Ideas to Makers

Finally, the first issue is out. It took me a few more weeks during which my day job was keeping me super busy, but I made it.

During this time I continued to work on the stack:

1. Set up gumroad.com to sell the PRO version of ItoM.
2. Created a feedback form to track sentiment.
3. Set up a custom Welcome email.

Key learning: I could have sent out the issue a long time ago. Even though I told myself it didn't have to be perfect, I kept on working on things, thinking they were all just small tasks. But all those small tasks added up. In the end, they did not make much of a difference for my initial subscribers and I could have sent the first issue back in December. Keeping a more iterative mindset is one of the things I need to get better at.

I've been listening to the Newsletter Crew podcast for a while and I always found motivation in those episodes. So in an effort to get back on track, I decided to join the Newsletter Crew as a member. Even though it took me a few more weeks to get back to working on it, it was the best decision I could have made at that time. I've met other like-minded creators, I got my first subscribers, even before publishing my first issue. I was back!

I was well on my way to send out my first issue before the Holidays, but then life happened. I have a full-time job and the end of December was tough. I couldn't find the mental energy to concentrate on my newsletter. I was questioning if I could really commit to writing one issue every week. In short, I was feeling pretty down.

With my first draft done, it was time to start building distribution. I decided to go with a custom setup, rather than launching it on Substack. My main reasons were:

1. Creating a unique reader experience: one that would be memorable. I'm subscribed to a bunch of Substack newsletters and I often find myself forgetting which is which. This never happens to me with something like Trends.vc.

2. Owning the platform: This might just be a piece of mind thing, but I feel better knowing for instance that I can come up with whatever way of monetizing and no one is going to wake up one day and forbid me from doing it.

I decided to use EmailOctopus as my ESP. I've heard good things about their customer support and I also like the fact that they give me my first 2500 subscribers for free.

I hooked this to a landing page I build using Carrd.co, which I love.

To validate if I'd really enjoy writing Ideas to Makers I decided to write a test issue. I picked an idea (a sponsorship management platform for newsletter creators) and set out to work. After the first few paragraphs, I could already feel my creative juices flowing. I went through a few iterations on structure and content before settling on something I current version. I also really enjoyed creating the mockups for this idea. All in all the results of my personal validation were positive - this was indeed a topic I'd enjoy working on.

I wanted to start a newsletter, but for a long time, I couldn't find a topic I'd be excited to write about every week. Many introspective later I realized, that what I actually enjoy most is coming up with product ideas. That's when I knew I got it!