After my last newsletter I had a person reach out to me, telling me that he didn’t understand my newsletter, or what he was supposed to get out of it. Comparing it to a specific company’s brand and their newsletter, saying it should be more like that, where people know exactly what they’ll get every time they read it. And that if he felt that way, other people would probably have the same feeling about my newsletter – and he owes it to me to tell me how (badly) my newsletter comes across.

In case other people are confused too, I feel like I have to address that topic.

I’m not a company or a brand. I’m a person. When you’re building a brand, you should stick to having one clear message, so people will understand what the company is about – I agree with that. But people and society are nuanced and layered. It wouldn’t feel authentic to me to act like a brand. Being a founder is not a single-task job. Being a solo founder in particular means I have to do and think about everything myself. Having an outlet to share my thoughts and experiences with others in the process, makes it easier and creates an opportunity to connect with other founders who can relate to that.

I use an omnichannel approach to marketing. My personal Founder’s Newsletter is not going to have the same type of content as my company’s newsletter. Formta’s newsletter will be about the product: How to use it to get the most value out of it, best practices for managing projects and updates on new features: A typical predictable (slightly boring) company newsletter. If I was writing an investors update, it would focus on the same numbers every time (revenue, churn etc.) along with some short bullet points about what the company is working on at the moment, things I like input on from the investors, and any important updates they should know about. Formta’s Instagram focuses on sharing creative professionals’ work and in the future our events, to attract potential customers and as a part of community building. Formta’s LinkedIn focuses on important company news, industry news and any topic relevant to potential employees and customers, who want a deeper understanding of the company’s culture and industry. The point is you should use different channels for different purposes. I have a master’s degree with a specialisation in (cultural) communication. That means nothing I write professionally is random, or without a strategy or thought behind it. Are any of my channels perfect yet? No, of course not – it’s a startup with only one person in it. I have literally 1000s of other things to do besides marketing. The quality depends on the time and resources available to me at that time. All of them should improve as I get more time and resources to focus on them. Also I haven’t launched yet, which means I’m withholding information on purpose until I have – not sharing all details gives me a head start compared to my competitors, who could be reading this. After the launch I’m sure my communication will get a lot clearer.

What I want to do with my personal newsletter is simple: I want to share my experiences and thoughts as a founder, while I’m building a company out of nothing. Therefore the content shouldn’t be the same every time. It should evolve along the way. Like I said, being a founder is not a single-task job. This means I’ll write about whatever topics are on my mind at that time. Sometimes it’ll be about marketing, branding, software development, customer service or work-life balance. It can be sharing knowledge I’ve found or an experience I’ve had, that I think could be relevant or relatable to other founders. Or research I think could give investors, potential employees or board members more insight into the industry. Or just topics that are important to me personally / professionally. And sometimes it’ll just be a short company status update. The point is I’m not going to create my personal newsletter based on a typical company newsletter template – I would find that boring to write, and read. I’m not trying to create a brand around myself with this newsletter or act like an influencer. I’m just being a person and a founder.

Is that interesting for other people to read? I have no idea. But if I had to consider that every time I wrote a sentence, I would never get anything written.

I think the best guide I have is to look at the numbers for my Founder’s Newsletter. How many people has unsubscribed since I started my newsletter in February? Only one person (someone I know very peripherally, who’s not professional relevant). What’s my newsletter’s open rate? Usually between 60–70%, in one case even as high as 75%. The lowest? In one exception it was “only” 45%, but that was during the summer holidays, so that number is expected to be lower. Otherwise it’s been consistent at 60–70% within the first few days after publishing. Every. Single. Time. In comparison, the average open rate of a b2b newsletter? Around 15%. My readers are a great mix of investors, founders, potential customers, potential employees, potential board members and journalists. Will all of you think everything I write is interesting, and written especially for you? No, probably not. You can’t please everyone. That’s not realistic. But hopefully at least some of it will be interesting or relevant for you. It’s completely okay to skip a paragraph and go to the next headline, if there’s a topic you don’t find relevant or interesting – that’s why I use headlines, to make it easier to find the right content. Will I get mad if someone doesn’t like this format, my content or even unsubscribes? No, of course not. Will someone not liking or understanding it, make me change the format or content? No, of course not. It’s my newsletter. I’ll write about the topics I want, and it in the style that I want to write it in. Should you reach out and tell me if you don’t like it and think I should change it? No, of course not. It’s unnecessary, demotivating and it won’t change anything. (Also no one likes mansplaining). The best solution is to… assume you’re not in my target group and just stop reading it.

So why do I write my newsletter? To be transparent and build trust. I want my company to be transparent and trusted by its customers, employees, potential investors and board members. And that starts with me. I don’t have time to write LinkedIn posts 5 times per week. This is the format that works best for me because it’s maintainable, and having different content every time means I won’t get bored of writing it in the long run. Building a company is a marathon, not a sprint as they say – so continually keeping myself inspired and motivated is important, and this newsletter helps with that. Whether you choose to read it or not, is completely up to you.

Hopefully, this has cleared up any potential confusion among you. 😊