Behind the Scenes of Running the Brainwaves Platform - Q4’Y2
Quarterly Update
Hello!
Welcome to the quarterly update for the Brainwaves platform. As another quarter draws to a close, I’m pleased to present our comprehensive update. In the following, I’ll walk through quarterly highlights, discussing successes, obstacles overcome, and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead. I built this platform based on the value of transparency, so I’ve compiled this piece to give you a clear picture of where we currently stand and where we’re headed.
A Key Insight into Producing Content: Enthusiasm
I didn’t know when I started on this journey exactly how much I was in store for. People often ask me how much time I’m spending on my newsletter every week, and I tell them it’s anywhere from 5 - 20 hours (depending on what I want/need to get done).
Those hours don’t just come out of thin air; they’re part of trade-offs with the rest of your life.
So, if you don’t have raw enthusiasm about what you’re doing, it’s incredibly hard to find motivation to spend a significant portion of your life each week on a platform you aren’t excited about.
It’s okay if that motivation ebbs and flows over time; it’s hard to maintain a perfect record, especially amid any setbacks or unexpected changes.
Your goal should be to maintain the minimum amount of enthusiasm required to keep your platform going at all times. Of course, you should strive to be well above that line, but it’s a good barometer to fall back to if needed.
It obviously fluctuates, but in aggregate, I’d say I’m usually very enthusiastic about my newsletter. Whenever people ask about it, I’m always excited to give them the overview and answer any questions they have.
Where does this enthusiasm come from?
Hopefully, much of it comes from internal motivation to be creative, learn, grow, lead, etc. Besides this, enthusiasm can be driven by achieving your goals (whether big or small), producing quality content, and having other people get excited about your content.
The secret is a long-term view. If you look at it on a day-in-day-out basis, it’s going to look very volatile, so you have to be thinking long-term, or else you’ll quit at the first sign of failure.
Long story short, success and fulfillment are possible with a bit of enthusiasm.
Thanks for listening to my short monologue, and with that, let’s get into the quarterly update.
Brainwaves: What Happened This Quarter?
This quarter included content from a wide variety of landscapes (London, Colorado, Montana), people (Danny and Maria), and topics, broadening the approach I plan to take for future content.
I’m super excited about the articles released this quarter, and I’m looking forward to what’s coming ahead. These articles were some of the longest articles I’ve written to date, comprising many niche subtopics that build into the larger sector.
Articles You May Have Missed From This Quarter:
A Chocolatier’s 100-Year Predictions Highlight Our Limitations - A long-form deep dive into Futures Thinking series tenet #5
Special Edition: Interview with Maria Abi Hanna - An interview with the owner of Food Label Maker, discussing key business strategy decisions
Navigating the Modern VC Ecosystem: Risk vs. Return, Misconceptions, and Skill vs. Luck - Examining evolving trends and fundamentals in the venture capital industry
The Overlooked Threats to Our Space Future - Exploring critical challenges facing space commercialization
Guest Post: Danny Nathan - Authorship > Ownership - A guest post from Danny Nathan of Innovate, Disrupt, or Die
Life’s Biggest Questions - Identifying my approach to some of life’s biggest questions
The Saturday Morning Newsletter: What Happened This Quarter?
I’ve been working full-time this quarter (very exciting to be employed), meaning the newsletter has taken a backseat to any job-related responsibilities, leading to some really late nights and early mornings to get content produced. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it and it helps you keep up to date with happenings in these subsectors.
