I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Write to one person
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Hey Reader, Tom Brady focuses on football and nothing else. It’s his life. He dreams about football, studies it, obsesses over it, and dedicates himself to getting better at his craft. His manager, Ben Rawitz, was surprised to find that Tom really did not pay attention to anything else. “Did you see the news?” “What news?” Tom said. There was a big story that had broken, and Ben thought surely Tom knew about it. Nope. He was focused. That’s when Ben decided to start sending an email to Tom every week with current events, updates on what was going on in the sports world, real estate, and more. Ben was writing for one person: Tom. Fast forward 6 months, and Ben was at a Patriot’s event. Another player came up to him. “I love the email you send to all the players!” “What?” Ben said, confused. Another player chimed in to explain Tom forwards the email Ben sends him to all of the players. Without realizing it, Ben had been writing a newsletter. He eventually turned the emails he wrote for Tom into a newsletter called Playing Field. It’s an invite-only newsletter limited to 1,000 people. In order to be on it, you have to be a professional sports team player (or work closely with one). There’s a whole other story in there about limiting your audience and when it might make sense to put a limit on subscribers that I might talk about at some point. But the thing I want to highlight today is Ben wrote for one person—Tom—and in doing so, he wrote something that resonated highly with many people who are like Tom. So many people start with the desire to reach a large number of people and water down their message so it will apply to everyone. But this is exactly the wrong way to go about achieving that goal. If you want to resonate with many people, write to one person. Have one person in mind for your newsletter, your book, or your video script. Not only should you write to one person in terms of the topics you choose, but you should also write to one person in the way you speak. Don’t open with “Hey everyone,” because that immediately makes your message feel impersonal. Write the way you would write a message to one person you know well. Those are the kinds of messages people forward to a friend. Who do you know that would resonate with this message? Feel free to forward it.
Fonts hanging outEver wonder what fonts look and sound like? Some designer humor for you. PODCASTHow Marques Brownlee made $1M with brand partnershipsI got to sit down with my good friend and creative director at ConvertKit, Charli Prangley. Charli is a successful creator and deeply knowledgeable about what it takes to make it as a creator. We broke down the success of several creators, including Marque Brownlee and his partnership with Ridge, and some of the different paths they took. This was a super fun one and I hope you enjoy it. BOOKThe Almanack of Naval RavikantSuccessful entrepreneur and investor, Naval Ravikant, has shared many bits of wisdom in various places over the years. This book is a collection of his most insightful philosophies on everything from wealth, to happiness, to decision-making, and personal growth. No confusing jargon. Just useful ideas, including:
I also like Naval’s breakdown of the four types of leverage: Labour, Capital, Code, & Media. Have a great week! —Nathan |
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Hey Reader, If I could solve only one thing in my business, that would have the biggest impact, what would that be? This is the question every great entrepreneur obsesses over. Rather than trying to do everything at once, you look for the bottleneck and focus on solving that. There’s a book called The Goal by an Israeli physicist named Eliyahu Goldratt. It’s a 1984 business novel that business systems nerds love. However if you’re not a business systems nerd you probably… won’t love it. It’s...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent money on something and immediately felt guilty afterward? Will Guidara spends his money foolishly on purpose. And he thinks you should too. He once bought an entire barrel of whiskey and put it in his basement. He also put a skee-ball machine in the office. Is he going to get a monetary return on either of these things? No. But that’s kind of the point. He calls it the 95/5 rule: Manage your money and time like a maniac 95% of the time (no expense is too...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent a whole day on something almost nobody saw? It's painful when the whole reason you worked hard was because you wanted to reach people. If you teach a workshop in person, you reach the 20 people in that room. But if you record that same workshop once, you can keep teaching for years on autopilot. This is the concept of leverage, and it's something I talk about in my upcoming book, The Ladders of Wealth (you can pre-order it now). A lot of people will look back...