- Duration: 74 min
- Platform: zoom
- Source: Read.ai 01JC94FNJABMTK8YM2BBG793Z0 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JC94FNJABMTK8YM2BBG793Z0)
Transcript
[UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yo. Whoa. [Michael Houck]: What’s up, man? How you doing? What’s going on here? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: There we go. [Michael Houck]: Nope. How was the movement? It was good. Austin Schlessinger: Um, we drove down from New Jersey, so we were, we made a few stops. In Raleigh and Charleston and Savannah. We were traveling with our dog, too. So that was fun. Nice. [Michael Houck]: Where’s your favorite stop? I’ve been to Savannah, but not the other two. Austin Schlessinger: I think Savannah, to be honest. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah? Yeah. Austin Schlessinger: I really like history and the architecture in Savannah. It was really neat. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, it’s a cool town. Went down there at one point when I was in college. It was a lot of fun. Cool. We got Nicole finally joining here, so I’m going to let her in. Are you all set with the doc and everything? Let me make sure screen sharing is enabled too. But yeah, are you all set on your side? Austin Schlessinger: Yep, I’m all good. Cool. [Nicole Jarbo]: Hey guys. [Michael Houck]: What’s up, Nicole? Hey, Nicole. Austin Schlessinger: Hey, nice to meet you, Austin. Nice to meet you. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I’m sorry. [Nicole Jarbo]: I just got back from the gym. So I’m like a little, I don’t know what’s happening really. What’d you do at the gym? Austin Schlessinger: Um, I don’t know. [Nicole Jarbo]: It’s more functional stuff. I have this, uh, app called future. Have you guys heard of it? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Yeah. [Nicole Jarbo]: So there’s just like a little trainer in there, a little human trainer in there giving me stuff. Um, what did we do? I’ve had some back issues normally just do like more power lifting type stuff, but have a back thing going on. So just a bunch of functional stuff with kettlebells today and then a walk. So nice, trying to like stay alive, you know, that’s important. I actually, I really like my trainer. I’ve been using the app for like almost three years now. I had the same person. Um, this, this woman, Sam, she used to, she was the, uh, uh, swim and like water polo strength coach at Stanford for awhile. And now she’s at Georgia tech. And so we vibe on a lot of the college athletic stuff, because I think, Hauk, you knew this, but Austin College, I played soccer at UC Berkeley. So still very connected to that world, mostly the spectator, but pretend to do stuff. So I’m not. [Michael Houck]: Well, either way, it sounds like a good way to spend a Saturday morning. Before having to do some work in the afternoon. Cool. Well, hey, I’m going to let Austin take the reins for most of this. But we’re going to walk through sort of the onboarding kickoff doc. He’ll ask you some questions. He’ll take some notes during the call as well. We also are going to have a recording. So if anything gets missed, we’ll be able to go back and check it later. And then at the end, we’ll just talk about next steps and sort of getting things off the ground. And Austin, maybe if you want to start by just like giving some background and intro on yourself for Nicole. Austin Schlessinger: Yeah. So background on Nicole first, it’s great to meet you. I’ve been ghostwriting for the past four years, newsletters, LinkedIn posts, and X posts. I’ve written for over like 15 clients for some of the biggest agencies in the game. And now I’m working with Hauk at Megaphone. I’ve also personally built a following on X of around like 16,000 followers, which I don’t really post that often anymore. And then I also have a newsletter that I periodically write on, but most of my time now is spent ghostwriting. So interested to learn a little bit more about you’re looking to do and see how I can help out. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Awesome. Nice to meet you. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I think I’ve definitely seen some of your tweets for sure. I think your name was familiar when Hauk was like, Hey, it’s this guy. I’m like, I think I know guy as a fan. I’m a fan. Okay, cool. Yeah. Great to meet you. Austin Schlessinger: Yeah. Nice to meet you too. Yeah. When I was doing some research, I saw that you had followed me. I don’t know if that was before you knew that, um, I was writing or we were going to be working together or if it was after. [Nicole Jarbo]: I mean, I’ve definitely seen your tweet, so, but it’s good to be like connected and I’m excited that you’re helping us out here. And then with the one, once we get to the weed stuff to the cannabis stuff, I’m excited about that too. That’s a totally different type. A project, but I think also fun. Awesome. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I think both should be great. [Michael Houck]: Um, and I think I’m glad that we’re able to sort of have you guys be able to build a relationship and sort of do both rather than it being sort of more chaotic for you, Nicole. So, uh, I think it’s going to work out well. Um, but yeah, Austin, do you want to jump in, share your screen and, and, uh, get us, get us rolling. Austin Schlessinger: Sure. One other thing that I’ll add about by myself is that I’m a workout nut. So being that you’re a former division one athlete, I’m very interested in hearing about that experience. And I’m not, I was not a division one athlete. I do CrossFit. That’s my thing. And I play beach volleyball, but it’s awesome. Okay. Can you guys see my screen? I’m sharing my whole screen. Show the window. Cool. All right, so high level outcomes for, well, let me just orient ourselves. So we’re within like the, your notion hub here. So we’ve kind of created this, and I know that we’ve kind of worked together in the past a little bit, but this is kind of where all of the content will be created. And this tab here for our kickoff call is right here. So if you have to, if you want to re-reference that, then it’s right here. So high level outcomes in the meeting, we want to identify our primary and secondary goals, identify kind of the specific audience that we’re looking to target, which with each of these newsletters hone in on kind of our content pillars and what we want to focus on. Uh, discuss the posting schedule, um, kind of outline our process and answer any questions and then define next steps. Um, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about or are those all good? Uh, this looks good to me. [Nicole Jarbo]: Cool. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: All right. Austin Schlessinger: So then let’s get right into the goals. So what is like the number one reason why you’re working to build a newsletter. [Nicole Jarbo]: Number one reason, I mean, I think it may, maybe it’s helpful for me to give some context to the organization first, and then we can kind of figure out how it fits in. So our organization gives people small grants to basically launch new ideas in education. So I mean, anywhere from like 500 bucks to $100,000, done for different people, literally building anything in the education, sort of like innovation space. So, you know, we have folks who've built software and had exits. We've had people who do like afterschool stuff or like build, you know, like preschooler products. So just kind of run the gamut across that. And then in terms of like the brand of the organization, and I promise this is like helpful. And in terms of like the brand, it's always had, it's sort of like distinct, I don't even, it's always like stood out, I guess I would say. In the past few years, the organization has gone through a little bit of a rut. And so I've come in as the new CEO to try to get us back on track. So anyways, I'll just like put that out there. There's no exact corollary that I think is more well-known, but some people, some connections to something like a YC, but like very focused on education. Um, but definitely different structure. Um, but in terms of like the brand, the focus on community, all of that stuff has some similar, uh, like some similarities. So that's like the larger organization I've come in to move us towards the next chapter of the organization, which I'm primarily focused on two things. So like one, it just. Increasing brand awareness and general brand elevation, I would say. And then the second thing is engaging the community in ways that might lead to new sources of revenue. So that's pretty squarely where this newsletter fits. We have this regular, once a month, non-profit-y newsletter that's like, here's an alumni. Here's what the organization is doing. So we've got that and you know, that's fine. It really has no. Like real tangible goals other than making contact with our broader community. Um, this though, obviously I think should be more directed. And I think like the number one goal here for us is, uh, I don't know if it's like number one or number two. So like how I've told you a little bit about this, if you want to jump in and bring more color to this, uh, please do that. But I think that like most important thing for me is to like explore potential streams of revenue. I think secondarily, it's like to establish some level of like witty, engaging, conversational voice into the conversation of like our industry. So the industry is like education-y, nonprofit, social impact-y stuff. There's stuff out there, but it generally is on the more serious side of things. And so I think there's a opportunity to write for people like me, write for people like the folks that we serve. So those are the primary things. And I can be more specific with the goal if that helps for this document. So yeah, I think generally it's to explore meaningful sources of revenue for the organization. And then number two is build a brand around the newsletter to engage your community and bring more folks in, obviously. Is that the kind of thing you're looking for? So I think, oh, you have credibility. [Austin Schlessinger]: Yeah, so I'd say one, revenue, two, credibility, and community. And then when you say explore meaningful sources of revenue, do you mean monetizing this newsletter as a way? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Nicole Jarbo]: I think that there's potentially, you know, some potential probably more on the like sponsorship ad side of this. But also we do have, let's see, we have like, it's not hard to get people to like come to us and ask for money. Like everybody wants money. That's like the easy part of it. We are starting to experiment with like a couple of different things. So like events in the space and other things And so, you know, obviously we'd want to use this audience and this like newsletter to, to like advertise some of those opportunities. So not necessarily like, you know, we don't want to sell like memberships or anything to this, but we do want to explore potential good fit sponsorship, like pieces in the future. But like, I think the other thing is right away at like doesn't need to make money, but it needs to be a place where we can thoughtfully experiment about what that might be like, if that makes sense. [Austin Schlessinger]: Got it. That's really helpful. And then do you have any KPIs in mind around, more tangibly, what does success look like, What would you need to happen? Is it monetizing, or is there a number in mind? In terms of how much revenue you want the newsletter to generate? No, there, there's no number around that. [Nicole Jarbo]: I think what's more important is like, does it work? Can we like make money from it? Um, and I think that that, you know, for, for me, that unlocks an opportunity to like invest more in the newsletter. Right. And, and so that's really it like building this baseline, like, Hey, we can sell some ads here. Hey, you know, there is meaningful that's happening. So I would say like growth is probably an important thing as well. Anything that would like sort of help me make a case to some of our funders and our board that continual investment in media is like a good idea because right now they're skeptical of it because we just have an [Austin Schlessinger]: old school like board and are coming from like an old school industry. That makes sense. All right. These are great. And then like more tangibly, who is the audience that are the target audience that you're looking to serve? Yeah, this one's like a little bit hard for me. [Nicole Jarbo]: So I'm just gonna throw some stuff out here. You know, when I was saying like, folks like me in this space, I obviously do mean that. And so I think it's really these sort of millennial type folks who, for most part, their career has been in space and they usually go into like one of like three or four different areas. So folks generally become sort of executives in these organizations. Right. So, so like executives of like nonprofits or like foundations, um, in our space that give to our space. Um, I think the other piece is sort of, I wouldn't consider me this, but like different sort of thought leaders in our space. So folks talking about social impact, you know, people who are writing up ads for things like Fast Company, doing TED Talks. So this sort of like thought leader influencer in the social impact space. And yeah. And then, I mean, I think the last one that's probably connected to the like executives of nonprofits or just like founders in the social impact space. And so, like I mentioned, you know, we've invested in people and the So it's about 60% for-profit companies and then 40% non-profits. So even though I keep saying non-profits, we do have a good contingent of folks who are just building like, you know, regular startups. They just are all in like education or like youth-related adjacent things. [Austin Schlessinger]: Got it. And are there any specific names? Like selfishly for me just to kind of familiarize myself with who some of these people are. [Nicole Jarbo]: Are there any specific names that you'd call out? Let me think about that. But like, for sure. I'm just talking to this guy the other day, who is an alumni that we've interviewed for stuff. His name is Jonathan Johnson. He runs something called Rooted Foundation. So they've got like a bunch of different schools. But he also has designed these universal basic income projects all over the country. So somebody like that, and I talked to him yesterday, he's