What It Actually Takes to Run Brainwaves (Q2’Y3 Review)
Brainwaves Quarterly Update
Hello!
I built Brainwaves on a promise of radical transparency, and Q1 really put that to the test. It wasn’t all wins and milestones—we hit some significant speed bumps that forced us to rethink how we grow. In this update, I’m pulling back the curtain on the hard lessons we’ve learned, the numbers we’ve hit (and missed), and the roadmap guiding us through the rest of Year 3.
A Key Insight into Producing Content: Routine
Routines are how I get everything done; they’re how I maintain the organization and productivity necessary to run this platform at the level I’ve set for myself.
For the newsletter specifically, I’ve talked a bit about my process, but I wanted to highlight a few things I do that really help move it along.
Firstly, I keep a running list of potential newsletter topics in a Google Sheet that I continually add to as I hear about, think about, or come across new articles. I rank them based on how much I want to write about them and how important/value-add I think they are, with the combination of those scores generally leading to what I end up writing about.
Secondly, I follow the same steps when I write a new article: I brainstorm and outline the article, then I take some time off to come back with fresh eyes, and I write it in chunks; very rarely do I write it all in one sitting. This allows for a reiterative editing and rewriting process, so the final version of the first draft is often quite well-polished, given all the rereading and editing along the way.
Thirdly, I’ve standardized my templates and formatting, so I’m not constantly customizing and spending time thinking about these details. This creates an efficient process and a more unified, standardized voice.
Finally, my review process is highly standardized—I have a Grammarly subscription that helps me edit for punctuation and word choice —and then I reread and edit each article twice to ensure proper phrasing and clarity. Honestly, I wasn’t very good at this at first, but I’ve gotten much better since (looking back at old articles can be a bit cringey).
Overall, having routines can be very helpful to ensure stability and proper adherence to established precedents.
Brainwaves: What Happened This Quarter?
This quarter focused on finding new interesting topics to write about that aren’t exactly down the fairway of what I normally write about. You’ll see these come across in Q3 - I’m excited to showcase these articles, I think they’re some unique perspectives on current event phenomena.
There were some good articles released this quarter, and I’m looking forward to what’s coming. Hopefully, you were able to catch each one; if not, take a peek below (I would highly recommend the Assassinations, Threats, Cover-ups, Greed, and the Collaborative Frontier articles if you’re looking for a nice short read).
Articles You May Have Missed From This Quarter:
The Strategic Case for a Circular Economy - Describing the next era of reduce, reuse, and recycle: circularity
We Should Stop Preventing All Wildfires - A long-form deep dive into Futures Thinking series tenet #7
Assassinations, Threats, Cover-ups, Greed - A History of Intellectual Property - An engaging set of IP stories to showcase its interesting and unique history
Opponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class? - Arguing against venture capital being the best asset class
Proponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class? - Arguing for venture capital being the best asset class
The Collaborative Frontier - Explaining the juxtaposition between public and private space entities and the future outlook
The Saturday Morning Newsletter: What Happened This Quarter?
This quarter has continued the recent streak of busyness, where the newsletter is fit in wherever possible (leading to some late nights and early mornings). I’m super excited you keep reading it each week and stay up to date on current events, only more to come in the future!
Articles You May Have Missed:
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #79 - 11 Rules for Resilience, Who Owns Ideas?, and The Most Important Supreme Court Case of the Decade
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #80 - Meekness Isn’t Weakness, Smashing Asteroids, and Airlifting Nuclear Reactors
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #81 - BookTok Wants First Person, How to Fix Indoctrination, and Why Kids Won’t Farm
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #82 - Solitude Isn’t Loneliness, Why You Care If I Think You Matter, and The Weather is Getting Wilder
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #83 - Time to Start Believing Again, Confusing Busyness With Purpose, and Moving Fast and Breaking Things
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #84 - Successful Artemis II Launch, The Secret of Exploration, and Where Every President Fails
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #85 - Artemis II Splash Down!, Killing America’s Golden Goose, and Plastic Ice Rinks
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #86 - Where Did All The Affordable Cars Go?, Asking Weird Questions, and Maximizing Your Social Intelligence
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #87 - Living Life to the Fullest, AI is Raising the Stakes, and Soldiers Need Childcare
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #88 - The Loneliest People, Amsterdam Outlaws Fossil Fuel Ads, and Plant-Based Plastics
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #89 - How to Fix Democracy, Why Gas Prices Differ, and How Fast the Universe is Expanding
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #90 - Arguments Against Veganism, Zugunruhe, and Gas Prices Driving the Sale of EVs
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #91 - The Most Influential Philosophers, Scientists Revisit Global Warming Downside Case, and EPA to Allow Some Forever Chemicals
Brainwaves: By The Numbers
This quarter saw some pretty massive growth, going from 255 to 309 subscribers. I’m so glad to have beaten our goal this quarter, and I’m hoping it’s only good momentum to come. I have numerous thoughts on initiatives to continue this positive performance trend, and hope you get to see a few of them come down the pipeline. Ultimately, having more subscribers increases the likelihood that someone benefits from my content each week, which is my ultimate goal.
