If I Was Starting A Newsletter In ’25. Make It Part Of Something Bigger

Building something that lasts isn’t about chasing attention, it’s about knowing your role, inviting people in, and creating work that stands the test of time.

YATM has just hit the 12 year mark. The newsletter has been central to everything I have built.

Maybe things would be different today with all the AI tools at my disposal to make everything quicker.

Over 12 years, I’ve seen fads come and go, platforms rise and crash from Klout to Houseparty, and many “newsletters are dead” articles scroll past my feed. 

What has remained true over 12 years is that writing and thinking for yourself still matter. In fact, it’s getting harder when you can find ways to have the thinking done for you, so that means it becomes your opportunity to stand out. 

Creating a newsletter is about:

1. Clarifying your thinking

2. Connecting with people who actually care

3. Provide a record of your work that can grow into something bigger than yourself.

If I could start YATM from scratch in 2025, armed with everything I’ve learned, here’s what I would do.

When I started, I was exploring how you can have control of the work you produce. Like an indie record label, can a person control the distribution, rather than relying on the big labels to give you visibility? 

At times, I tried too hard to sound knowledgeable or I went off on rogue tangents because my audience was small and I had nothing to lose (I was chaotic with my thinking).

There will be deviations and modifications, but there still needs to be a central message, to everything. A clear reason for joining in, that’s not available anywhere else.

You need a curious approach to an idea that people can get behind. That becomes your central force. If you don’t know what you believe, what you’re testing, or what you’re curious about, no format or tool will help you.

In the summer of 2019, I did something by mistake that was pivotal, I deleted the entire YATM database. Every subscriber, every contact, every name, gone.

It was terrifying, but it taught me who my true audience was, I rebuilt it from scratch a second time, from memory and reaching out to people. It forced me to recognise, why does this newsletter exist? Who is it for? What do I want it to actually do?

You must always back up your data. I made the mistake of everything in one place and when I thought I deleted a column of cold subscribers, I deleted the whole database I was accountable for (Mailchimp didn’t have a way to get the old version back). 

Back up regularly, export a copy, save it somewhere safe, and never assume it’s protected. Clean slates are fine when intentional, not when accidental.

By 2018, YATM had evolved into more of a magazine than a simple weekly email. I introduced sections and variety. Long-form reflections, other news, places to waste time and observations. It made the newsletter feel bigger than me and gave people a space to explore.

If I were starting again, I’d lean even harder into this. A newsletter shouldn’t just be a vehicle for content, it should be the hub of a larger ecosystem. 

Think modular, community and multi-format, such as text, audio, video and interactive elements. 

The newsletter becomes the place where everything converges, your ideas, your people, your experiments. I would make more of an effort to connect everything. I treated live events and the newsletter as separate worlds, when they should have always complemented each other.

Platforms today are more fragmented than ever. Attention is everywhere and nowhere. A newsletter that feels like a small, welcoming world, with different entry points, ways to interact, and voices included, is far more resilient than one that’s just chasing clicks.

One of the biggest shifts for YATM happened in 2020 with the first YATM Takeover. For the first time, other voices, members and contributors, had a chance to be seen and other people to connect and say, ‘I’m part of this too.’ 

At first, I worried whether I could trust other people to represent the newsletter. Would it dilute my voice?

It didn’t. It amplified it. It made YATM richer and more varied. If I were starting again today, I’d do this from day one. Invite other people in and give them ownership. Make them co-creators, not just subjects or interviewees. Even a handful of trusted voices transforms your newsletter from a monologue into a conversation.

Community isn’t just a bonus, it’s a core feature. The sooner you embrace that, the stronger everything becomes. It all starts from building connection and mutual trust.

When I started, I assumed growth numbers were the metric that mattered, more subscribers and more clicks meant a reputation. Over time, I realised that the right people matter far more than the most people.

If I were starting today, I’d focus on connection. Who is this for? Who will actually read, respond, and participate? Can I reach out to them? Sending people a DM to subscribe as they may find it useful is fine.

A smaller, highly engaged audience is more powerful than 100,000 passive readers. They’ll help you iterate, amplify, and co-create.

Write in ways that invite participation, that gives people room to show up and contribute. Over time, this helps with trust.

One of the subtle things I’d do differently is design every issue to be modular. Sections that can stand alone, writing that can be republished, ideas to come back to, prompts that can be reused. Attention is fragmented, so giving people multiple ways to enter your work increases its impact.

It also future-proofs what you make. Twelve years in, I can see how some early writing, once buried, could have been expanded. The more I understood or repurposed in new contexts if I’d thought modularly from the start.

And finally….

There is no end….find what you know you cannot stop.

Twelve years is a long time in the life of a newsletter. At its heart, everything comes down to relationships. People show up because they expect you to show up.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s this, start with clarity, include others, embrace imperfection, and focus on depth over breadth. Let your newsletter become a hub for everything you care about.

If I were building YATM today, that’s exactly what I’d do. Even if you’re just starting out, you can take the same approach: think first, write second, involve others, and let the work be bigger than yourself.

Because after 12 years, one thing is certain: people don’t just want to read content. They want to be in it with you.