The Baer Necessities (1/17/21) - Coolest Things I Learned, Content Diet, and Growing your newsletter

Jan 18, 2021 9:43 am

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Happy Sunday friends!


Writing to you from my backyard in Memphis after a week-long trip to South Florida.


It was such a relacing time staying with my buddy Daniel, seeing college friends, and relaxing on the beach for the week. But I'm happy to be home, return back to my regular routine, and get after it.


FYI - I changed the formatting for this email. I decided to include a run-down of what's included in the email at the beginning, shortened the section on "what I'm working on", and generally changed the subheading titles. Let me know what you think of the changes or anything else you learned!


Just a few things from me:


That's all for me! Here is what you will find in this week's Baer Necessities:



Alright y'all, let's dive right in!


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🤓 Coolest Things I Learned in 2020 (from David Perell)

I'm a huge fan of David Perell and for good reasons. He's a prolific writer and writing teacher that has blown up on Twitter this year. Every year he publishes links to the coolest things he learned from in the previous year. There are SO many gems on this page that you should definitely check out, but here are 3 of my favorites (all directly pulled from his page):


1) Nassim Taleb’s Definition of Success

Pulled from Taleb’s excellent commencement speech at the American University in Beruit:


“For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.”


2) Women Get More Tattoos Than Men

Nearly twice as many American women are tattooed as men (39% vs. 21%).


I also liked this quote from the study: “The rise in popularity of tattoos constitutes one of the most significant cultural trends in the West. A mere two generations ago, tattoos were largely reserved for criminals, sailors, and circus freaks. Today, 40% of Americans aged 26-40 have at least one tattoo.”


3) How Jews Became so Successful


Before the Industrial Revolution, the Jews played a negligible role in the history of science and technology. Even though they were a talented bunch, they couldn’t access many European institutions. Prior to the 19th century, they weren’t allowed in most universities.


Things changed in the late 18th century when the United States granted them additional legal rights, including access to universities. France followed in 1789, and so did other nations. In the wake of these changes, Jews flooded top-tier schools.


By 1889, 30 percent of all students at Vienna University were Jewish. Between 1870 and 1950, Jews were over-represented among figures in the arts and sciences. Then, in the second half of the 20th century, Jews received 22 percent of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry, 32 percent in medicine, and 32 percent in physics — even though they were less than 1 percent of the world’s population.


Explore more: The Coolest Things I Learned in 2020


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🍿 How to improve your content diet in 2021 (from Polina Marinova)

Polina Marinova writes a newsletter called The Profile — where she writes deep articles on the most successful people and companies in the world. To make sure she makes the most of her time, she started intentionally monitoring her content diet in 2019. In this article, she explores how she improved her content diet and how you can improve your diet too.


Here are some tactics she mentioned (with some ideas from yours truly):


  • Conduct a content audit: take an honest look at the content you consume on a daily basis. What do you read? What do you watch? What do you listen to? Who do you hang out with?
  • Make rules for yourself: examples include not checking social media for an hour upon waking, watching less reality TV and more documentaries, read before going to bed instead of watching TV.
  • Make it practical: delete social media apps from your phone, use Instapaper to save articles for later, join communities where people are sharing cool ideas, and listen to high-quality longform podcasts while you work out.


You should be in control of the content you consume — not anyone else or any algorithm. Monitor your content diet in 2021. If you find yourself only watching reality TV and TikTok videos, maybe you should start with recommendation #1: conduct a content audit and look for ways to improve it.


Read more: How to improve your content diet in 2021


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🎧 The Nathan Barry Show — Building a Loyal Audience & Growing Your Newsletter

Nathan Barry has been on a tear lately with his podcast on interviewing successful newsletter creators. And he's the PERFECT guy to be doing these interviews. He's the CEO and founder of Convertkit — an email marketing tool aimed to help creators start their newsletter and turn it into a career.


In this podcast episode with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, the founder of Ness Labs, you will learn some valuable insights about how to launch, maintain, and scale a newsletter. Some of my favorite tidbits from the episode include:


  • How she gained 1,000 email subscribers over night by launching on Product Hunt
  • Don't treat your newsletter too casually (but still make it feel like a conversation)
  • Be upfront about what people are signing up for (i.e. telling them it will take 3 minutes to read and give them 3 bullet points about what it's about)
  • It's better to focus on 1 or 2 distribution channels to start (i.e. NOT promoting on every social media but choosing 1 or 2 channels. For me, that's Twitter and, to an extent, LinkedIn. I used to promote on every platform but stopped because it takes too much energy.)


Listen or watch the full episode: Building a Loyal Audience & Growing Your Newsletter


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🎧 Chris Dixon on Bankless — The Fourth Crypto Cycle

If you're tired of hearing everyone talk about Bitcoin's price, you're not alone. This episode with Chris Dixon takes a step back and gives a 10,000-foot overview of the crypto industry from a technological and historical perspective — rather than a monetary perspective. Dixon, who is a partner at the famous venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and director of their crypto fund, also worked in technology in pre-internet, post-internet, pre-crypto, and post-crypto worlds of investing and venture capital. This interview was fast-paced and absolutely fascinating.


He shares valuable insights on:


  • Innovation cycles (+ which cycle he thinks crypto is currently in)
  • Why blockchain is different than any other technology in history (hint: it has to do with commitments)
  • What he's most excited about in the crypto industry in 2021 & beyond (NFTs for creators, DeFi, and Web3)
  • And how blockchain could meaningfully impact the 4 billion users on the internet


In addition to this episode, you should also check out Dixon's blog — especially his article on Why Decentralization Matters from 2018.


Listen to the full episode: Chris Dixon on Bankless — The Fourth Crypto Cycle


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Question I'm Pondering This Week:

How can I make the newsletter feel more like a conversation with my readers? How can I add the most value per word every Sunday? What else can I do to support you?


Feel free to respond with any ideas you might have to these questions.


And as always, if you're facing any challenges you need support with, I'm here to help (especially with regards to writing, launching newsletters, digital marketing, SEO, startups, and crypto).


Thanks for reading and I'll be back next Sunday afternoon!


Cheers to a brand new week,

Jonah


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Lastly, check out my personal website and follow me on Twitter to see any of my previous work!


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