I still want to be my friend and I’m so glad you are here.

Talk soon,

Ted