Hello readers,
This week’s article is going to be a bit more personal than my previous drivel on tech or business, but I’d like to guide all of you through the process and my perspective on founding, establishing, recruiting, and writing for this newsletter
It began in May, and I wanted to begin publishing my writing and obtaining an audience, which manifested in the form of my old newsletter, “Engineering Digital Evolution”. I didn’t AI generate the name, but I did AI generate the logo and article ideas. I, however, have a strong distaste for AI writing; it's repetitive, boring, and a hallmark of being a lazy piece of ***.
I wrote about what came to my mind. Being inexperienced, I didn’t really know what people wanted to see. I wrote about health, passions, my journey, and the philosophy of design in business. I wrote my heart out, yet I’ve never really been one to write. I struggled in English courses throughout high school. I could never find it in myself to be intrinsically motivated to actually write for a paper or assignment that wasn’t of interest to me. I submitted my work late and past the deadline, but I always at least knew how to weave my emotion into my words.
I don’t mean to create a sob story surrounding my background; I don't have a sad background, but continuing with my newsletter, I at least feel I've gotten the hang of writing, and I can communicate my points effectively. After 3 weeks of writing for my newsletter, I missed a week, and then another, and then another. I had 5 subscribers, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but I didn’t find it in myself to be able to write, especially on top of all of my ongoing obligations. I decided I needed help, and I needed to get support.
I found support in the form of my close friend, Pierce Berke. I was seeing him after he returned for the summer, and I offered him an opportunity to write for a newsletter together. He agreed, stating that he disliked the current landscape of information on AI, and he holds a strong perspective, being a triple major at the prestigious Amherst College.
So we start writing together, just uploading articles and not really feeling a sense of direction. Pierce then called his friend Peter, and we gathered for dinner at the Bedford Diner, and we discussed. He asked me questions about my business, and I was more than happy to share. I then asked about his obligations for the summer. He was interning, but he said he could find it in himself to potentially write weekly for us, and he was more than happy to join. Pierce and I publish our articles to little traffic, so I come up with an idea to publish a podcast, one that will get people talking.
It is then, during the week, that I call my friend Joey. I saw him uploading posts and articles on LinkedIn, gaining some impressive traction, and thought I should reach out. He took an entire week to respond because of how busy he was, but he gave me a shining yes and agreed with the shared sense of mission and purpose. I gathered a team of 4 in an honestly pretty short amount of time, so the only thing left to do was to get to work. I wrote three articles to be released when we got to publishing the newsletter, and Pierce published his collection of articles, Peter uploaded his equity report, and Joey wrote for us aswell. Now, I wanted to get us traction before we even launched an article, and the best way to do that was through a controversial podcast.
I look for studios and stumble upon WTFMedia Studios in Midtown Manhattan, for an hour of studio time running for $300. I thought this was a no-brainer steal. I gathered my friends and we booked a night in the city. The day comes, I’m slightly anxious, Pierce doesn’t wake up until 3 (recording is at 7:30), Peter gets back from his job, and we meet at the Golden’s Bridge train station, we take the train into the city, and we meet Pierce along the way.
I see Pierce’s outfit, a black dress shirt with shorts, and I think he looks weird alongside his wild haircut, but I thought it would only make sense and make him stand out even further. I originally had planned for all of us to be wearing suits, but only I ended up being in one. We walk around Manhattan, and we get to the studio, we take the elevator, and on the 60th floor, we see doors, and we walk through and arrive on set. It’s beautiful.
Our production engineer, Miles, welcomes us, and we get right into things. I grab my water bottle and briefly explain who I am and what our goal is, and the cameras start filming. I will share that I instructed Pierce & Peter to not only grill me, but make the interview as hard as possible for me; it wouldn’t be entertaining without conflict, I told myself. The interview starts off formal, but as we mention, Pickup, the plot starts to thicken. Peter genuinely disagreed with my going back to doing business with Dylan, and the interview began to escalate. We start bickering with Pierce backing Peter up to the point where Peter walks out due to my “Delusion”. This paves the way for the electrifying final 6 minutes of the podcast. After Peter leaves, Pierce and I want to emotionally deepen and intensify the stakes; we want to push the boundaries of our friendship. He berates me for my “egotistical” and malevolent behavior towards Dylan, as I pushed for a non-compete in our litigation. I counterpoint with his horrid behavior on such a large stage, and the interview wraps up with the heated encounter between us.
The studio time is finished, we shake our engineer’s hand, and we start heading back to our homes. The feeling between us all was one of anticipation and excitement. We ate some Chinese food, and we headed our way to our beds. Some days pass, and we start to ideate the launch of this newsletter. I get the footage on a Google Drive, and I am shocked by how crystal clear everything is; it came out in pure 4k. I start making clips, and they come out really funny. I think to myself, let’s get to launching this thing.
I make the Instagram and our LinkedIn, and we just started posting. We uploaded the podcast clips and directed traffic through our stories, and we started to gain some traction through everything. I’m shocked by the reception; it seems like almost everyone I knew had something to say about it. It was mostly positive and encouraging words; it gave us all a great boost of morale, and we were off to the masses.
A little more than a week later, we published our first weekly edition, and I made the decision for us to publish weekly as a collection of our articles. We get off the ground and we are publishing weekly, this has been going for 5 weeks now, this being the 5th edition.
I am currently very happy with how things are going, and I’m looking to push this newsletter very hard once college starts back up, I feel that will be the best time to push ourselves especially considering we began in the summer, with all that being said, apologies for the shorter article this week, we have some disruptive moves planned for our next coming weeks, thanks to all of you for your continued interest in us.