
## The Big Idea

The best developer tools make you faster and make you look good. Resend does both - for email, of all things.

## Let's talk about tools

I've had a few conversations lately with other founders and indie hackers about the stack behind my site—and one thing always comes up: how I send emails.

To be clear: **this isn't a sponsored post**. Nobody paid me to write this. I just really like using Resend, and I think more developers should know it exists.

As a startup founder, every one of my days is time-constrained. I’ve always got too much to do, and too little time to do it. That’s why I’m a sucker for tools that do two things at once: save me time and help me look polished.

[Resend](https://resend.com) is one of those rare tools. It makes sending beautiful, functional emails from your app almost feel… fun? Which, if you’ve ever wrestled with email templates, you’ll know is not a word we usually associate with this stuff.

## Why the heck is email so hard?

If you've never tried designing email, it sounds simple—just HTML and CSS, right?

Not quite.

Email clients (Gmail, Apple Mail, Outlook) all render things differently. There’s no real standard, and the rules are weird and inconsistent.

Why? Because email is ancient tech. Email has been morphing and evolving since the 1980s - and once you start trying to send nice-looking emails, you will feel it.

### Resend to the rescue

I use Resend to send my newsletter, as well as transactional emails -- like the confirmation message that new subscribers get. I designed my email templates in Figma like I would any other interface, and use Resend's open source [React Email](https://react.email/) library to bring it to life in code.

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/tools-i-love-resend-react-email/figma-template"
  caption="My transactional email template started in Figma"
  alt="My transactional email template in Figma"
/>

I cannot overstate how difficult this process _used_ to be. That 👆🏾 is an extremely ambitious email format to build from scratch.

In the new world of Resend, it's a familiar pattern:

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/tools-i-love-resend-react-email/code-snippet"
  alt="My transactional email template in React Email"
/>

The code to ship it off to your inbox isn't bad either:

```tsx
const WelcomeMessage = <WelcomeEmail firstName={firstName} />;
const { data, error } = await resend.emails.send({
  from: '💌 Tiny Improvements <hello@mikebifulco.com>',
  to: [email],
  subject: "Subscription confirmed. I'm so glad you're here!",
  react: WelcomeMessage,
  text: await render(WelcomeMessage, { plainText: true }),
});
```

My next.js site is also set up to listen to a few webhooks from Resend, where I can track things like subscription events, opens, unsubscribes, and more.

There's more to it than that, and if you're interested in the nitty-gritty, my site's source code is [available on GitHub for you to check out](https://github.com/mbifulco/blog).

---

## What tools make you look good?

Tips, tricks, and recommendations from my dev-pals is something that I've always loved. When I get around to it, I've got a whole list of recommendations that I'm planning to share -- like the shortcuts I find most helpful with [Raycast](https://www.raycast.com/), and the process I'm using to make Cursor smarter while I code.

I'm really keen to hear from you.

What tools make you look good? What saves you time and makes your life easier? [Send me a note](mailto:hello@mikebifulco.com). I'm all ears!

---

## Some links to keep your brain wrinkling

I'll cop to it: I haven't had a lot of time for things other than work lately. When I have had some time to relax, these videos have stood out from the pack.

-  [Frozen orange juice is actually super weird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wSQ9Zk_9gQ) is a fascinating video essay from Phil Edwards about the surprising economics of something that seems so simple.
- [How do we feel the wind?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_W4SWHeWY) - part of Complexly's recent video series where people ask Hank Green... well, anything. In this edition, musical supergenuis Jacob Collier does the asking. Really, really interesting to see to _absolutely brilliant_ people interact so candidly.


Tools I Love - Resend and React Email


Hey - stop keeping your work a secret.

People building new products have a tendency to keep their projects secret until launch. Usually this is chalked up to a fear of a person or company stealing your idea. I'm willing to bet that we all know someone who has hidden their work from the world until it is "ready" or "done".

Here's the thing: When you keep your product journey a secret, you are robbing yourself of the chance to connect with people who might be interested in you and your product. There are countless success stories from people building in public online -- I'll even share a few below -- and very, very few success stories about things that are built in stealth, and only revealed to the world on launch day.

You don't have to trust me on this, but you should - I've made this mistake before.

You have more to gain by sharing your work with the world than you do by keeping it a secret. It's simple: make the process of building your product part of marketing it. Let people see the bumps and bruises, the moments of joy, and the uncertainties you encounter. Use this to build yourself a community of people who are interested in your product and your journey. Their interest will go past just your product - they'll be interested in you, and your story, and you'll see attachment that is difficult to replicate with a traditional marketing campaign _after_ launch.

The #indiehackers community has been doing this for years, and it's a big reason why many have been so successful.

![A chart comparing the kinetic energy of a Tesla Model 3, a Honda Civic Si, and a Hummer EV in a crash](https://res.cloudinary.com/mikebifulco-com/image/upload/v1663072457/newsletters/building-in-public/cover.png)

## Bigger trucks endanger us all

Have you noticed trucks are getting bigger? Next time you see a new truck in a parking lot, stand next to it - the hood on a new Chevy Silverado comes up to my forehead!

Trucks are extremely popular in the United States - there's no getting around that. I saw some friends sharing an article about the New Hummer EV, which weighs in at an absolutely staggering 9,046lbs. I made the chart above to highlight an important point: in an accident, the hummer EV carries _much_ more energy with it, especially at speeds above 40mph. It has the potential to be far deadlier than the other two cars in the chart. For the sake of comparison, I also included two lines for the F150 (the most popular truck in the world) - depending on its configuration, it can weigh between 4,021lbs and 7,050lbs.

Heavier trucks are worse for the road, more dangerous in collisions, and worse for the environment. I'd wager that more than 90% of these trucks are bought for the sake of vanity... and that's a problem.

## What I've been working on

Practice what you preach, right? It's been a busy few weeks over here.

I recently published an article showing how to recreate [The Orton Effect](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/orton-effect-css-react) with CSS and React. A few weeks back, I shared a post about my thoughts on working remotely, and finding happiness. It has started some great discussions, which was exactly the goal. Check out my article on [the third place](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/remote-work-and-the-third-place) and let me know what you think.

I've also been publishing **new episodes of my podcast, Tiny Improvements**, which you can [subscribe to here](https://plnk.to/tiny-improvements?to=page).

## Great products being built in public

**Todo lists for people with ADHD**
[Llama Life](https://llamalife.co/) is a thoughtfully designed web app for keeping track of the things you need to get done. It's a project that I've been watching for a while, particularly because the app's creator, [Marie Ng](https://twitter.com/threehourcoffee) does an amazing job of sharing her story over on twitter. It's a simple product that is changing peoples' lives, and has a serious following.

**Write like a doc, present like a deck**
[Gamma.app](https://gamma.app) puts a new spin on the presentation tool. It allows you to create beautiful presentations with a workflow much closer to authoring a document than something like a traditional PowerPoint. If you like writing, and hate laying out slides, this one's for you. Built by @by [@thatsjonsense](https://twitter.com/thatsjonsense) and [@thisisgrantlee](https://twitter.com/thisisgrantlee)

**Convert your most engaged readers into newsletter subscribers**
[Polite Pop](https://politepop.com) is a website plugin that _politely_ prompts your readers to sign up for your newsletter. I use it on my site (you may be reading this because of it!), and it's been a great way to grow my newsletter. It's built by [@panphora](https://twitter.com/panphora), and you can see updates for the product on twitter at [@polite_pop](https://twitter.com/polite_pop)


#indiehackers: 2 posts tagged

Tools I Love - Resend and React Email

What I've learned from working in public