After spending the last 4 months building out this newsletter and scaling it to over 12000 subscribers and $600/month, a lot has changed.
I'll sum it up with 2 points
1. Everybody is trying to do what I've done.
2. Most will fail.
Before all this makes me sound too arrogant, let me clarify.
I love what I've built and nothing would make me happier than to see others replicate what I've done.
It's a lot more fun to do things with people than alone.
I genuinely want to help people replicate what I've done while avoiding all the traps and pitfalls I've gone through.
So much so that I've been putting out (free) videos to a comparatively negligible audience on YouTube as compared to my newsletter just because I like getting texts from people saying I've helped them.
But I have some worries.
People are looking at newsletters as a quick cash cow and will ruin their brands and reputation instead of building long-term authority
Everybody is afraid of using their own voice and instead prefers the easy route of just “conquering a niche” or worse - regurgitating news
People aren't attaching their newsletters to their personal identities. You follow individuals, not brands.
Newsletters are more and more being seen in the public eye as side projects rather than a gateway to a one-person business.
Let me go in-depth on all of this.
Newsletters are not a quick cash cow
While they can be lucrative quickly, I'd highly recommend people take a more long term approach to their newsletter than just looking to make a quick buck.
Do you want to do this as a side project that made you a little bit of money or do you want this to be your career path?
To get paid to actually think instead of making pointless presentations or editing spreadsheets at a W2 job?
These questions and the answers you reach to will outline how you play your hand.
If you build something long lasting, if people attach significance to your name, if you're genuinely known for something.
The choice is yours - make a quick buck or build something so you never need to work again?
Unique Voices and Authenticity
The world needs more unique voices and authenticity, not regurgitated news which could easily be done by ChatGPT.
I am a huge fan of video essays on Youtube about business, geopolitics and history but I have never even considered buying anything those channels sell.
Contrast that with somebody like a Johnny Harris (if you don’t know him, look him up, trust me), who has built an audience using his authentic opinion pieces.
What he’s doing can still be considered journalism, but because it’s infused with his own voice and takes on the matter, you as a viewer end up developing an affinity for “Johnny Harris videos” instead of “politics videos”.
I personally only read 2 newsletters religiously - Dan Koe’s and Matt Gray’s.
They could write about anything under the sun, but because it’s them writing it, I would at least open the email even if I wouldn’t necessarily be interested in that topic just because it’s them writing it.
That’s authority via authenticity.
It’s the only way to survive and not get lost among the million other stimuli fighting for your audience’s attention.
Think bigger - Side project One Person Business
Most people will spend their entire lives dreaming of doing something fun for a living, working on their laptop whilst being anywhere in the world they wish to be.
Living with the belief that they have to work a minimum of 40 hours a week to earn a decent living (usually extending till 60 or 80 hours).
Relying on caffeine to get them through the day instead of a job which is so intrinsically fun and monetarily rewarding that no substance could match the amount of energy their cool life gives them.
Having to work on the projects assigned to them instead of choosing what to (and what not to) work on.
I believe everything I’ve highlighted above is not some far-off dream people should aspire to.
It’s a basic human right.
That statement will trigger many, excite some and spur even fewer to action.
Transitioning back to newsletters in particular, if you have the privilege on working on a “side project” that pops off, why would you limit it to the status of a side project instead of turning it into a creative vehicle which becomes an extension of yourself and allows you to monetize any interest or passion you could possibly have?
The future of work is not trending towards bigger companies, more employees and corporate soft-speak.
It’s trending towards one-person businesses, freelancers and polarizing individual voices.
If a company needed to hire a team of 20 for a project in 2015, the same can now be done with one freelancer and his suite of AI tools.
If you hoping for a cushy job to bail you out of the incoming future, you need to hope that luck shines your way.
The ambitious few will carve their own path, make money doing work they actually find fun and live wherever they want.
Social media/newsletters/videos/code should just be a medium to accomplish that.
I know this letter was more abstract than most of my writings but for that same reason, I hope this was the most helpful.
If you’re interested in more of this stuff, make sure this newsletter is shifted to your “primary” inbox (I have started getting scary emails from people who think I’ve taken them off my email list when they’re just receiving my newsletters in the “promotions” tab).
If and only if you are implored to act based on what you’ve read today, then you’ll need to see this.
Best of luck.