Let's Teach AI!
Newsletter for high school teachers
I launched my newsletter yesterday, yaay!🥳 I'd like to share what I've learned since the moment I decided to launch the newsletter (beginning of January).
Dealing with uncertainty
The first thing I did was writing down the problem, the elevator pitch (see below) and a strategy on how to get the first 10/100/1000 subscribers. However, as all of you know, no matter how promising your lean canvas looks like, there is always a big uncertainty before launching a product.
My main assumption is:
Teachers like my posts in subreddits, FB groups and on Twitter (starting with 0 followers😜), visit my website and subscribe to my newsletter.
Yesterday I sent newsletter issue #0001 to 4 subscribers (friends) and I'm now starting to share parts of this issue on social media. So, soon I'll know more about if my assumption is correct or not.
In the meantime, I'm preparing issue #0002 while having the following thoughts:
- What if my assumption is wrong? Should I really be working on #0002 or should I wait first?
- What if I'm not able to grow a community?
- How many issues do I need to write without reaching (m)any people? What's the 'normal' number here?
While these are all forces that pull me back, there is one big force that's pushing me: I really love writing the newsletter issues so far!😍 I'm passionate about the topics and I can fully stand behind the newsletter's purpose. That really helps me a lot!
To summarize: Create something that you love doing and you don't care that much about uncertainty.
I hope I can keep this up for the next couple of newsletter issues!😉
Tech stack
- emailoctopus.com for sending the newsletter and storing my list of subscribers (I tried others but this one seems to be perfect for me)
- carrd.io for the landing page (this tool is simply amazing, smoothest way to create a landing page I've ever seen)
- porkbun.com to buy the domain
- newsletteros.com by @Janel to get everything organized and it makes me feel that I haven't forgotten anything
- bear.app for writing
Last but not least, here is my elevator pitch:
Elevator pitch
High school teachers who want to make the newest technologies more accessible to their students get a weekly newsletter with insights and teaching ideas on AI, Quantum Computing, Blockchain, etc. No math or CS skills required.
I'd love to get your feedback! And I'm curious to hear your stories!
Cheers,
Ben
3 Comments
If teachers are liking your content on other channels, there's a good chance they'll enjoy your newsletter.
But perhaps the best way to test that is to take snippets of content from your newsletter and re-purpose this for Twitter, Facebook etc. And then invite people who engage with this content to sign up for your newsletter for more.
@harrydry is a master of this technique. Check out Marketing Examples and see how he promotes content across different channels to drive people to subscribing to the newsletter.
Best of luck with yours – sounds interesting!
Thank you @Hollie Youlden for your feedback! I'll definitely check out Marketing Examples!
Congrats Ben and thank you for the shoutout!