Articles You May Have Missed:
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #53 - Trampoline, Dumpster, Zipper, Velcro, Band Aid, and More
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #54 - Catastrophe, Aztecs, IPOs, Dairy, Seas, and More
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #55 - Stoicism, Dealmakers, Jobs, Mantles, Clouds, and More
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #56 - Reading, Shame, Smoke, Buses, Crops, and More
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #57 - Futurists, Nothing, Psychedelics, MBAs, Cargo, and More
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #58 - AI’s $1.5B Settlement, Nuclear Stock Surging 500%, and The Illusion of Freedom
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #59 - Great Thinkers Changing Their Minds, A 5th Failure for Firefly, and Why Autonomous Farming Robots Are the Future
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #60 - Dissecting 1800s Russian Nihilism, Who Owns Outer Space Rights, and $300B Needed in Forest Pledges
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #61 - It Takes A Village To Go To The Moon, Proactively Addressing Wildfires, and $23M for Fermented Fungi
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #62 - AI Adoption Moves at the Speed of Trust, Trump’s Casino Economy, and Launching 4,000 Space Mirrors
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #63 - Cartoons Revolutionizing Philosophy, Elon Musk’s $1T Compensation Package, and Seaweed-Powered Plastics
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #64 - 7 Unique Pancake Types, Free Daily Australian Energy, and Premature Global Divestment in Africa
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #65 - The End of Coffee, Tea, Cocoa, and Wine, Evolution Is To Blame For Our Health Problems, and $500M to Compete With SpaceX
Brainwaves: By The Numbers
This quarter has seen a major slowdown in growth compared to the previous few quarters (<25% growth). I have some thoughts on initiatives to improve performance going forward, but at this point, everything is a series of trial and error, so hopefully something pays off. Nevertheless, having more subscribers helps increase the chances that someone benefits positively from my content each week, which is my ultimate goal.
We’ve reached an unofficial milestone in the last couple of quarters: each article garners at least 100 views, if not more. The major peaks recently are the Futures Thinking articles—you seem to love them (and SEO appreciates the word count). There are enough consistent readers that are pushing the numbers up each week, which is crazy to even think about. It’s always fun to see what content you like the most.
The Saturday Morning newsletter is incredibly consistent, always maintaining open rates and viewership. I only hope this trend continues in the future, especially now it has a new face (peek the rebrand here).
I changed the website analytics this quarter to be on logarithmic scales because there are a ton of peaks and valleys, depending on social media sharing and article SEO. It’s always great when there are hundreds of users in a week (another small proof point that something is working here).
Last Quarter Goal Execution
1) Dive into my unique brainwaves each day, write about them, and publish my in-progress views each week, hopefully making a positive impact on someone’s life each week
Success.
As I’ve already touched on, this quarter has been a very exciting time for learning, discovery, and growth. I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned in the upcoming quarters.
2) Curate an experience that readers enjoy, one that makes them want to return for more
Success.
I think readers have enjoyed the experience this quarter, with the updated marketing and the rollout of new types of content structures and topics. Obviously, there is always room for improvement, but hopefully, overall, I’m doing a good job.
3) Subscriber Goal In 3 Months: 265
Fail.
As you probably saw, we’re up to 238 subscribers, falling short of our goal. I was hoping to launch a new initiative this quarter, but I wasn’t able to get all of the logistics to work in time. Hopefully, that will help achieve the subscriber goal this quarter. (More to come soon).
4) Continue to develop the email course
Fail (ish).
I’ve finished redoing the content for the email course (you’ll see a revisited article published this quarter). However, I don’t think this is a top priority anytime soon, given the current state of my project pipeline (you’ll be the first to know if that changes).
5) Continue building on our social media success
Success (ish).
Last quarter, we began executing on our new social media strategy and saw immediate results with more engagement and followers on our social media accounts. This quarter, we’ve continued this success, growing our social media account impact. However, we still haven’t figured out how to easily convert them to viewers and eventual subscribers.
6) Read more books associated with subjects I’m interested in
Success (ish).
I’ve read a bit this quarter, but with work starting back up, it’s been hard to find free time to chip away at the books I’m trying to get through. I’m hoping to continue spending time here, but it’s going to be a more muted success here in the future.
7) Get 3 more interviews completed and published
Fail.
I put a bit more time into my approach to interviews this quarter by revising my email templates and reaching out to more people, and I’ve gotten some decent responses, but still not where I necessarily want to be. I’m thinking I need to reset my expectations for this upcoming quarter.
Goals For This Quarter
1) Dive into my unique brainwaves each day, write about them, and publish my in-progress views each week, hopefully making a positive impact on someone’s life each week
This goal is the first and most important goal of this platform and the reason that I started this journey. I view this platform as a great excuse to dive into my unique views on some of my favorite topics, trying to understand and constantly improve my viewpoint on each subject.
