03Hey all! Thanks so much for subscribing and being here. If you’re reading this, you probably follow me on LinkedIn and received an unsolicited DM from me asking you to subscribe ;)

I can’t express how much it means to me that you’re here.

I’m 100 subscribers strong so far, simply from DMing some of my closest friends + connections on LinkedIn, and feel that is an AWESOME start. Next stop, 1,000!

If you’re interested about the behind the scenes growth of this little newsletter, I’m going to leave a small text section at the bottom that tracks my metrics, so you can follow along.

Growing a newsletter isn’t easy… so if you enjoy the content, consider sending this Subscribe link to a friend.

While I’m officially titling this newsletter, “The Creative Entrepreneur,” I’ll probably talk about lots of things in this medium, and its format will continue to evolve.

Some weeks I might highlight a creative entrepreneur, others I might share something I’m currently thinking about, share some struggles or wins in my own businesses, or just a cool story from my life/journey.

For example, I’m about to embark on a solo-travel trip to Bali, Indonesia to co-work remotely for a couple months, surf, meet other creators/entrepreneurs/nomads, and focus on continuing to grow my content (Linkedin/YouTube/newsletter). Of course, I’ll also be continuing to work on my businesses and ongoing design projects. I’m super excited, and plan to share a lot about that trip here (if you’ve ever been to Bali, shoot me some recs! Just respond to this email).

This is a trip I’ve been “telling myself” I would take for years now, and I’m excited to share soon more about my experience in Bali, and reasons for pulling the trigger (hint: life is short.. no time better than now!).

While format and topics might be a bit sporadic for awhile until I structure things more, I can at least guarantee you this: I’ll always strive to keep things interesting and fresh. (no AI content here!)

Hopefully, that means not going straight to your trash bin.

My primary goal with this newsletter is to curate a smaller niche group of creators/entrepreneurs and begin diversifying off LinkedIn a bit…

Here I’ll share longer anecdotes, stories, lessons, and dive deeper into topics that interest me that aren’t as well suited for LinkedIn’s algorithm. As you probably know, there is a right and wrong way to “format,” LinkedIn posts. That forces you to be brief and simple with your writing which is great, but makes it challenging to go deep into stuff at times.

LinkedIn is awesome, but after seeing a few large creators get their accounts deleted at random, it is a bit of a scary thought being at the mercy of a company and not actually owning your audience.

LinkedIn could disappear tomorrow, and that’s a scary thought.

Believe it or not, I started this newsletter on LinkedIn about a year ago which grew to about 800 subs, but decided to restart with my own email list for the reasons outlined above.

My other goals for this newsletter include:

• Providing value + inspiration to my readers.

• Continuing to improve my writing, storytelling, thinking ability.

• Converting longer form newsletter content to short form Linkedin posts, and vice versa.

• Connecting deeper with my most loyal followers, friends, connections.

• A vehicle for brainstorming for my YT channel.

I know you get a million emails a day, and really do not need to take the time out of your day to read my emails. So from the bottom of my heart, truly… I appreciate you being here and taking the time to read.

I hope you’ll stick around!

In addition to the content above (freestyling on a topic that is currently on my mind), at the bottom of each newsletter I plan to do a small “1×1×1,” a concept I stole from my friend Ben Sampson’s newsletter (good artists copy, great artists steal 😉). The format is: one learning from life, one interesting tool/item, one image from life.

I may workshop these pillars slightly, but the 1×1×1 structure will stay the same.

Subscribe to Ben’s newsletter here (can recommend!):

This week’s “1×1×1”

1 creative quote. 1 creative inspiration. 1 photo from my life.

💡 Creative Quote of the week:

🌅 Creative Inspiration of the week:

This week’s creative inspiration is a DJ set from one of my favorite electronic artists, Ben Böhmer. Whether you’re looking for a playlist to zone in on some work to, or feel inspired, I highly recommend.

📸 Photo from my life:

I just wrapped up a (much needed) 10-day vacation to Maui with my family. I know everyone says this, but you really do start to appreciate time with your parents / family the older you get… I’m sure that feeling will only accelerate, as many feelings do as we get older. I’m ready to get back to work though.

It’s funny, when you genuinely enjoy your work and the “process,” you start feeling bored after 10 days of relaxing.

But breaks are important though for this exact reason… they leave you feeling fresh and inspired when you get back to work.

We all need a good break now and then!

Enjoying my emails?

Don’t be shy, let me know! I love hearing from you. It’s what motivates me to continue doing stuff like this (just respond to this email). Was there something that stuck out to you? Inspired you? Just want to say hello?

📈 Newsletter Growth update:

We’re currently at 99 subscribers. I achieved this by simply sending my Beehiiv subscribe link to people in my network and LinkedIn audience. While this was tedious (spent my whole flight home from Maui + about a days of work), you gotta do what you gotta do to get that initial momentum!