Iterating on the Food For Founders newsletter
Switching to a new format to continue providing value for current & aspiring entrepreneurs.
The time has come to make an adjustment to the newsletter.
When I look at the stats/data (which is something I preach constantly), I realize that the content on here isn’t read in the way I intended. When building a startup organization it is important that you use data and customer feedback to inform how to build your future roadmap…this is exactly what happened with Food For Founders.
Originally, the purpose of this newsletter was to create a Skimm-like daily download of the best content out there for building successful organizations.
I envisioned this as a content curation service of sorts, to help readers get the best value out of the internet without putting in the hours of reading crappy content to find the gems.
To me, the value was in the curation.
If I could charge $5 or $10 a month, but save people hours per week (possibly per day), that would be worth it. In that mindset, my value proposition was for the cost of Starbucks, we can significantly level up your business. I was way off. The data says that one wants this kind of newsletter, so we have to switch it up.
Instead of making this newsletter paid for the curated content, we will reverse our current content strategy. Now, the curated content will be distributed weekly on Saturday mornings as something to take with you into the weekends. This will be free and open to the public.
My goal with the weekly curation is to provide a better experience for the readers. Every day I read amazing pieces written by a host of experts, but I didn’t know how to package it in a way that truly resonated with potential readers.
Throughout the next few months, I’ll be focused on figuring out a format. Starting with…
New Format for Food For Founders
I’ll publish a weekly roundup of the best articles that I read this week and how founders and aspiring entrepreneurs can apply/leverage them in their own businesses.
This will be 100% FREE.
The purpose of shifting it was inspired by some of the newsletters I subscribe to. They spend time carefully curating each piece of content they recommend. I feel like the personal “flair” I would like to add to mine is the application piece.
The second part of this new format is to make “open” content, like this article, the paid piece of Food For Founders.
When I’m writing out ideas, they generally come from experience and speaking with other successful founders (or people much smarter than I am) within the startup ecosystem. We’ve received feedback that noted that this is actually the value-add and the article curation is more of a nice-to-have.
I won’t put every single piece of “open” content under a paywall. In fact, at least two pieces per week will be free. I never wanted to get rich by doing a paid newsletter, however, I did believe it was something that could provide significant value to others and that is worth something as the audience continues to build.
I’m so happy and humbled to have you on this journey with me.
As I learn, I’ll be sure to add as much reflection and application as I possibly can. This way you can see how I’m turning inbound information into outbound activities.