Iterate Weekly - Issue 106

This week we're looking at Substack's potential troubles, Tackling 7 Core Skills with Caveday, Wild workouts with Neon Buffalo, In-person concert tickets, and The Looking Glass!

Welcome to issue 106 of Iterate Weekly!

Hope you’re all doing well. This is just a friendly reminder that you can always reply directly to these messages or leave a comment on the Substack post. Feedback is highly encouraged and I’m happy to answer any and all questions that come up.

Let’s jump into this week’s stories.

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🤖 Tech

Is Substack in trouble?

Image courtesy of Substack

I’m never sure how to cover Substack when I mention it in news stories here. On one hand, this publication has lived on Substack from its inception and I feel a strong connection with the brand. In fact, I interviewed for a job at the company a few years ago and that played a role in continuing my writing here when I’d dabbled with other options like Bulletin and Ghost.

I completed the Substack Grow program for writers. I even attended their meetup for local creators in San Francisco.

All that is to say that I’m obviously pulling for the company to do well and closely follow things like new feature launches and any industry reports that give some insight into the future success of struggles of the company.

So I was very interested in the recent report in The Verge about some potentially troubling earnings numbers and possible missteps by the company.

I’ll let you read up on some of the findings on your own. But it seems like some of the revenue projections weren’t as rosy as anticipated and Substack has blown through a whole lot of money, mostly paying high-profile writers to come join the platform.

Couple this report with the odd situation of Substack launching a pseudo Twitter competitor called Notes and Twitter subsequently blocking Substack links and it’s been a very eventful couple of weeks for the company.

I still will likely start playing around with Notes to see if it fills a need for me and adds any value to this publication, but it’s been quite a few years since I’ve been on Twitter and I can’t say I miss it very much.

But what maybe struck me as most interesting in the report from The Verge was this line:

Usually in VC-funded media startups, when the platform suffers, the writers suffer. But in this case, because it is so easy to leave Substack with your list and go to another platform — Buttondown, Ghost, Mailchimp — this is a rare case where the writers who made their businesses on Substack will probably be fine.

Huh, well that’s a relief! It’s true though. As much as I’ve loved writing on Substack, most of you readers don’t care too much about the specific platform right? Substack has some cool tricks, but it’s essentially just a container for sharing thoughts and developing a community. I can’t imagine not writing content like this every week, but will it always be on Substack? Who knows? But I’m hoping they can sort through some of these potential issues and inspire more writers like myself to hone their craft and find their audience.

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🎓 Education/Productivity/Work

Caveday’s 7 Core Skills

Image Courtesy of Caveday

I know that many of you would consider yourself to be “knowledge workers". And while that term may encapsulate a whole host of different professions, there are some fundamental traits that are associated with working in the information economy.

The fine folks at Caveday have brought back their popular “Seven Core Skills” of Knowledge Work program to help employees, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and anyone else who could use a guide to learn the pivotal skills needed in today’s competitive knowledge-based economy.

I personally took the course when it was initially offered last year and it really changed my perspective on the most valuable traits of successful knowledge workers.

Here’s a sneak peak at the skills that will be covered in the 7 week workshop:

1. Deep Work

2. Flow

3. Focus (nervous system and overcoming distractions)

4. Energy (breaks and chronobiology)

5. Creativity (idea generation and fighting resistance)

6. Self-Knowledge

7. Relationships

Things kick off with the first live session on May 1, but you’ll be able to watch the lessons on-demand if it doesn’t gel with your schedule.

It’s a perfect way to use some of those learning and development dollars that may be a perk of your job. Or it’s a great personal investment if you’re running your own business.

Learn more and signup here.

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♻️ Health & Environment

Wild workouts with Neon Buffalo

Neon Buffalo

A while back I mentioned backing the Kickstarter project for a product called Neon Buffalo. It comes from the folks at Wild Gym who make a host of amazing home workout tools that I’ve been enjoying for years.

Well, I have received the Neon Buffalo and started some initial training sessions and it has been a fantastic experience so far. They market the product as a complete gym in a bag (which admittedly sounds a bit gimmicky) but it’s true. It’s a series of weighted sand bags that let you do a host of full-body exercises.

Workouts are short and intense to help you maximize your time and effort. If you’ve ever done kettlebell workouts, this is a similar experience but with far more handles and different positions to work a variety of muscle groups at once.

The product has graduated from Kickstarter form and you can check it out on the Wild Gym website if it sounds like something you’d be into. If you’re looking for a new fitness routine that can easily be done outdoors to take advantage of the warmer spring and summer weather on the way, I can’t recommend Neon Buffalo enough.

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🛍 Grab Bag

In-person ticket sales are back!

Illustration by Kate Walker

Do you remember the days of camping out overnight to be the first person in line to buy tickets for something? No, I can’t say that I actually ever did this either. But I’ve seen plenty of TV shows and movies where dedicated fans performed this ritual in tribute to their favorite artists.

Well, artist Maggie Rogers is embracing the IRL ticket purchasing experience for her new tour.

Rather than subjugate her most loyal fans to the chore of fighting off bots for online sales, Rogers sold special pre-sale seats only to in-person purchasers. This comes on the heels of online ticketing fiascos for Taylor Swift and other highly-anticipated tours. There is no need for elaborate “CAPTCHAS” to prove you’re a real human when you buy a ticket for something in-person. What a novel idea!

As inconvenient as it is to queue up for anything these days, there is something satisfying about knowing you’ll actually get a ticket for something you really care about instead of just playing roulette with the Ticketmaster refresh button. In the case of Maggie Rogers, she even showed up in-person herself to greet fans waiting in line in Brooklyn. That sounds like a far more memorable fan experience than playing the online ticket game.

When was the last time you waited hours to buy tickets in-person?

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💬 Quote of the Week

"The environment is everything that isn't me."

-Albert Einstein

📧 Content Recommendation

The Looking Glass

This week I’m giving a shoutout to perhaps the Substack newsletter that I’ve been a subscriber to the longest.

It’s called “The Looking Glass” from Julie Zhuo.

Updates are a little more sporadic these days, but Julie has been a prolific writer and product manager for years. Her book “The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You” should be required reading for anyone leading a team in the business world.

If you’re a product manager, aspiring product manager, or just someone who appreciates a well-crafted business essay, you’ll love her newsletter.

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Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!

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