building all this stuff on the blockchain and that sort of thing. So there's folks like that that are like, we've been able to marshal some capital to us and we're just exploring and experimenting in really big ways. In the like social impact space. So like I can also, you know, when I get access to this, just drop some of their like LinkedIn's or whatever in here, if that's helpful. So I think about somebody like him. There's. And, you know, there. I mean, he's like also like an Obama Foundation fellow, and I bring them up because like we have a bunch of those folks as well, as well as other people who've exited or gone in other industries. So another guy that he doesn't read as much of these, but I'm in pretty constant contact with him. And it's a very different profile is this guy, Brian Bordanic. And so he started a couple of things. One of them is called Starface. I think he just started this like fentanyl testing company called Overdrive. So he's in the CPG space, but he's also done a bunch of social impact stuff, including working at 4.0, where I work, and building a couple of different non-profits. So we have a lot of folks who kind of are adjacent to this space, but do something kind of related. So those two guys are good. Yeah, I'll think of more folks. But yeah, I would say they're in the age range and have this sort of like, they're very learning-oriented like entrepreneurial. So not sort of like myopically like focused, but yeah, that was the other thing that just like for context. So we've, you know, made these investments in people and then built a community. The community is very cross sector. So, you know, we have people who've started PE firms in our community, also people who are teachers still. And so it is, it's very oriented towards folks who like want to do good in the world. Even if they're like day-to-day work is not, doesn't feel as connected. Got it. [Austin Schlessinger]: And then do you have an email list like from the community or would it be starting from scratch? [Michael Houck]: Yeah, so we- We have the list already set in Beehive and everything's kind of set up there. Yeah, everything's set up there. [Nicole Jarbo]: I will say something really quickly. When we tried to do this the first time, there was a couple of things. One, I did not have the leeway to make, I think, the kinds of investments in the newsletter we needed to. And so it just ended up just not going anywhere. And initially, we had set this up almost like profiles of alumni, which is interesting. But also, I think there's more opportunity in this space. We will do like a slight like rebrand. So it'll be less pathways, but I think there's like 5,500 people on that newsletter right now. So we're not starting from like scratch. [Austin Schlessinger]: Got it. Okay. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: All right. [Austin Schlessinger]: So that's the target audience, I guess, of the business. And it sounds like that would be the same target for the newsletter. Are there any other profiles that you want to call out? [Nicole Jarbo]: Um, no, I think that's, I think that's, um, I think that's it. I can drop more folks in for like names of people, if it helps with your research. Cause I don't, there's no one there that's like a foundation or like investor type. Um, like, and I think those folks are important to engage in some way as well. But like, let me think about that. Most of them are old people. And that's not really who I think we should speak to. But a lot of them, you know, like have these 35 year old advisors to these, you know, billion dollar foundations that are sort of under the radar. I think that's a really good opportunity as well, because they're not as in the mix, but they do have the ear of some, you know, of these people like Mackenzie Scott, who are giving out like a ton of money and other people. There's like a little insider faction of that. And I can find some of those people's names too, but I don't know off the top of my head. Is it the same audience? Yeah, I think that's fine. I would just add kind of the thing I said that there's these sort of, I don't know, I don't want to say movers and shakers. It feels like weird, but there's these sort of like insidery types who, you know, they sort of created their career around, they launched something as an operator, they've had like an exit or two, and they've been able to cultivate these sort of cushy jobs for themselves as like advisors and partners to these like larger organizations. There's a whole bunch of those folks who I don't think are directly, no one's directly speaking to them. And so let me do more like thinking about that one, but there's, you know, there's a pretty path in our space, it's like, you start out, you start something of your own, you get people to invest in it, or you get foundations to like fund you, you do a good job and make them happy. And then you start working at their foundation for 10 years. And then you become an independent consultant. Like that's like, basically like the linear pathway. And so yeah, as I was saying, I think there are a lot of folks who are in this They're influential in some ways, but like super off the radar. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Austin Schlessinger]: And if you had to say like, where do most of these people live, like online, or is it kind of more of like a, I mean, they're, they're like sort of thing. [Nicole Jarbo]: They're all like on LinkedIn. I mean, a lot of it is offline, but like LinkedIn is probably like the primary place for these people. [Austin Schlessinger]: Cool. All right, so now in terms of content pillars, like what are the main topics that you're looking to highlight? [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, this one, the way that I had like brought this up to Hauk was more of like a hustle type vibe. So like the way that I kind of think about it for our spaces, are there interesting, innovative like ideas happening in the space or sort of these like stories behind, you know, these kinds of businesses or nonprofits that are like worth telling. So I think the content like generally is more, I guess it's like more profile-ish, but not like personal profiles per se, but sort of like stories about these, interesting, these stories that have sort of like interesting angles about something that like feels very like, you know, straightforward. So an example might be, you know, I talked about that guy, Jonathan. He got like, I think last year, like a million bucks to do this from the city of New Orleans to basically do this like universal basic income project for like, you know, poor, predominantly, like, poor black kids in New Orleans, and he was just, like, giving them money. And they, like, tracked over time what they spent it on. That's, like, interesting high level, right? But I think there's probably something underneath that. There's something inspirational, aspirational, like, more tactical to that story. And those are the kinds of stories that aren't really, like, being told. And so I think of it as a little bit of these stories behind these press releases, I guess, if you will, more of a human angle to some of that stuff. But general, what we would consider business content in our space, it's the same