Mailter: Automated Newsletter System
Mailter was a project aimed at simplifying email marketing for e-commerce businesses by automating newsletter creation and delivery based on product updates and sales data.
Project Overview
Duration: June 2020
Status: Incomplete/Shelved
| Start Date | June 2020 |
| Status | Incomplete |
| Role | Founder |
| Type | Side Project |
The Concept
Mailter was designed to solve a common pain point for e-commerce store owners: maintaining consistent communication with customers about new products and bestsellers without the manual effort of creating newsletters.
The core concept was to create an automated system that would:
- Monitor product databases (initially Shopify and Airtable)
- Automatically generate visually appealing newsletters based on predefined templates
- Send these newsletters on a scheduled basis (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly)
Key Features
Automated Content Generation
The system would automatically create content for different types of newsletters:
- New Product Announcements (every Monday or bi-weekly)
- Bestsellers of the Week (every Friday)
- Monthly Collections (first day of each month)
- Sale Announcements (triggered by price changes)
Airtable Integration
One of the first integrations we built was with Airtable, allowing users to:
- Connect their Airtable product database
- Define triggers for newsletter generation based on new entries or updates
- Map Airtable fields to newsletter template elements
Shopify Integration (Planned)
The primary target audience was Shopify merchants, with plans to integrate:
- Automatic product imports from Shopify stores
- Sales data for bestseller newsletters
- Customer segmentation based on purchase history
Technical Implementation
The project used a modern tech stack:
- Backend: Node.js for the API and automation engine
- Database: MongoDB for user data and configurations
- Email Delivery: AWS SES for reliable email sending
- Frontend: React for the dashboard and template editor
- APIs: Airtable and Shopify APIs for data synchronization
Why It Was Shelved
Mailter was shelved before completion due to several factors:
- Market research revealed stronger competition than initially anticipated
- Development complexity for the template engine proved more challenging than expected
- Other opportunities arose that required shifting focus and resources
Learnings
Despite not reaching completion, the project provided valuable insights:
- The importance of thorough market analysis before significant development
- The complexity of creating flexible yet user-friendly email templates
- Technical experience with the Airtable API and AWS SES for email automation
Future Potential
The core concept of Mailter remains valid, and elements of this project informed later work on email automation and marketing tools. With the continued growth of e-commerce, especially post-2020, there remains potential to revisit this concept with refined positioning and implementation.