After a breakout performance last quarter with some very large articles, this quarter has been more muted, with lower views and open rates. I’m still trying to figure out some behind-the-scenes variables with SEO and the website, which hasn’t driven as many views this quarter as it has historically (I’m thinking some indexing issues), so hopefully that will be sorted out this quarter. Thank you to the consistent readers each week who push the numbers up. It’s always great to see what content resonates the most.
The Saturday Morning Newsletter is incredibly consistent with its performance. However, if you throw a trend line on the newsletter views and open rate graphs, the trend isn’t pretty. From other newsletters I subscribe to like this, it’s easy to let them keep hitting your inbox without really reading them, just always having the intention to read them at some later date. Hopefully, this trend reverses this quarter, with some standout articles gaining traction.
I’m going to continue with similar commentary here as in previous quarters: we’ve been working on revamping the website for optimal performance this quarter and last, and the results are reflected in the numbers. My favorite metric is scroll depth, which is best in class for newsletters (it will likely decrease over time).
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 enjoyed the experience this quarter - I see more of you liking posts than we’ve had historically, which I appreciate. Obviously, there is always room for improvement, but hopefully I’m doing a good job overall.
3) Subscriber Goal In 3 Months: 285
Success.
Guys, we smashed our subscriber goal this quarter. Thank you for continuing to subscribe, share, and spread the word about what we’re doing here to everyone in your network. It really makes me happy to see the platform continuing to grow and develop, touching the lives of more and more people along the way.
4) Continue building on our social media success
Success.
We’ve had some breakout successes on social media this quarter on LinkedIn, and Instagram continues to perform well. I’m really appreciative of Jasmine for overhauling our process and continuing to drive performance here. I’m excited for the future quarters to continue this performance and drive further subscriber growth.
5) Drive subscribers through the referral program
Fail.
We launched the referral program (here) with the expectation that it would help drive growth, but so far it hasn’t (officially) driven one subscription, which isn’t great.
It’s been two quarters now that I’ve been trying smaller initiatives to drive traffic for the referral program with little success. I’ll continue looking into solutions here as I imagine there’s a good way to structure things that I haven’t found yet.
6) Read more books associated with subjects I’m interested in
Success.
I read quite a few books this quarter that relate to the topics discussed in the newsletter, and I’m excited to incorporate these insights and perspectives into upcoming articles. I hope to continue having time here to broaden my perspective and share interesting finds with you.
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 is the first and most important goal of this platform, and the reason I started this journey. I view this platform as a great excuse to share my unique perspectives on some of my favorite topics, trying to understand and continually refine my viewpoint on each subject.
I subscribe to the mantra that you learn more about a subject when you have to teach someone else. Through the Brainwaves platform, I’ve created an artificial obligation to produce content each week, which means I’m carving out time in my schedule to learn about new topics I might not have prioritized before.
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 have a unique viewpoint 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 readers enjoy so much that they keep 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: 375
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 375 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 375 people shouldn’t be hard. To put it into perspective, with 309 of you currently subscribed, we just need a referral rate of 0.21 (~1 in 5 people sharing) to reach 375. I’d really appreciate it if you could spend a couple of minutes helping me broaden this platform’s reach and impact.
To reiterate, the goal of this platform is not to become famous or generate an income stream; it is purely to educate people like you about critical factors in 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 to reach a broader audience consistently, and an audience that I will hopefully have a positive impact on every single week.
In addition, more subscribers mean more views and a greater likelihood that one of my readers knows more about a subject than I do, creating 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 success on social media this quarter. My goal is to continue pushing content and make a measurable impact on our subscriber base through our social media efforts this quarter. That’s a lofty challenge that requires tons of views, interactions, and engagement, along with a decent conversion rate.
I think it’s an ambitious goal, but well within reach.
5) Drive subscribers through the referral program
If you missed it, we launched a referral program last quarter! There are some exciting rewards (in my opinion), so feel free to send this to a friend or two and get them to sign up. Read more here.
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 reading books on subjects that interest me, and they’ve definitely helped round out my thinking, offer new perspectives, and deepen my knowledge of the niche subsegments within 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.
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:
An Interview?
Key People?
An Obscure Latin Phrase?
Commentary on Old People?
….and more
With that, thank you again for your support! As is customary, here’s a Kardashian + friends quote to brighten your week:
“You can say a lot of things about me, but you cannot say I don’t work hard. I don’t sing. I don’t dance. I don’t act. But I am not lazy.”
- Kim Kardashian
Thank you again for another great quarter!
Drew Jackson
Twitter: @brainwavesdotme
Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com
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