Why I started this newsletter

Kristen Lowe, a ghostwriter for founders, says that question is usually the strongest story a founder can tell. She wrote it in Lenny’s Newsletter. So here’s my answer for this newsletter. It’s the line on my About page: to share my work, share what I learn along the way, and be useful to hungry young entrepreneurs starting out. I read a lot of newsletters and love podcasts. This is my way of passing some of it on.

That’s Lenny Rachitsky, in Lenny’s Newsletter, now one of the biggest newsletters in tech. Once he realised it was going to be a thing, he went and learned how to write. Friends recommended lots of books and he read them all. Three of them are still lodged in his head.

That’s Tom Orbach, after the first year of MarketingIdeas.com, which reached over 17,800 subscribers. Before launch he spent months, and thousands of dollars, on a logo. Looking back, he calls it an excuse to put off starting. Gabriel says it shorter in Gabriel Reality: “They started ugly. And starting ugly is the only version of starting that exists.”

Hannah Zhang wrote that in Nonlinear News, after growing her Substack to 20K in six months. My own LinkedIn rule is sustainability > frequency. “If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t keep it up.” I aim for about two posts a week, from personal stories. Over one year, my followers went from 2,782 to 7,087.

Karan Dhir calls public writing the most asymmetric career bet in his guest essay: “The downside is some evenings spent writing.” If you’ve been thinking about starting, this is your nudge 🙌🏻 Pick the ten-minute version and do it this week. What’s the thing you’ve been putting off? Reply and tell me.