Heya friend!

Carl here. You signed up to receive updates about Ymir, the WordPress serverless DevOps platform that I’m building.

INTRO

The last few weeks have been busy with the neurodivergence talk I gave last week at Decoupled Days. I've been working on it for the past few months. But I had to wrap up the companion article (you can read it here) and do the slide deck.

I'm really happy with how it all turned out. This was my first time in a while using AI outside of programming. The difference is huge! ChatGPT is the main AI I'm using these days.

I used it as an editor and to workshop ideas for my article. I still love writing, so I didn't have it do anything beyond helping me with typos and fix some tone issues. This was still incredibly valuable, and I think the article came out 10x better because of it.

On the other hand, it did all the design work for my slide deck which turned out so good. It was so good at creating memes and also other graphics I wanted. Really excited to create more slide decks in the future! 😅

On the Ymir side, I've started working on the rebrand and pricing. It all feels quite daunting. I'll really have to focus on marketing now. That said, I'm not moving on it yet.

I'll explain why in the marketing section! (Small tease! 🙃)

PRODUCT

You can always view the history of Ymir's product development at https://ymirapp.com/changelog.

The product is largely in maintenance mode right now. There were still some minor bug releases. I need to do a pass to update the changelog. (I still don't have AI automation for that! 😅)

I am working on one thing. It's to support temporary security credentials.

ChatGPT flagged this as a blocker for part of the messaging around the rebrand. I want to have a strong security narrative for Ymir. The impact of AI on security is really starting to be felt everywhere. WordPress has had two critical security releases in the past few weeks.

I want Ymir to be the most secure way to host your PHP applications. Only supporting an API token isn't conducive to telling that story. So that's why it's considered a blocker for the rebrand.

MARKETING

Ok, let's talk marketing! There's a lot of stuff going on. (This is a way for me to say: Wall of text incoming! 🤣)

First, I want to talk about the overall mood with indie developers/bootstrappers. There's been a lot of talk on X, the everything app. (I can't take the name seriously 😅) A lot of them are seeing revenue decreasing, churn issues, etc. Jon from Bannerbear (who's the inspiration for the dashboard and a lot of the public stuff I do) talked about it. But you're hearing it from Pietr Levels and other public figures.

Jesse from Bento (Ymir will switch to them when I have the time) kinda nailed why this is happening in this video:

˗ˏˋ Jesse Hanley ˎˊ˗ @jessethanley Couple of thoughts re: SaaSocalypse https://twitter.com/yongfook/status/2081184546087944534 Jon Yongfook @yongfook Gotta talk about the good and the bad right? I noticed our signups / conversions are pretty weak this month. TLDR everything is downstream of us getting less traffic to the site. Our google referrals have basically halved this year (chart below). Makes sense, since even 3:59 AM • Jul 28, 2026 6 Retweets 197 Likes Read 38 replies

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I strongly suggest everyone listen to it. It's really something that applies to everyone right now. That's why I shared it with Kathie Keith who's been discussing her issues with her plugin business.

The TLDR is that you can't rely on a single marketing channel anymore, especially SEO and marketplaces. You need multichannel, and that costs a lot more money. This is impossible to do if you charge $9/month or even $39/month like I do. You just don't have the money to spend to get new customers. (This is called customer acquisition cost (CAC).) As an example, Jesse says he earns roughly $200/month per customer.

This is something Jason Cohen has talked about in numerous articles. (I'll get back to him later!) I always ignored his advice (probably a bad idea!) because I had this idea that I wanted Ymir to be financially accessible to everyone. But even if I still want that, the reality seems to be that it went from hard to nearly impossible to do. That was the main thing I got out of Jesse's video.

This is all to say that the $39/month plan is going to go. It was already on my mind before Jesse's video. But the video clarified that this isn't a luxury I can have anymore. Maybe it can come back in some new form when I have a sustainable business. That said, right now, there's no way for me to do what I need to do if I charge that much. I'm not even sure I'll keep the grandfathered plan at $39/month.

Ok, so this is just what's going on for pricing! But pricing and having money for marketing actually doesn't even matter if I don't have a reliable way to reach customers. And who even are my customers now? That's really what keeps me up at night. (Figuratively! I sleep fine 🤣)

With Vector, I know the answer. It's hosting companies, its businesses looking to build a hosted platform, etc. It's not as clear to me who the customers are for the self-serve Ymir product. This is the thesis I'm developing with ChatGPT.

I've currently put that work on hold for two reasons. First, I'm going to do a consulting sprint for the next two weeks. Second, it's because I'm going to do a livestream with Jason Cohen about Ymir's business!!

How did this happen? Well, Jason published this excellent video:

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It was a huge hit with everyone online. In the video, he had a segment where he talked about the hosting industry, its estimated size, and thinking about how many companies would use his product. This made me think of Vector.

We started chatting on X, the everything app. He asked me if I wanted to do an episode. I said yes, and after a bit of back and forth, we found a time later this month.

I'm both excited and terrified. Jason is really smart and will push you. You can see it in the video. I experienced it already while we were talking about going on his podcast. I can hold my own if I have time to think. Doing it on the fly like that will be really challenging.

I'm also excited because we might figure out an action plan for the rebrand. There's also a chance he'll tell me this is a lost cause. Part of the appeal to him is why I'm still working on this when the business clearly hasn't worked after this long.

But this is all part of my new view on marketing. I need to put myself out there even more. I can't end the week with nothing. How that going to look like? I'm not quite sure yet.

A lot of founders are doing stream of thought videos. (Jesse's video is exactly that.) It's funny because I used to do those during COVID, but I stopped. I think they need to come back in some format.

A lot of people are going outside and recording. I want something that'll work in winter. I hate being outside in the cold 🤣 I saw the founder of Planetscale and Turbopuffer playing WoW classic. That made me think, it could be a fun backdrop as I'm talking.

So yeah, that's some of what's going on with marketing. It's really scary and overwhelming.

At the same time, this feels like the right time.

The game is changing for everyone. No one knows exactly what works and what doesn't. I feel like, if there's a market for Ymir, I'll be able to figure it out. But that's if there's a way to reach potential customers. That's still the big unknown.

So yeah, stay tuned!

BUSINESS

You can always view Ymir's up-to-date business metrics at ymirapp.com/open. They're updated every 10 minutes.

Lost another customer in July. The attrition continues. Let's see if we can turn that around! 💪

Carl