CLIENT-ACCOUNT DECISION — Rye Valley delivery decision about how we run Adam Gillman’s Megaphone account. Adam is the client; this is our strategy, our call to make.
- Date: 2026-09-24
- Deciders: Michael Houck, Blake Emal
- Status: decided
Decision
For Adam Gillman’s newsletter and content program: mirror his historical formats closely in month 1 to protect performance, then experiment. Two newsletter format options will be drafted and presented to Adam for his direction: (1) story-led (personal story -> principle -> curated posts) or (2) principle-only with a weekly consumer/e-com checklist. Newsletter cadence is weekly; day TBD.
Context
Internal sync on 2026-09-24 (see Adam G Strategy / Newsletter). Adam onboarded in September 2026 on Megaphone ($5k/mo) + JOLT ($5k/mo). He gave a broad intake call with ~12 pillars and no clear content direction, so Blake is experimenting broadly within that. Michael’s priority: protect performance in month 1 and make a strong first impression.
Options considered
- Option A (decided): Mirror Adam’s historical X content formats first; introduce experiments quickly and with short feedback loops.
- Option B (deferred): Immediately push into new formats (Greg Eisenberg-style listicles, short-form) without a mirroring phase.
- Newsletter structure option A (story-led): Personal story -> principle -> curated tweets. Risk: story sourcing bottleneck; Adam’s stories live in his head. Mitigation: Blake pings Adam in Slack before writing each story.
- Newsletter structure option B (principle-only): Prose principle + weekly checklist (consumer/e-com). Lower story-sourcing risk; more autonomous for the writing team.
Consequences
- Blake will draft content mirroring Adam’s historical formats for month 1 and flag performance changes quickly.
- Michael will draft a newsletter proposal (both format options) from the Sep 24 transcript via Hermes and share in the channel for Adam’s input.
- Ben will handle operational setup (seed list import ~377 subs, content tags, emoji, one-liner) autonomously; newsletter name and one-liner hold until Adam picks direction.
- Newsletter design: Michael creates after direction is confirmed; Ben provides brief on common patterns as Claude Design prompt input.
- Adam’s 5-year Granola meeting notes (in Hermes/Studio) are available as story source; Blake will query before writing and flag story candidates to Adam in Slack.
- Welcome email survey question: Michael will brainstorm to complement Adam’s 3-question website survey.
- Target newsletter setup complete: week of Sep 29 (Michael out Sep 25 and Sep 28).