thing, I think, that you would see across other similar newsletters and outside of the industry. Here's what's going on. Here's what's interesting. Here's something that maybe you should think about. I said, some of these folks are foundation people and execs. So they're looking for an edge or to stay smarter or in the know about the space. And so any content that is where that's front loaded. There's this one org, it's more like basic journalism type stuff, but they pretty much I'm going to drop them in the chat. They pretty much run away with like the majority of like the money around some of the media around here. And as you can see, it's extremely boring. If you look at this, it's just like boring. It's just like boring industry stuff. One of the things I was telling Hauke about that I'm really excited about is that the space in general is very stale, but the majority of people who work in it are not. They're much more dynamic. They're much more interesting. They like to try new things. They like to party. They like to be engaged in culture, but there really isn't media that captures that audience, even though they're the majority and becoming the majority of the decision makers in the space. So I wanted to to just drop Ed Surge because they're like, you know, I think they've probably across all their channels have like half a million folks. They've been around for a while. They've been pretty heavily subsidized by different like rich individuals and like foundations. But yeah, they're like the big dog in this space. They're boring. And there's like another one. A K-12 dive that was part of the industry dive, like Umbrella, which I think now Informa or one of those places owns. But these are sort of the two biggest publications that do news that people look at in the space. And you can probably tell by some of the content, like it's, you know, I mean, it's boring. It's not interesting, but it is the way that people are getting most of their And then there are a couple of smaller newsletters that are a little bit more niche. So I'll drop like one more on here. And then there's like a bunch of like, there's like a bunch of these media things that kind of look like fake magazines. I don't even know how to explain it really. But I think you guys kind of know what I'm talking about, maybe. But they've got these like, fake, they have like these fake pictures of like magazine colors, like so much stuff like that. [Michael Houck]: It's just like, I've seen stuff like that. Yeah. Awesome. Actually, maybe Nicole, if you have examples to send over. [Nicole Jarbo]: So we're, we're sure. But yeah, yeah. There's this other one called tech insiders. I can't see they're just like, basic site. But this one's got a lot of traction because this guy Ben who started it with a couple of people. He's just been in the space for a while, and now he's an ambassador at this place, Common Sense Media. But before that, he's worked at a bunch of, like, super fast-growing VC-backed startups in the ad space. And that's, like, the closest to this, like, newsletter, like, content, like, movement in the space in terms of building a real business around media. And I just have like a really like fucking boring podcast, too. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: OK. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I know that was like off track a little bit, but yeah, I mean, I think like news that's interesting and a perspective, like specifically like an angle on stuff that's that's a little bit different. And obviously I will help direct all of that. [Austin Schlessinger]: Got it. So it's, it seems like, so it's kind of, so it's a, it's news, but it's also highlighting success stories. So there's a motivational component to it as well. Sort of aspirational kind of thing, but also, so do you want to have like opinions about different stories or is it more or less like, here's the information in a more engaging way? [Nicole Jarbo]: I think it's, I kind of, well, what would you guys say? I think it's important to have a perspective. I think that makes it interesting. It's not the only thing that makes it interesting, but my take on this is to stand out, you've got to have an actual personality. I think I run the intake. I generally like to stay away from anything that's political. I think there's a lot of political stuff in this space. I don't think that's our place. I also don't think that's interesting. And so I think that I'm comfortable having an opinion about all of this news. I think that's actually what's worth reading. But I don't know how it plays out. I don't know if you guys would have any recommendations or things to think about within that. [Austin Schlessinger]: Huck, what are your thoughts? I definitely feel like it's something that, I don't know, the newsletters that I like always have some sort of something to say or add to the story. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I agree. I don't think we need to completely editorialize, but I do think that having a perspective will make people feel like this content is for them, and we just need to identify what that voice is and what those people want. I mean, Nicole, you know the existing audience It's obviously better than we do, but that can be something that we figure out over the, on this call or over the next week or two as we're sort of gearing up for getting things rolling. But yes, I do think we should have, like, think about Morning Brew, think about the hustle, right? They have a personality, they have a perspective. It's not partisan, but it is a viewpoint. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I mean, totally. I think it's important to have a viewpoint. I don't know what my reputation is in the space. I don't know if I'm big enough to have a reputation in the space, but what I do know is that I tend to operate in a way that I think people would say is more authentic. Obviously, there's a lot of fake people in this space. I'm open to being more bold around what I think and public with that. Really rare. And so I think this idea that this wouldn't have a voice, like an actual perspective is weird. And I do some of my own, this might be like a good example that I can't put words to right now, but sometimes I'll do my own writing. It's very much like the thought literary type, or like that's the aim, like just straight up like opinions. And the one I'm working on right now, this might give you guys like a sense of how I think about these things, is about philanthropy in general. And essentially, I think of philanthropy as really the only place that you can actually invest or donate to where you can actually be risky. So the whole thing is just philanthropy should be risk-ready capital more than really anything else. And so the reason that it's kind of dumb, because I don't think this is that controversial, but this is how stuff and stale the spaces. We generally like fund incumbents, right? So like, there's a Bloomberg just gave like $100 million to these like, I don’t know, 10 organizations that all have been around for 50 years, right? Like, that’s like what our space looks like, So me even saying something like, Bloomberg, you should probably stop giving your money to like the same places if you like actually want