A Newsletter, and More Meta Stuff
Making a newsletter is pretty much just making an account on mailchimp and checking some boxes. But I just want to put myself into the equation of someone who is making a newsletter for a moment.
Rereading some of my past posts, it's hard to think of these posts with a static reference. For example, I'll probably know more in the future. You can tell where people at by their technical understanding of something and what their mind wants answered. I hope to be proud of what I can accomplish someday. This newsletter is like morningbrew. (20m revenue currently at according to their cofounder) This is easy to launch, do more with less.
This post is organized top-down.
- First, we become a maker.
- Second, we pick a cool idea.
- Third, we make it.
Being a Maker
I recently watched this video. Sometimes you are the valuable product you are trying to invest in. There are a bunch of other self-help vids, but here are my notes from that video:
- Work smart, not hard.
- Sleep well. Eat well. Exercise.
- Create positive feedback when doing activity when forming habits. Don't overdo to exhaustion.
- Be self-transforming.
- No particular identity, thinks in systems rather than self.
- Genuinely willing to learn. Ask: What information would it take for me to change my mind?
- Time is precious. Optimize yourself for peak performance. Assume your competition is in peak condition. You're playing on expert mode.
- Be curious in people and what drives them.
- No need to win a particular interaction, win at infinite games.
Here's other links with advices:
- Advice on kickstarting life: https://patrickcollison.com/advice
Pick Idea
I think a newsletter is a good benign project. It's a simple product with value. While audiences are inherently valuable, it's more of a fun thing I can build up and maybe occassionally get feedback from. At the very least, I write about some silly news that I publish on Saturday.
Product
Ok, we have an idea: want to build a newsletter / morningbrew clone. I went with mailchimp. It's mature, and can do a ton of stuff. It's also free for the first 2000 contacts. Easy to launch fast and do more with less. Mailchimp gives you a landing page. I have it as newsletter.bwang.io/home. Mailchimp has an api we can use later so we can bring up posts to build an archive. I think we can schedule posts inside the UI, but if not we also might want to use it to schedule posts. I added some emails to tests and everything works like a charm.Now all I need to do is add a pixel to this site and gather an audience that is willing to listen to my Saturday morning rambles. My advertisement looks like a meme lmao.
Though the earnest tone is intentional, this is definitely not my intended branding. It's just that I'm racing to get this thing shipped. Anyways the ad and the page is live. We'll be sure to visit this guy in the future sometime.