Thread by @ossia

If it weren't for the USPS, @freeCodeCamp would never have existed.

It costs a lot of money to run a nonprofit. Servers. Legal. Payroll.

How did a teacher living in a one-bedroom apartment pull together $150,000 to fund a nonprofit?

In short: by using USPS. [Thread]

For years I had a side hustle:

1. Find large lots of old video games on Craigslist.

2. Drive around the state buying them up.

3. Sell the games individually on eBay to a world-wide market.

Without USPS, I couldn't have done any of this.

FedEX, DHL, UPS, and all the private shipping companies were prohibitively expensive.

But thanks to the USPS and its scale, scope, and efficiency, I could offer free shipping on all of my listings and still turn a reasonable profit.

There are thousands of Americans doing this exact same thing. Either through a side hustle like I did, or through a family business.

And these businesses rely on the USPS for cost-effective shipping.

In the coming weeks, you are going to hear a lot about seniors not getting their social security checks on time.

Or worse, not getting their perscription meds on time.

That is a tragedy.

But you should know about this tragedy, too:

Without a well-managed postal service, one of the most common paths to entrepreneurship for Americans – buying and selling things online – will soon become a thing of the past.

Fortune 500 companies can afford corporate FedEx accounts.

But the mom selling crafts on Etsy cannot.

The family who just re-mortgaged their house to fund their Shopify business cannot.

I was lucky.

I ran my E-commerce business at a time when you could just print some labels, throw your packages into a mail box, and count on them to reach their destinations around the world in a week or two.

All that for just a few bucks per package.

I was just a merchant smoothing out supply and demand. Not unlike someone selling fruit at a farmer's market.

But after 5 years of doing this, I'd saved $150,000 after-tax to plow into @freeCodeCamp and keep the lights on during those fragile early years.

E-commerce is one of the lowest-overhead small businesses you can start. But without a well-managed postal service, it becomes inviable.

I shudder to think how many bootstrappers like me would never even get their operation off the ground.

For years, whenever I've run into a postal worker taking a break at McDonalds, or whenever I've driven past a USPS truck, I'd slow down to say hi and thank them.

To me, these people are critical to our American way of life.

And now, more than ever, I must thank these postal workers for making my e-commerce business possible.

And ultimately making this nonprofit possible.

If you are one of the 500,000 USPS public servants reading this: thank you.

I know this country has become sharply polarized in recent years.

But I hope we can all agree that making it easy for Americans to start small businesses is a good thing.

And I hope we can agree that the USPS plays a vital role in that.

There are so many statistics about the role USPS plays in American entrepreneurship. But we need more stories.

If your small business has benefitted from USPS over the years, I encourage you to reply to this thread with a story of your own.

Together, our stories will help drive home to more Americans this basic fact:

USPS is critical infrastructure.

And we must forever shield it from the whims of politics.

[end thread]