to see change. Like that’s a contrarian and controversial in this space. And so I’m bringing that up as like background to show you kind of how monolithic the thinking is across the industry. And so if we can present interesting, ambitious, like differing viewpoints, then like we should probably like lean into that. And I’m totally like open and happy to do that. [Nicole Jarbo]: There’s a lot of canceling, I guess, that happens in this space. I’m not afraid of that because I don’t believe in canceling. I guess I would just say I’m okay with having a variety of opinions and testing and pushing the limits on what that looks like, [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: like, Austin Schlessinger: So are there any like so that was a great example, but are there any other like ideas like that that you’re very passionate about that we can kind of like weave into different stories or just kind of [Nicole Jarbo]: And if you don’t have that right now, like, yeah, I mean, there’s one at the top of my mind that I’ve been like just reading a lot about and thinking about is I think the high-level organization needs to move towards being more of what I would call an epicenter of… These are all buzzword-y things, but the epicenter of innovation in our space. My thing is more ideas better, even if they’re crappy. 10,000 ideas is better than 1,000. And the founder of organization is a very interesting person. And when he started the org in this space, people were just giving large chunks of money to five to 10 folks. And they’re like, here’s your 100K, go build something. And he really introduced this idea that we should actually, instead of funding 10 people with a million bucks, we should fund 100 people to do 100 experiments. And so he’s actually done a ton of writing about the ideas of like, I mean, I subscribe to all of these, the guys like my mentor, like he’s a really fascinating forward-thinking person. Now he runs, his family is sort of like independently wealthy, so he does like different things, but he now runs like a venture fund. And all they do is, this is like how quirky this guy is, but all they do is fund startups that put batteries in different things. That’s it. He’s really into batteries. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago. He just funded a startup that makes convention stoves, but they have a battery pack in them. So if you’re in a natural disaster, you have some energy storage. So yeah, I bring him up and I’ll send some of his writing too, because he’s really interesting, reads a ton, and had set the foundation around some of these ideas that are still like getting a ton of traction in the space, 20, 15, 20 years later. And he’s simply who, you know, is sorry, sorry, how go ahead. [Michael Houck]: No, no, I’m cutting you off. I’m just curious, like, that is such an interesting, defined niche topic. We should do a newsletter for him, too. That’s like, so crazy. I just I can’t help but think that a newsletter on batteries would be He’s cool. [Nicole Jarbo]: So I just sent, I’m trying to get him back on the board. He’s very interesting. And like I said, he’s not open about this, but he’s made some interesting choices as being a son of very wealthy people, his grandpa. So if you’ve ever been to Atlanta and you’ve been to Candler Park, which is one of the largest parks in the country, that’s his family’s park. His great-grandpa is this guy named Asa Griggs Candler, who bought the formula for Coca-Cola from some pharmacist. To give you a sense of who this guy is, but he just committed his life to being a teacher. He started a ton of school. He powered the education reform movement, and he started this organization. So I sent one of his things, I think his perspective on these things is really clever. And he’s done a lot of work with me over the past few years around how to think differently or look for heuristics or opportunities and patterns in the way that people do things. So his writing is super inspirational to me and he’s neat. So I think for sourcing angles and stuff that feel connected to the work we do every day. His work’s great, and I’m committing to doing more of it myself, because I just think that being prolific in this space is, I don’t need to explain that to you guys, prolific with the writing is super important for influence. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yep. Austin Schlessinger: All right. That’s really helpful, and I’m excited to read some of his stuff. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I’m going to find like weird VC fund stuff. And so he’s like so kooky. There you go. It’s called Batteries Included Fund. Anyways, he’s great. There’s this other thing that he’s doing right now, though. He bought this like, I think it was like a Fiat or like VW Bug or something. And he has had a hobby over the past 30 years of taking motors and stuff out of things and replacing them with electric drivetrains. So he started making these little mopeds. This is what you can do when you’re a billionaire. You just sit in your garage and he lives in a very modest house in New Orleans with his wife and his kids. But he just puts these batteries and things, electric battery and stuff and that like he’s been doing that. So anyways, that kind of multi interdisciplinary thinking I think is actually embedded in the organization and personally is really important to me when I think about like writing or speaking or like my perspective. So it’s like, where can I like pull from these other places and like introduce that to our space? So I think that’s another thing I would add. Like, I think it is important for us to just think about what’s happening happening in like the world and bringing that lens to like the work we care about, you know, more tangibly. Austin Schlessinger: Got it. That’s super helpful. All right. So then let’s talk about format. Are there any newsletter for newsletters that you really like the format of, or do you Do you kind of have like a, do you have an opinion around kind of, you want to do more long form stuff? [Nicole Jarbo]: It seems like we kind of do like a curation with some. Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, the, the newsletters I read, I don’t know if they’re like exactly the right fits, but you know, I read Houck’s newsletter. I read, read a lot of like newslettery newsletters. I read Matt McGarry’s newsletter about newsletters. I read, let’s see, what else do I read? I personally read a lot of entrepreneur founder stuff and more self-development type stuff. So not as much as what we’re talking about, but I also read Morning Brew and The Hustle. I prefer The Hustle. I think it’s a little bit more gritty and less corporate feeling sometimes. So I read stuff like that. And then I read stuff that’s adjacent to those folks, like lots of essays that I find on Twitter. I think for me, the main thing is, am I learning something? Am I getting smarter about something? And is there something that I’m taking away that helps me live better, think better, faster? Those things feel important to me. Personally. Got it. Austin Schlessinger: Those are a lot of the newsletters that are the content that I kind of read. