👋 Hi Reader, As you may be well aware with the movie references here, I am a movie nut first, and a newsletter person second. I just stumbled into the world of newsletters a few years ago. But as a marketer, I have always been amused when people get antsy when they see someone else's content copied. To me, the AI-generated content theft debate is a movie I have seen before. Several times. But before we get there, let me take you back to the quote you see in the subject line: Good artists...
9 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, This thought has been living in my mind rent-free for a while now. Every time I talk to a newsletter creator who is doing genuinely good work, I ask them the same question. How are people finding you? The answer, almost every single time, is: social content, and whenever the newsletter platform decides to show people organically. And that second part is the problem. These Walled Gardens If you have built your product for distribution before, chances are you have run into walled...
16 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, I am a big fan of builders, who can ship product fast. I have been working in product for 2 decades now, and I sincerely believe CEOs who can ship fast, do well and last longer in business. Period. So when I see Tyler Denk and his team of builders at beehiiv ship, my eyes water. I have not seen an org ship this fast and at scale, the sole exception being Anthropic with Claude. Take for instance, all the features beehiiv has shipped just in the past 8 weeks. I had covered their...
23 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, I will be candid: I don’t watch a lot of TV. I haven’t watched much in the last 5 years if I remember correctly. So forgive me, if I am a bit late to the TV game. What I realized is Substack had already launched a TV app in Jan 2026 and it had extended a TikTok-like “For You” feed on their TV apps. SubStack's announcement in Jan 2026 The dissolution of intent As someone who consumes a lot of the written word, this strangely confuses me. If I subscribe to a newsletter creator, I...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, ICYMI, OpenAI acquired TBPN earlier this month. If you haven’t heard about TBPN before, I feel sad for you. Jordi Hays and John Coogan run a show every weekday chronicling what’s happening in tech and business. What’s remarkable is they are getting acquired within 18 months of their existence. Is this the first instance of a tech company buying out a media brand? Hardly. HubSpot might be the one to get credit for starting the movement, buying out the Hustle, My First Million, and...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, Manny Reyes spelled out what I was unable to articulate for the last month. I was at the New Media Summit at Austin in Feb, where Robin Re, VP of Marketing at Industry Dive, dropped a truth bomb. She mentioned that Industry Dive does not mind paying as much as $50 to acquire their subscribers. I was attending the same talk as Manny did, and I still remember gasping on hearing that number. When writing my NMS takeaway newsletter issue, I also made a note of following up to check,...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, This week, I have been spending quite a bit of time going through Dorie Clark’s work. I believe that the only skill that I arguably have is the will to be misunderstood in the short-term, as I try to build a long-lasting career in the long term. So when I heard that Dorie had actually written a book on this topic called ‘The Long Game’, I was intrigued. I am yet to read the book, but the fact someone as prolific as Dorie documenting their thesis on playing long-term games was...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, I learn something new every time, Adam Ryan from Workweek shows up on my LinkedIn Feed. This week was no different. Adam decided to call out the elephant in the room in the newsletter ecosystem: Bot Email Opens. Adam's post on LinkedIn this week Adam would know this firsthand. Across its newsletter portfolio, Workweek does millions of email sends in a given month. So understanding what’s happening across the board and who’s opening their emails is the prime imperative for Adam,...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, On this fine Saturday morning, let me come clean on something you might not know about me: I am an open source nerd. I started my career building game design levels on Half-Life, (I know, I am old, be nice) and I was blown away by the fact that someone would allow a nerd like me to play around and add my tiny contribution to the game I so loved playing. I never pursued that line of my career full-time, but I got hooked to reading and knowing about all things open. As I built my...
2 months ago • 2 min read