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The first few days of the new year were spent pushing hard on website and platform improvements for Prison Professors. On January 1st, I focused heavily on debugging a frustrating issue where bold text from Google Docs wasn't rendering properly on the website—turned out to be a Convex deployment discrepancy that required syncing updated functions and triggering a fresh data pull. Once that was resolved, I improved the caching strategy for pages driven by Google Docs content, switching from forced dynamic rendering to a 30-minute revalidation window so updates appear within half an hour without hammering the server.
I also started rebuilding the "For Defense Attorneys" page based on detailed instructions from Michael, adding a new hero section, video placeholder, impact stats bar, a nationwide map, and donation call-to-action while removing the old "Attorney Resources" section. That work continued into January 2nd, where I merged the feature branch, updated the embedded video, and fixed some minor layout issues like vertical centering and rounded corners on the video container. Michael and I discussed a date discrepancy in the video but decided to keep it for now since it can easily be swapped later.
On the book resources side, I added eight new books to the Free Books for Transformation page, including the full Straight-A Guide series and the Future of Money workbook. This involved copying PDFs into the public documents folder, extracting cover images from the first page of each PDF using poppler, updating the Convex schema to include PDF download URLs, and refactoring the UI to add dedicated download buttons. I also fixed a styling bug where the download button text was invisible by adding a new CSS class for small primary buttons.
A significant chunk of time went into overhauling the email templates for the profiles platform. I built a new email template utility with over 300 lines of code that matches the Prison Professors branding—purple header, white content card, signature section, and purple footer. This applies to welcome emails, profile approvals, journal publication notices, partner invitations, and more. Along the way I fixed a bug causing "Hello Hello" prefixes in greetings and another where signatures were accidentally disabled across all system emails.
On January 2nd and into the 3rd, I began planning and building a new CRM system to centralize contact data that's currently scattered across Clerk, GoHighLevel, and a separate newsletter database. I set up a new Convex project for the CRM, deployed it to production, and started outlining the schema for tracking page visits, form submissions, and a reusable link library. The goal is to consolidate all website tracking into the CRM so we have complete visibility into user journeys—from anonymous page views through form submission, contact creation, email events, and link clicks.
I also updated videos on several website pages, replacing placeholders with new YouTube embeds on the Testimonials, Podcasts, and Daily Lessons pages. The "For Correctional Staff" courses hub is taking shape too—I built out a new section with module cards covering profiles, biographies, journals, book reports, and release plans, structured so we can add courses without redesigning the page.
On the operational side, I set up an n8n account for workflow automation, resolved a Kinsta payment failure that threatened service interruption, and spent some time researching LinkedIn growth strategies to help reach criminal defense attorneys with our free resources. I also explored ElevenLabs for AI voice work, confirmed we have a custom voice model for Michael, and looked into Artlist for generative AI content tools, upgrading to include additional AI credits for video and voiceover production.
By the end of January 3rd, the website deployments were stable, the CRM foundation was in place, and the platform was ready for the next phase of work on form tracking integration and continued content updates.
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