What I Learned Reaching 15,000 Subscribers

Why I Almost Didn't Start the Newsletter

Not many of you know this, but when LinkedIn invited me to launch a newsletter last September, I almost said no. Here’s what almost held me back from starting: 

📅 I had never written long form articles consistently 

😅 I didn’t think many people would care 

📝 I'm not a grammar wizard

But low and behold, I said - hey, this will be a fun learning test regardless what happens. I’ll learn something new, find an editor to help and we’ll see if anyone shows up.

And boom. 15 weeks later...

We've become a community of over 15,000!! 👀

To celebrate the news, I wanted to take a pause this week and share what I’ve learned along the way.

A Short Recap

Last November, I started the Personal Brand Brief, and over the last 16 weeks I’ve been able to celebrate some pretty cool news:

📰 we were recognized as a top LinkedIn newsletter to follow in 2021

🗣 10+ virtual speaking and consulting opportunities developed! 

👀 got featured on sites like Inbox Reads and Newsletters.co

👋🏼 100s of you have reached out with ideas (keep it coming)

💸 we’ve had some interest in new sponsors...

 3 Takeaways

 Since hitting publish on article #1, I’ve had 3 key big takeaways:

1. Ship things at 80% and get feedback to improve as you go

I think people get so attached to what others think that they delay launching great ideas. Don’t get me wrong. Waiting to be strategic is great. But delaying to the point of over analyzing is pointless. We have to admit with new projects, we’ll never 100% be “ready” to start anything. Instead, get after it! Get it to an 80% quality level, share it with some trusted folks, then adjust along the way.

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Check out the full article to learn the other 2 takeaways about scaling a newsletter to 15,000!