Hello!
I built Brainwaves on a promise of radical transparency, and Q3 really put that to the test. It wasn’t all wins and milestones—there are always ups and downs. 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: Prioritization
There’s never enough time for everything you could possibly want to do in your life. I’d love to run a bakery, take up art, remodel a few homes, and do a multitude of other opportunities.
How do you manage all of these ambitions at once? Prioritization is key.
In every 24 hours, what are the highest-importance activities that you could do? If you compare what you do each day to what the highest-importance things were that day, often those aren’t always the same thing.
When it comes to newsletter writing, where should it sit in your priority stack? This is a difficult question. The key to good newsletter writing is taking time away from the writing to compose your thoughts, see parts of the world, and come to the pieces with new perspectives.
But you also need to keep up your backlog and pipeline, and keep building your brand outside your content (social media, interviews, websites, etc.).
In my life, this means some nights and a lot of the weekend are devoted to my newsletter. For you, this could be a 9-5 gig, where you spend every waking hour on the newsletter. Or it could be much more of a part-time venture where you occasionally spend time on it.
If it brings you happiness and joy, it should probably be prioritized in your life. If it feels more like work, maybe it shouldn’t eat up every waking hour you have.
Thanks for listening to my short monologue, and with that, let’s get into the quarterly update.
Brainwaves: What Happened This Quarter?
This quarter, I experimented more with shorter-form content (<2,500 words). They’re much easier to write on my side, and I like emphasizing the point and keeping the punchiness of each topic without needlessly droning on for length.
I’ll keep experimenting with these content formats as I continue to see how they perform and which you guys like better. To everyone who’s followed this content journey so far, thank you, and I hope you keep enjoying the different depths of content.
There were some good articles released this quarter, and I’m looking forward to what’s coming. Hopefully, you caught each one; if not, take a peek below (I highly recommend We Love Lying Ourselves and The Generation That Can Only Fail Upwards if you’re looking for a nice short read).
Articles You May Have Missed From This Quarter:
Special Edition: Interview with Joe Biel - An interview with the owner of Microcosm Publishing, discussing the publishing industry
The High Cost of Indispensable People - A guide on tips to survive the transition of an indispensable team member
Fluctuat Nec Mergitur - A long-form deep dive into Futures Thinking series tenet #8
The Generation That Can Only Fail Upwards - A modern wealth-based phenomenon preventing the young from succeeding
Real Options - My guest post on Innovate, Disrupt, or Die in October 2025
We Love Lying to Ourselves - Self-deception as a coping mechanism
Carrots, Sticks, and Kilowatts - Dissecting the incentive structure behind the move to clean energy
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 that 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 #92: Living in the Wilderness, Deepfake Laws, and NASA Buying Two Cars for the Moon
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #93: Bias in Every Decision, 3 Summer Reading Books, and Why Groceries Are So Expensive
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #94: What To Do About Children, El Nino Is Here, and Growing Insects for Animal Nutrition
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #95: Missing Your Childhood or the Future You Imagined, Space Permanently Changes the Human Body, and The Secrets of the Turf Master
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #96: How to Become a Likable Person, European Heat Waves, and Robotics Servicing Satellites in Orbit
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #97: The Value of Freedom, Grocery Price Emergency in America, and Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #98: Best Mental Health Advice, America’s Inventions, and What We Can Learn From Nordic Happiness
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #99: Books & Life Smarts, China’s Successful Rocket Launch, and How Companies Have Abandoned Climate Goals
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #100: 100th Edition, Trump’s Plan for Science, and Fin-Based Renewable Tidal Energy
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #101: Genuinely Uncommon Ideas, Thinking For Yourself Not AI, and Destroying Books
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #102: What Children Owe Their Parents, Saving Endangered Species, and Adapting to the New Wildfire Age
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #103: Evolutionary Mismatch, Federal Cuts for Wildfire Fighters, and Developing New Crop Varieties
The Saturday Morning Newsletter #104: The Decline of Genuine Connection, Obesity Investing, and Smart Weather Balloons
Brainwaves: By The Numbers
This quarter saw some pretty massive growth, going from 309 to 379 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 several ideas to keep this positive trend going, and I hope you’ll 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.
We’ve been revamping the website for optimal performance this quarter and last, and the results show up in the numbers. My favorite metric is scroll depth, which is best in class for newsletters, and one of my goals is to keep producing content people want to view and keep reading in depth.
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: 375
Success.
Readers, I greatly appreciate all of the work you have put in this quarter sharing the newsletter with friends, colleagues, and family. As you continue to enjoy it, please keep sharing it with those you think would value these insights. It makes me happy to see the platform keep growing and evolving, touching the lives of more and more people along the way.
4) Continue building on our social media success
Success (ish).
Social media performance has been similar this quarter to prior quarters, with no measurable increase in performance through scale or increased learnings. I’m glad performance hasn’t meaningfully decreased, but I think we can stay intentional this quarter about where we spend our efforts.
5) Drive subscribers through the referral program
Fail.
Three quarters ago, I began the referral program (here). It hasn’t caught on yet. So far, I’ve mainly pursued it through small initiatives to drive traffic.
I’m not sure whether I should double down or cut my losses for now. I’ll keep thinking about this over the next bit to see what I want to do.
6) Read more books associated with subjects I’m interested in
Success.
I read 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.
This entire process is driven by the goal 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: 480
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 480 subscribers by the end of November 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 480 people shouldn’t be hard. To put it into perspective, with 379 of you currently subscribed, we just need a referral rate of 0.26 (~1 in 4 people sharing) to reach 480. I’d really appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to help 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 of increasing 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) Expand my backlog of articles
I’ve not had as much time as I’ve wished lately to spend on writing long-form bi-weekly newsletter articles. My backlog is in a fine spot, but I think it can be much better.
I’ll keep making concerted efforts to work through my backlog this quarter, which will hopefully translate into better, more structured articles in the quarters to come.
I think it’s ambitious, but well within reach.
5) 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 here and will keep coming back for more content each week.
I’m excited to see what happens this next quarter. This passion project keeps growing and developing, and it astounds me every 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:
Moon Landings?
Hostage Negotiators?
Adding to 1000s of Articles?
….and more
With that, thank you again for your support! As is customary, here’s a Kardashian + friends quote to brighten your week:
“Being a mom is what life is about. I hope people realize what the priorities in life should be and know not everything has to be perfect.”
- Kourtney Kardashian
Thank you again for another great quarter!
Drew Jackson
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