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s this like thing for me, just as like a personal value, like growth is really like important to me. And so I naturally gravitate to these like self development things. And then in terms of news, interesting angles, like more like thought provoking, you know, like I was saying, like, what’s that like PR, you know, what’s like the press release? Like, what’s the interesting thing like behind that, right? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I think that that’s where I like orient to more. Got it. Austin Schlessinger: Totally resonate with that. All right, so format, we’re good. We spoke about content pillars. Maybe we can get a little bit more tangible, so like news, success stories. It’s like case studies, maybe? [Nicole Jarbo]: Or like, I don’t know if they’re, I think maybe that’s like success stories related, but kind of like a break down of even that Jonathan guy or even Brian, they just launched this. I think the New York Times just did this piece on him and his partner, Julie. They start all these different companies. And now they’ve basically completely pivoted from like, here’s an interesting thing. Starface is just pimple patches, but here’s kind of this thing, let’s build a brand around it. They’ve gone fully into entertainment and content and then just build the product later now. And it’s been wildly successful for them. I think that Starface is supposed to do $90 million or something in revenue next year. And it probably started a few years ago. So if I was reading about... They also spend $100,000 a month on PR, but from Darius, which is great. But if I was to think about their work and how they approach it, a breakdown of that, even though it doesn’t feel as connected to some of the social impact-y stuff, I think is really valuable and interesting, right? Because nobody’s writing about that in a more casual way. Or back to Jonathan’s work, he’s obviously an interesting character. And you wouldn’t find that, though, on the internet, you’d have no real glimpse into how people, you know, how he thinks about work, and how he’s been able to get so much done so quickly by himself. Like, there’s no real exploration of that. And I’m in a good position, because like, I have access to a lot of those stories, which obviously I could, like share and provide. But I think those stories are actually really interesting and not told. So if that’s a case study or success story or any of those things, I would put it in that bucket. Got it. Austin Schlessinger: So it’s not only about just highlighting the companies, but it’s also highlighting the people who are empowering those companies and kind of sharing what they’re doing as well. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah. And how they’re thinking about it. I talked about that Jonathan guy. He’s really into this, like blockchain. I mean, doesn’t know anything about blockchain, which is how I felt when we talked. But the way that he’s thinking about bringing all these worlds together, I think is actually really interesting. And to juxtapose that with EdSurge and the EdTech insiders thing, I think it’s just significantly more interesting. So I would want to prioritize those types of stories if we can get that content. So I would just say like more human, I guess, feels cool and interesting. There’s like a humanness, but there’s like a, you can take something tactical from it. Right. Okay. Austin Schlessinger: So every, everything should have some sort, like every newsletter should have some sort of takeaway from it. [Nicole Jarbo]: It shouldn’t just be And I dropped like, oh, this is, so I sent like Matt stuff around like one of his education posts, but I sent also just sent his like electric like stuff. And one of the things that he does really well that I think would also be like interesting is he like will find something like his stuff historical, I guess, and try to connect it to where we are today. And so I think the big thing is how much can we make connections, right? We want people’s neurons firing, I think. So he does a really good job of that. He showed me the other day this map of Chicago in the 1920s. Or 40s or something. And they had their own network of electric charging stations. And then things moved to whatever, like the steam engine. I don’t know. I’m butchering all of this. But he’s someone who’ll look at something and be like, oh, if the world had made this decision, we might live in this world. So I think there’s some sense of imagination, connection, pattern recognition that’s important. In some of the pieces. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Nicole Jarbo]: And I think like my goal high level as just someone who cares about like social impact and doing good things in the world is that without being too like heavy handed, I think it’s like vastly interesting and also like kind of cool. Like I think that, you know, startup tech world and things like that. It’s changing a little bit now, got all like the cool points, but there’s like a lot of cool stuff happening in climate, a lot of cool stuff that’s happening in like economic opportunity and financial inclusion, but there’s no real space that is talking about that in a way that would get someone to want to participate, right? The way most people participate in social impact or doing good stuff is having a direct connection, right? But being like, okay, well, you know, well, my sister has special needs. So now I care about autism, or, you know, some kind of event like that. I think that this over time could be a place where people can engage in, like the creative ways people are trying to do like good in Um, so yeah, I think that’s like a higher level thing. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: That’s a great point. Austin Schlessinger: Okay. All right. And then is the news that are going to be written like in your voice or is it kind of going to be detached? From you or what is? [Nicole Jarbo]: I think the preference is to be like detached from me. And I don’t think it has to be in my voice. Okay. Sorry, my dog is snoring really loudly. I don’t know if that like impacts like, because I know you guys kind of like, present this as like ghostwriting, like what you would want that to like look like, So you can tell me, but it doesn’t need to be, I think, in my voice. I think we want to focus on straightforward conversational personality. That is not my writing voice, so we’re not going to do that. Yeah, Nicole, I think we can take a similar approach. Obviously, the voice will be different, but a similar approach to what we did with Grace on the letter, same type of thing. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Sweet. [Nicole Jarbo]: We can post our stuff. And then in terms of like day and time, I would lean on you guys and like your expertise and we’ll just schedule things for what you all feel like makes sense. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: All right. Let me send like a screenshot of something to… [Nicole Jarbo]: We’ll do some research into what day would be the best to send for this niche in particular. [Michael Houck]: Okay. Yeah, I’m fine for you guys to just tell me what to do. Austin Schlessinger: I do. And just to confirm, this is a twice a week? