The services behind this website, my newsletter, my podcast interviews and my social posts, plus a few I use for fun. What each one does for me, and what it costs where I know.
Some of these are affiliate or referral links, marked with a small tag: if you sign up through one, I may earn a little or we both get a credit, at no extra cost to you.
Where travishellstrom.com is registered, where its DNS lives, and how mail to my own address reaches my inbox. It also forwards my old side-site addresses here.
The server this website, my writing desk and my newsletter’s backend run on, since February 2026. How I set it up is on Tech Independence.
Sends the Saturday essay and every other email from this site, from my own server, so my reader list stays mine.
Counts visits to this site with no cookies and no banner, so I can see which pages people read.
Builds and looks after this website with me, day by day; you can watch it grow on Evolution. My essays I still write myself, with no AI.
Matches podcast guests with hosts whose shows fit them. I use it to find the right podcasts and book the interviews.
Schedules my posts, the carousels and read-aloud films made from my essays, to Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, YouTube and Pinterest from one place.
A library of music and sound effects by real artists, licensed for the videos I make.
Where I take my calls, with a recap of each one afterward.
Lets people pick a time to talk without a dozen emails back and forth.
Where I read and mark up most of my books. My highlights and margin notes from it are inside my reviews, starting with Essentialism.
Where my best friend Jon and I log what we watch. Our ratings feed Back to the Feature, the movie picker we built.
Keeps my watchlist and shows which service has what. Its data is how Back to the Feature knows what’s on our services.
The iPad app I hand-lettered my 2018–19 cards in. They’re on Doodles, with time-lapses of four being drawn.
Want to own more of your own tools? Own Your Own shows what I moved off rented platforms, and Tech Independence how. Updated October 2026.