About Me — Raja, The Useful Tech
I’ve been writing online since 2016, and I still remember why I started.
I was in my third year of engineering, massively into tech, the kind of person who would talk my friends’ ears off about apps and features and “have you tried this workflow” until they’d find excuses to leave.
But when I went looking for content about the stuff I cared about — not iPhone reviews, not camera comparisons, but actual practical things like how do I set up my phone to be more useful, what apps are worth downloading, what features am I sleeping on — I couldn’t find anything.
So I thought, why am I hunting for blogs I want to read when I can just write them myself?
That’s how this started. Not with a business plan. Not with dreams of quitting my job. Just me, frustrated that the content I wanted didn’t exist, deciding to create it.
I wrote consistently through engineering because I had the time. Then I started my master's in Melbourne, and everything fell apart. Too much coursework. Personal stuff. I’d write for a bit, disappear, come back, disappear again. For years, it was like that.
Then COVID happened.
I was stuck in Australia, couldn’t find a job because of lockdowns, had way too much free time, and honestly, not much else was going on.
So I went back to writing. Set up a WordPress blog. Did all the things you’re supposed to do — SEO plugins, keyword research, sharing posts in Facebook groups, Quora, Reddit, and Google+ communities (remember those?). I’d spend hours after writing a post just promoting it everywhere, hoping someone would click.
The views came in. Slowly. Painfully slowly.
I tried monetizing with Google AdSense, and my blog started looking like one of those sketchy sites covered in ads. And the earnings? Absolute peanuts. Not even worth the ugliness.
I was doing everything “right” and getting nowhere.
I’d known about Medium for years but never really tried it. One day I thought what’s the worst that could happen if I just repost my stuff there.
That’s when I discovered publications.
I found Mac O’Clock, applied, got accepted, submitted my first exclusive post, and what happened next genuinely shocked me.
July 2021: 1,200 views.
August 2021: 12,000+ views.
Partner Program earnings: 10x what I’d made before.
No spending hours sharing links everywhere. No begging for traffic in Facebook groups. Just write something good, submit it to a publication, and it actually reaches people who want to read it.
And the comments. People saying thank you for introducing me to this app, I had no idea this feature existed. This workflow changed how I work. That was like a dopamine hit every single time. That’s what kept me going when everything else felt uncertain.
Here’s the thing, though — I did all of this while working a full-time job.
I got a tech support job in June 2020. It paid my bills, and I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. 60+ hour weeks. 2-hour daily commute. And eventually the company couldn’t even pay salaries — mine or anyone else’s — for 3 months straight.
I had massive education loans. Couldn’t just quit. Couldn’t easily find another job because of COVID. So I stayed, and I wrote on the side.
Not because I had some grand plan that this would be my escape. Honestly? I just loved doing it. Writing about iPhones and Macs and apps and all the nerdy stuff I was obsessed with — it never felt like work. It felt like the one thing in my day that was actually mine.
The fact that it was turning into a real business by accident was almost a surprise.
Nobody in my life believed in this.
My friends told me I was wasting time. “This isn’t related to your master's degree. You spent so much money on education, and you’re writing blog posts? Focus on upskilling. Climb the career ladder.”
My family was the same. Traditional mindset — a 9–5 job is the only thing that’s stable, everything else is a gamble. Even when I started making real money from Medium, more than my salary month after month, they were hesitant. “It’s unpredictable. What if it suddenly stops?”
I literally had to build a spreadsheet.
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Income sources. Earnings history. Month-by-month trends. Projections. A full business case, like I was pitching to investors. Just to convince my own family to let me quit a job that wasn’t even paying me anymore.
They came around. Eventually. But man, that was exhausting.
The moment I knew this was real
When my Medium earnings hit 2x my monthly salary. And stayed there. For an entire year. While I spent a fraction of the time on it compared to my toxic as fuck 60-hour-week job.
That’s when it stopped feeling like a side hustle and started feeling like the actual thing.
Some stuff about me that has nothing to do with writing, but I’ll tell you anyway
I read 70+ books a year. Can’t help it. I just love learning about things.
I’m weirdly obsessed with organization. My phone, my files, my notes, my life — everything has a system. I didn’t even realize this about myself until maybe a year ago, when someone pointed it out, and I was like oh yeah, I guess I do have a digital database for literally everything.
I think I got it from my dad. This man has meticulously filed away every single report card, homework assignment, and letter I’ve received since kindergarten. There’s an entire wardrobe in my parents’ house that’s just documents. It’s either incredibly impressive or mildly concerning. Probably both.
I grew up in Chennai, India. Lived in Melbourne for 5 years during my master's — right through peak COVID, which is when most of this story happened. Now I’m back in Chennai, recently married, and finally doing this full-time.
Who I write for
You have Apple devices. iPhone, maybe a Mac, maybe an iPad, maybe the whole ecosystem. You spent a lot of money on them.
But if you’re honest, you’re probably using like 10% of what they can actually do.
You’ve heard there are apps and features and settings that could make your life easier, make you more productive, help you get more out of these expensive things you own. But you don’t know where to start, and you don’t have hours to spend researching.
That’s what I’m here for.
I find the stuff that actually matters. I test it. I use it in my real life. And then I write about it in a way that’s practical and useful, without wasting your time.
What I want you to feel after reading my posts
Like you learned something you didn’t know before. Something genuinely useful. Something that’s going to make your Apple devices work better for you and maybe make your day a little easier.
That’s it. That’s the whole goal.
Where this is all going
I’m building beyond just blog posts now. Digital products — templates, systems, setups that give you what I’ve built for myself without you having to spend the hours figuring it out. A community, eventually, where people who care about this stuff can learn together and share what’s working. Maybe consulting or calls for people who want personalized help.
But the bigger vision is simple.
10 years from now, when someone thinks, “I want to actually get value from my Apple devices, where do I go?” — I want to be the first answer.
If you’re new here, just browse around. See if the way I write clicks with you.
If it does, follow along. And if something I write actually helps you, leave a comment telling me. Those comments are still the thing that keeps me going.
You can reach me at: raja@theusefultech.com
My portfolio: http://mymedium.info/@theusefultech/
Join my Discord Community: https://discord.com/invite/WjfenUSZp4
Check out my digital products: https://theusefultech.gumroad.com
Thanks for being here.
— Raja