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Nicole Jarbo]: So I’m sending like, we’re, we’re going to move away from this like pathways thing. I think this is actually might help it. And like sort of thinking about voice. So I’d been working on this new branding for it. So you can kind of like it’s intentionally trying to be different from the space. And so I don’t know if that like helps from like a conceptual standpoint as like you think about where we’re going. But in my mind, it was really important to be like intentionally different because we’re starting with a couple of things. Like one, we already have a cross-sector community. All we need to do is be consistent and write high quality content, I think, to engage people. And so trying to just be intentional about a totally different direction. So I’ll stop there because I’m sure we have to wrap some of this stuff up. Austin Schlessinger: Yeah, I just have a few things. I love the design, by the way. Thank you. It’s super cool. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, me too. It really stands out, the color of the font. It’s very dynamic. Austin Schlessinger: It’s cool. Awesome. All right, so now we only have five minutes left, but pilot a process. So from today to, I guess, next Saturday, it’s just gonna be context gathering, setting up kind of any automations and whatnot. Is Slack best Yeah. For questions and stuff. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: OK. [Nicole Jarbo]: Cool. Yeah, I’m pretty responsive. We might have one other team member giving feedback on a couple of things, but it’s mostly going to be me. Austin Schlessinger: OK. Cool. I’ll start writing the first issue on day eight. Send you the first draft by the 12th. Or the 11th, and then get some feedback on that. And then, so two weeks from now will be when we will target the first issue going out. Does that timeline work for you? I know that you’re gonna be at a conference next week, but we should, I mean, most of our work is just gonna be by context gathering, mostly on me, just kind of doing research and whatnot. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, that’s totally fine. I’m gonna be on the East Coast next week. For three of the five days, I’m going to be pretty wrapped up and stuff. But I’ve locked out a bunch of time towards the end of the week. So if you need my help with like sourcing ideas, any of that, like I’ll be online and ready to contribute. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Awesome. Austin Schlessinger: Yeah, the way that I normally do things is that I’ll load everything up in notion. Now I’ll just send you a I can send you a slack, just linking out to that. And we can kind of do everything that way if that works for you. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yep, sounds great. Austin Schlessinger: Cool. Then all ideas will be in the post tracker. Just show you what that looks like, I’ll load everything up in here and then we could do feedback directly within Notion. All issues will be fully written by Wednesday of each week so that we can get feedback Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so that we can schedule for the, the week leading up. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Cool. [Michael Houck]: Um, and yeah, so, uh, as part of that, Nicole, we’ll, we’ll go through and we’ll set up the, I don’t know what we set up automation wise before, but I’ll do it like a, that audit and I’ll just get in there and be like, Oh, we need a re-engagement flow. We need a welcome drip. And I’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk about what should be the content of those. [Nicole Jarbo]: Okay. I’ll spend some time jumping in there and seeing, just like reorienting. But yeah, just let me know what you need me to do. Cool. [Michael Houck]: Do you want us to, since we’re going to rebrand and everything, do you want us to delete the old issues from there? [Nicole Jarbo]: I think, does it just make sense to like, can we just like archive them or something? [Michael Houck]: I don’t think we can make them like not, but we might be able to make them not show up on the site. You know, have the record of sending the emails, but I don’t know if we can make them like hidden from the public side, but we can check. [Nicole Jarbo]: Okay, that’s fine. I’ll just I’ll move that content to like, I think it’s better for like, the organization’s like website or something. So I’ll move that I don’t want to like get rid of it. But if we can like archive it, so it doesn’t. So it’s hidden. I think we can do that. I’ll look to. But yeah, I’m I’m fine deleting it. I just want to move some of that stuff first. [Michael Houck]: And so I can work on that. Cool. Um, sounds good. Um, yeah. Okay. So Austin can, I guess, take us through any other next steps here and then we can get rolling. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Austin Schlessinger: So in terms of next steps, I think we talked about some of the like news sites and the ed tech space that makes sense. If there’s any other like advisors or thought leaders in the space that come to mind, um, that might be good for me to check out and be good to shoot those to me. Um, and then if there’s any, like, I guess, formatting stuff or kind of like snippets of things where you really liked the voice or the tone or something, if you could just send that my way as well, that’d be helpful. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I can give you like my thoughts and some bullet points on like tone voice and, and curate some of this. So I’ll, I’ll prioritize that. So you can at least start somewhere. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Awesome. Austin Schlessinger: And then on our side, we have our Slack channel. So we’re good there. How we’ll do the content audit. Um, I’ll share the notions all set up, but I don’t think that I’ve shared it with you yet. So I can do that. Is there anyone else on your team that I should, we should share that with? [Nicole Jarbo]: Um, yeah, this guy, Aaron, his name’s just Aaron at 4.0.org. Uh, it’s a four PTO.org. Austin Schlessinger: And, uh, yeah, so you can share him on that. [Nicole Jarbo]: And then another guy named Brian with the same, so it’s four PT zero, just in case. And Brian with a Y. You can add both of those guys. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Are they in the Slack channel too, Nicole? [Michael Houck]: Oh, you know what? [Nicole Jarbo]: I can add them, right? Like, can I just add them to the channel? Yeah, you can drop them in. Yeah, I’ll add them. They’ll probably help with some of the high level, just like brainstorming, refining stuff. You know, pieces that are done. Sweet. Awesome. [Michael Houck]: Trying to think of anything else on my end, but I think we’re, I think that covers everything. Sweet. [Nicole Jarbo]: How did Tom pay you for the Kiantela stuff? I haven’t gone through billing for this week yet. So I do. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Michael Houck]: I think he, I think he said he was going to do it. [Nicole Jarbo]: So, and I’ll invite him to that call when we do it. It’s probably going to be very different than this one. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, just I guess that’ll be not this coming week. But when you’re back to the following one. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah. I there’s like no like real rush on like either of these projects. I think that he’ll want to like say his piece on it. So whenever you guys like have time. Generally, I think for for us, we usually meet in like the early afternoons. Like Pacific time. So like he’s also in the bay with me. We work out of the same office. So generally from like one to like four, we’re usually like around and meeting. So if you guys can find a day where that works, let me know and then I’ll try to like get him there, too. He should really be there for that one because. Yeah, his ideas should be captured. That’s all I’m going to say. You’ll meet him. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, it’ll be good to meet him and sort of make sure we’re all on the same page and sort of get him up to speed on who we are and what we do. I think 1 p.m. On one of those days that week would be best for us since I think we’re both on the East Coast here. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I’ll get his schedule. I’ll send him a message and get his schedule and then I’ll just let you guys know. He’s on Saturday. Saturdays are game days, so he’s not around. He’s probably tailgating or something right now. But we’ll find time. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Who’s his team? [Nicole Jarbo]: Who’s his team? He went to law school at Berkeley. So actually, he’s like my internet friend. He randomly reached out to me on LinkedIn. And we realized that we were working in the same office. He had just sold one of his companies this buy now pay later and was like looking for stuff to do. And he messaged me, we talked on the phone and we’re like, Hey, we’re like 10 feet away from each other, right? And so we’ve been friends for like, we’ve just become really, really good friends. And Cantella is, it’s going to be the sort of professional services marketplace for cannabis companies. And so the, our direct connection is more on like the financing fintech side, but you know, basically we want to do sort of a Fundera-esque type thing where we’re giving cannabis entrepreneurs interesting content and then pushing them to different financing partners and other professional services partners. So it’s very, very early days, very nascent, lots of conversations about where we’re going. You guys will feel that in the conversation, but I’m really bullish on media. So I’m glad that we’re going in that direction because that space has some of the same issues I talked about in this space. Like a lot of the content is like stale. It’s very straightforward. Everything looks like 1990. And so we’re trying to come in and bring something a little bit more interesting to folks who are in that space. So, yeah. I’m really excited about this. I hope it’s interesting. I know you’ve ghostwritten like a bunch for people. I hope some of this is really fascinating because there are really cool stories that people just don’t have the time, skill level, like distribution to like get out there. And so I think there’s a huge opportunity for us. Austin Schlessinger: Yeah, I’m super excited. I actually, the way I grew my Twitter was through writing success stories in the health and fitness technology space. So yeah, I totally resonate. There’s, there’s so many cool stories out there that people don’t know about. So yeah, I’m psyched for this. I also really, I’m really into ed tech and I want to learn more about it. [Nicole Jarbo]: So. Great. We know all about it. We’ve had like, we’ve had some folks with some pretty like interesting, like exits and all, all things from like substitute teacher platforms to mental health, like these mental mental health programs to these nationwide school chains. There’s a lot of really interesting projects there. And my personal ambition is for people to stop thinking about schools as this very cute thing. No, schools are the thing. They’re the only constant, consistent cultural institution that mostly everybody shares. There’s really nothing else. And there’s a lot of really cool stuff happening with different technologies and stuff. And I think it’ll be cool to make education not feel as off limits to people. So I’m excited you guys are helping, because I feel like that gives us a real shot at doing that. So yeah, I’m pumped. Cool. Let’s make it happen. [Michael Houck]: Let’s do it. And Nicole, have fun at the conference this week. We’ll get some stuff rolling. In the meantime, we’ll keep you updated in Slack. Just let us know what time works for both of you guys the following week to do the kickoff for Cantela. [Nicole Jarbo]: Yeah, I’ll ping Tom now, and then I’ll just email you guys. Cool. Sounds good. All right, y’all. [Michael Houck]: Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: You too. See you. [Michael Houck]: Great meeting, Nicole. Yo, you want to be up for a second? Yeah, sure. Hold on one second. [Michael Houck]: Okay, there we go. I think that went really well. Austin Schlessinger: She’s awesome. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, she’s great. I’ve known her for a while. She just approaches things the right way. Austin Schlessinger: I think she really gets it. Yeah, it’s important to have someone that understands it. She’s like, I believe in media. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, this is the type of thing where I feel like she is the type of client who, assuming that It drives the results that she’s looking for in both newsletters. Could be a long-term client, could be into a lot of referrals for us. She’s pretty well-connected too. Austin Schlessinger: So yeah, the big potential here. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Exciting. [Michael Houck]: Any questions, anything that you want to go over? Or could we just go into our Saturdays? Austin Schlessinger: Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry. That. I was just, we were driving around like crazy. You gotta get, you’re having a new life. Yeah, we have a lot on our plate right now. But yeah, how was how was everything before? [Michael Houck]: I mean, obviously, you know, getting married and the trip and everything. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: How was all that? Austin Schlessinger: It was amazing. I mean, we’re obviously planning our wedding for over a year and it’s just She had all come together and then it was over in six hours. It was kind of crazy. Everybody was saying that. They’re like, dude, you’re going to get married and it’s going to go by so fast. We kept really trying to take in the moment, which I think we did. It was like a sob fest. Everybody was crying. It was so funny, but we had an amazing time. [Michael Houck]: Man, dude, I’m so glad. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s the best, uh, nothing like it. Nothing like it. Yeah. Well, cool. Um, yeah. Let me know if you need anything here. I’ll dig into stuff on my end, um, on Monday too. I’ll get the audit done for two. Um, and I’ll add you to the beehive account. So you have, have access to everything. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Cool. Cool. [Michael Houck]: All right, well, welcome back, man. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Cool. All right.