👋 Hi Reader, At this point in time, I might be sounding like a broken record. I have always implored you to use AI for everything except for your writing. I talked about this last week too, when I talked about how Pangram and other AI detection tools are so trained on online writing, that they have started to build false positives for even human-written content showing up as AI-generated. Here's the rub: there have been too many patterns of kicking the proverbial can down the road for...
9 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, As you know, I am a LinkedIn nut. Since I have gone independent 6 years ago, 100% of my clientele came from LinkedIn. So naturally, everytime LI launched a new feature, I keep my eyes peeled on how it affects my target audience and my own content. If you have missed it, LinkedIn has been rolling out ‘Report Your Content as AI Slop’ feature that has the entire network in rapture. A lot of folks feel acknowledged that they finally have a way to cleanse their feed by reporting the...
16 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, The irony is not lost on me. I am covering a newsletter platform exodus today, as I am deliberating switching to a different newsletter platform. But more on that in next week’s issue. I spent time this week going into all the angles on the Emma Roth Substack story from The Verge. In her words, writers are fleeing Substack, because of a pricing model that puts a choke hold on their subscriber business. I think she's right on the money. Emma Roth's Substack story on The Verge We...
23 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, When I started writing for LetterStack, I always used to think about what my subscriber of one looks like. I used to worry about what would make them hit reply, instead of unsubscribe. But I never once thought about the other reader, the one that gets to my content, before my subscriber does. Let me explain. Jonathan Coleman, who's a content design leader at HubSpot and a friend, posted about a Netflix job listing this week. The job listing has been burning up LinkedIn, with...
30 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, Each week, my guilty pleasure is spending a lot of time just taking notes from top-tier creators. Do these notes translate well to applying it on my own content? I will let you speak for that. But I digress. Back to taking notes. This week I have been spending a lot of time bingeing on Kane Kallaway’s Youtube channel. I believe few people articulate how to break down great content strategy, like Kallaway does. Here’s his channel, if you are so inclined. Why am I bingeing on this...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, You may not know this, but my wife and I ran a fashion startup (virtual try-ons) for a year. In 2020. In the heat of COVID. Naturally that did not work out: people were happy to continue in their pajamas. But the tenacity with which we kept tabs on the fashion niche like a hawk never let go. The Business of Fashion subscription might have helped too :) So when Plum Sykes published 'The Fashion-Trust Metric' Substack issue from the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, naturally I...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
👋 Hi Reader, History may or may not repeat itself, but it most definitely rhymes. This time, the rhyme is on crypto creators on Instagram. On Friday, I woke up (don't judge me by my morning routine, I am not a biohacker bro) to multiple Instagram crypto community creators losing their audience overnight: Sujal Jethwani @SujalJethwani I just lost 234K people Instagram SUSPENDED my account today And this isn't new. Our previous account, Viral Theories (1M+ followers), was suspended too. - 5...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, An incredible number of new newsletter operators that I speak to follow this pattern: They launch their newsletter with gusto and enthusiasm. They write it for a few weeks without dropping a beat. And then, in a few months, they see other newsletters copy their ideas, format, even the color palette. They find that copycat versions make more noise, especially online, racking up subscribers. And their confidence deflates quickly. My response to them: If you are getting good at what...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, I have had the opportunity to see Erik Torenberg up close, albeit virtually. I was one of the instructors at OnDeck's product fellowship (or ODF as its called), which is the accelerator Erik and Julian Weisser ran in 2023. I have since followed his work closely at Turpentine and a16z (I also applied for the New Media fellowship and got rejected - boohoo). So when Erik wrote an essay about the first year at New Media at a16z, I naturally spent an inordinate amount of time reading...
2 months ago • 3 min read