001: Ugh, I know. Another Newsletter.
001: Ugh, I know. Another Newsletter.
Thank you for subscribing. It means a lot.
Hi Friends. Thanks for reading.
Let’s get right into it.
Why start a newsletter… now?
I admit that it’s not an ideal time to ask anyone to sign up for yet *another* Newsletter. I find myself drowning in email every day as well, and more of my weekend time has been claimed by “catching up” on all the news I’ve missed during the week from some of my favorites like Feed Me, After School, SatPost by Trung, and The Honest Broker. I feel you, it’s a lot.
In the spirit of brutal transparency, here are my reasons:
1. I fear that Twitter’s decline may be irrecoverable. I have spent nearly a third of my life and thousands of screen hours honing my Twitter voice, and have been quite successful at it, but the past few months on the platform have been… difficult. Too many thoughtful people have left, much the marketing discourse has been reduced to growth hacking click-bait (rivaling LinkedIn broetry), and my For You algorithm features an incredible amount of political vitriol and graphic content that at one point would only be available on the seedier, fringe corners of the dark web.
Twitter will still be my first port of call and center of gravity, but I need to spread things out a bit. For you business nerds, freeing myself from that particular algorithm will allow me to both create and capture more value. If anything, I promise that this will be halfway educational and entertaining.
2. This isn’t the first time that I’ve tried to write consistently. I had a regular trade industry column on ClickZ almost 20 years ago, maintained a blog called “Hip Hop and Advertising” in the late 2000s/early 10s, and contributed regularly to the first ever hip hop blog on the internet.
At around that same time, Facebook Newsfeed and Twitter launched, and I fell out of regular writing practice entirely. I debuted a different Third City newsletter a couple of years ago during lockdown via Revue, the Twitter-native email solution that has since been sunset. Back then, the idea of a personal newsletter was a bit more novel, and I was mostly experimenting… I had good traction and enjoyed it, but needed to focus most of my free hours to what was at that time a new job and industry.
Now I’m locked in.
3. I have family medical bills to help fund (the American healthcare system is a lot to deal with, maybe I’ll write about it some time), and I’m exploring all avenues possible to increase my extra earning potential to meet that need. I haven’t decided if I will have a paid tier here (I’m not sure what that would entail yet), but that isn’t out of the question. If I get to reasonable critical mass, I’ll explore selling ad space (in a tasteful and reader-friendly manner, natch) and maybe try an affiliate play.
Above all, I’ve found that putting thoughtful content and energy out into the world tends to eventually come back in the form of opportunity. So I’ll focus on that first.
What’s your content going to look like?
I’m going to experiment and see what sticks. Some starter ideas that I’ve jotted down:
1. A curation of the Top 5 articles or pieces of content that I’ve read over the past week, with some context as to why I think they are meaningful and important. I want to avoid being just another link farm.
2. Interviews with interesting people that I know or would like to know better.
3. Breaking down brand strategy, marketing campaigns, advertising tactics, and everything in-between. A mix of evergreen thinking and live commentary on things that have hit the market in previous weeks. My open rates on Revue were pretty high when I did this previously, so I’ll give it another go.
4. Documenting and sharing strategies and potential pathways for people in marketing and advertising to consider transitioning to where I currently sit, on the VC side. I get a lot of inbound asking how I managed to pivot (sorry if I haven’t gotten back to your DMs yet, they are a disaster), so maybe doing so here in a one-to-many fashion will help to get ideas out to interested parties (or is this too niche?). I also offer a more bespoke version of this over at Intro, if you’re so inclined and want to spend more time crafting a personalized plan.
5. Learnings and best practices and things I’ve learned throughout my career. I’ve been in a lot of interesting rooms, managed a few meaningful/scary pivots, and have learned how to deal with (and survive?) some interesting people and situations that in retrospect are bizarre, or straight up comedy. I don’t consider myself a mentor, but I think some of these anecdotes might prove helpful for some.
6. The occasional long-form essay or op-ed about the thinkfluencer thing of the moment, or something that I’m building an active thesis on (e.g. The Taste Economy, The Death of Dating Apps, Enshittification of digital platforms, The Loneliness Epidemic, AI Ethics, etc.)
7. Employment and freelance opportunities. I have a lot of folks in my network who are looking to hire, and people who are actively looking for both full-time and freelance gigs. Job boards and employment platforms all feel broken right now, so I’ll do my best to fill the gap.
8. … I’d also appreciate feedback on what YOU would like to see based on what you already know about me and what I’m capable of sharing. I’m open.
Who else is here?
This place has ~575 subscribers so far. In skimming through the list, and it’s a pretty interesting breakdown… around 65% brand and agency, 25% venture or finance or big consulting, and the rest a mix of entertainment industry, web3 natives, artists, technologists, students, etc. Someone who helps run a sovereign wealth fund (pls don’t unsub for this mention lol), a high ranking government official, a retired NBA player, a few authors, a family farmer, a legit billionaire. A pretty good mix.
Is there a Community component?
Yes. As part of this newsletter launch, I’m going to reboot a dormant Slack community that I’ve used to aggregate the pop-up Telegram groups that I’ve been running for SXSW and Art Basel Miami Beach for the past 2+ years (IYKYK).
I know that everyone is loyal to their respective Slack and Discord home bases at this point, so I’m not necessarily going to try to steal share in that regard. Instead, I’m going to focus pretty narrowly on community sharing of research and discussion of hot topics of consequence in the industry (I’d love to do community Zoom calls), sharing access to places, spaces, and info, and organizing occasional IRL events and networking meetups. If you’re interested in joining the Third City Slack, apply here. I’ll onboard in limited batches every week.
Speaking of IRL meetups, I’ll be attending the Future Commerce VISIONS Summit - LA this coming Thursday. You can use the code “MIRAFLOR” for 20% off a GA ticket, and I’ll also be giving a free ticket away by EOD tomorrow. Enter by retweeting this, and this, and emailing me links as proof.
What is “Third City”, anyway?
It’s based on the essay “Here is New York” by E.B. White. Particularly, this passage:
“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.
...Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. ”
I’m feel like part of the Third City. If you’re reading this, you likely are too. God, I miss NYC so much sometimes. I go into the motivation behind the brand a bit more on my currently-on-hiatus consulting website. The very talented Jazmina Zornic designed the Third City identity, including the secondary logo below:
Until Next Week
I know this first edition was a lot of exposition, so thanks for bearing with me. Everything from layout to design to tone of voice will likely change and continue to evolve in the coming weeks. I really would appreciate any helpful feedback or ideas on what you’d like to see here.
Publishing schedule will be towards the end of every week, between Fri-Sun until I figure out what works best for most.
Until then, see you on the internet.