I subscribe to the mantra that you learn more about a subject when you have to teach someone else about it. Through the Brainwaves platform, I’ve created an artificial obligation to produce content each week, meaning I’m building time in my schedule to learn about new topics that I might not have made a priority before now.
This platform also allows me to publish my in-progress views on each subject I learn about each week. This is a great opportunity to get feedback from readers who may know more about these subjects than I do or who may have a unique viewpoint that I haven’t considered.
Surrounding this entire process is the pursuit of making a positive impact on someone’s life each week.
2) Curate an experience that readers enjoy, one that makes them want to return for more
The goal of this platform is to create an experience that readers enjoy so much that they want to continue coming back each week for more and more content. Now, that’s an incredibly lofty goal, but one I continue to strive towards each week.
I hope you enjoy the content each and every week!
3) Subscriber Goal In 3 Months: 280
I hate asking people for help, so I normally keep my “ask” to share/subscribe to this publication very short, and usually most people just brush right past it.
Today, I’m putting it front and center.
If you enjoy and/or get any value from the Brainwaves platform, help me get to 280 subscribers by the end of February by doing any of the following:
Forward this email to friends and tell them to subscribe,
Share on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook with a short note,
Share within your existing community or your company Slack channel.
Getting to 280 people shouldn’t be hard. To put it into perspective, with 238 of you currently subscribed, we just need a referral rate of 0.17 (~1 in 6 people sharing) to get to 280. I’d really appreciate it if you could spend a couple of minutes helping me broaden the reach and impact of this platform.
To reiterate, the goal of this platform is not to become famous or to generate an income stream, it is purely to educate people, like yourself, about things I believe are critical factors to our future. So, the goal to increase subscribers is not to grow larger (although that is a nice economies of scale byproduct), it is simply a goal to reach a broader audience consistently, and an audience that I will hopefully have a positive impact on every single week.
In addition, more people subscribing means more views and a greater likelihood that one of my readers knows more about a subject than I do, meaning there are more opportunities for me to learn and grow through this process.
4) Continue building on our social media success
We’ve had a ton of social media success this quarter. My goal is to continue pushing content and creating a measurable impact on our subscriber base via the social media efforts this quarter. That’s a lofty challenge that involves tons of views, interactions, and engagement, as well as a decently high conversion rate.
I think it’s an ambitious goal, but well within reach.
5) Drive subscribers through the referral program
I’ve wanted to start a referral program ever since I began marketing the newsletter. I’m super excited about this opportunity to reward readers for sharing the platform.
I hope this drives a large portion of subscriber growth (and helps me get rid of some of this swag) this quarter and quarters to come. Go make it happen!
6) Read more books associated with subjects I’m interested in
I’ve started to read some books on subjects that I’ve been interested in, and they’ve definitely helped round out my thinking, provide new perspectives, and deepen my knowledge of the niche subsegments of each sector.
I’ve already got some exciting books lined up for some segments I’m interested in. Hopefully you’ll get to see a couple of insights here and there.
7) Get 3 more interviews completed and published
I’ve put this down the last couple of quarters as a goal but I believe it’s actually achievable this quarter. We’ll have to see how the cookie ends up crumbling here, but there’s a good pipeline of interested parties that could convert into exciting interviews.
Thank You + Bonus Content
Thank you for sticking around. For anyone new here: thank you too! I hope you’ve enjoyed your time and will continue to return for more content each week.
I’m excited to see what happens this next quarter. This passion project continues to grow and develop, astounding me every single day. Like always, this is purely for fun and learning, and so far it’s been great.
As a little thank you, here’s a little hint at what’s coming down the pipeline:
Dreams?
A Blast From the Past?
Animation?
Cognitive Limitations?
….and more
With that, thank you again for your support! As is customary, here’s a Kardashian + friends quote to brighten your week:
“We all have to start somewhere, and doing something is better than nothing at all. Start small so you don’t get discouraged and give up. Remember it is all about consistency.”
- Khloe Kardashian
Thank you again for another great quarter!
Drew Jackson
Twitter: @brainwavesdotme
Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com
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