mailchimp is an email marketing service that I really like. I have been using it on and off for three years, and suddenly I wanted to write about it. Three years ago, I wrote a newsletter called "日語八百屋" (Japanese Greengrocer).
Running an email marketing service is not easy. It involves event tracking, data analytics, avoiding spam filters, retrying failed deliveries, optimizing for different email clients, and more. That's why Mailchimp, a product that entered the market early on, is stable and widely used by many businesses.
This article tells their startup story. Mailchimp's predecessor was a consulting company that helped various businesses solve their problems and grow. They gradually shifted their focus to providing email marketing services as they discovered the demand from small businesses.
Mailchimp has been around for over 10 years now, and you can still find traces of Ember on their website. However, it remains a very user-friendly service.
What impressed me the most is their pricing plan. For subscribers under 2000 and a monthly limit of 10,000 emails, it's completely free. Yes, completely free, without any trial period.
This kind of allowance is enough for a startup to accumulate its first batch of users and even start making profits. Mailchimp only starts charging when you exceed your limit.
It's like they're saying, "Hey, I know you're busy burning money to acquire users and building an excellent product. Pay me when your company becomes successful."
Although the pricing after the free tier can be a bit daunting (but maybe not for companies), you can really feel that Mailchimp has prepared solutions for the problems you may encounter and the tools you might need.
In terms of the features I need:
- Preview
- Newsletter editor
- View statistics
- Send test emails
- Manage subscribers in the backend
- Schedule deliveries
All of these can be easily accessed and configured on Mailchimp.
Comprehensive API and Documentation
If you're a developer, you can even use Mailchimp's API to accomplish the tasks mentioned above. You can use the API to automatically generate newsletter templates, create and send campaigns, integrate it with your own product, and save a lot of effort compared to manual UI operations.
Mailchimp's REST API documentation is very clear and easy to understand, even the error messages. I highly recommend giving it a try. Before you know it, you'll have it all connected. I really appreciate this kind of attitude and spirit in product development, and I hope to become such a role someday.
Finally, I want to conclude with the last paragraph from the article:
“Everybody we talked to said, ‘You’re sitting on a gold mine, and if you pivot to enterprise, you could be huge,’” Mr. Chestnut said. “But something in our gut always said that didn’t feel right.”
Afterword
To be honest, lately I've been struggling between learning about products and technology. On one hand, I want to continue improving my technical skills (regardless of the specific field), and on the other hand, I want more experience in product development. However, these two aspects don't feel completely mutually exclusive. For example, building a product requires technical support, and delving into technology may be for better problem-solving in services.
Wow, it's so confusing.