Girls’ Night In 2017 Year in Review
On January 27th, 2017, I sent out the very first issue of the Girls’ Night In newsletter. It was a side project at the time, something I did to combat the gloomy and overwhelming atmosphere post-election. Fast forward to today, and I’ve made this my full-time job, written 48 issues, and feel like we (the team and community) have so much to celebrate. It’s been the biggest joy of my life building Girls’ Night In from scratch over these past 11 months, and thanks to our amazing community of readers, we were able to achieve so much this year!
Here are some achievements we’re very proud of in 2017:
- The number of newsletter readers have grown from 160 from the first issue of the newsletter to well over 20,000 readers by our 48th issue, the last of 2017. Our readers come from all over the world — Sydney, London, Barcelona, Israel, and so much more! Staying in and taking better care of oneself seems to be a global phenomenon. We also have a healthy, fun, and engaged community growing on Instagram with almost 11,000 followers and growing rapidly.
- Despite this rapid growth, what we’re most proud of is that our unique open rate has consistently remained at 50% week after week. This means that our readers are excited to read our newsletter and have made it a part of their weekly routine. We’re looking forward to producing more content that resonates with our readers and serves their needs in 2018. ❤️
- We’ve received a boatload of awfully nice press and awards as recognition for our work, including being named a Bustle Upstart Awardee of 2017, an “icon of the nesting phenomenon” by Chile’s largest paper (lol), and a top Startup to Watch in 2018. I’m so proud that many of our readers associate us with brands that we love and admire, such as Glossier, Madewell, Refinery29, Well+Good, and Girlboss. We’re barely a year old, so it feels huge to be compared to such giants.
- Our mission extends into not just creating content but building a real community. This year, we hosted over 200 attendees at our monthly book club meetups in 7 cities around the U.S. and Canada, consistently selling out of seats in NYC and D.C. and logging 48+ hours of thoughtful discussion and connecting with new women in these cities.
- Probably one of the craziest things is that we launched a shop on November 13th with goods designed by our team, and we’re now almost sold out of every single product just one month later. We’re excited to expand our product line in 2018 to serve the needs of our community.
- We’ve interviewed some of the most inspiring women we know about self-care and their passions, including Jenna Wortham of the New York Times, Sophia Amorouso of Girlboss, author Celeste Ng, and Mollie Chen of Birchbox.
- We said goodbye to millennial pink 😉 and underwent one large re-brand to our current lovely seafoam green and wave motif branding.
- We’ve grown our team from 1 full-time to a team of 1 full-time plus 4 part-time members. 👯 👯
If 2017 is any indication, I can’t wait to see what next year brings!
Doubling down on our mission in 2018
According to this Chartbeat report, one of the most-read categories of content in 2017 was content related to anxiety and technology consumption. Our world is changing at a rapid pace and the threads of our society are experiencing radical change…and from these statistics and articles, it looks like it’s for the worse. We’re living in a world where mental health issues are increasing, bonds of community are disintegrating, and technological advances are making it that much easier to stay plugged-in and become massively overwhelmed by information, stress, and anxiety.
Looking ahead to the next few years, Girls’ Night In would like to become a positive force in all this. In 2018 and beyond, we’re hoping to double down on our mission of helping women everywhere relax, recharge, and cultivate community in a world that’s increasingly stressful and lonely.
Thanks for an incredible year, especially to our readers, and hope you enjoy some relaxing nights in this holiday. 💖
Alisha Ramos, Founder
Visit our website and subscribe to our weekly Friday morning newsletter at girlsnightin.co. Follow us on Instagram @girlsnightinclub. Get in touch at hello@girlsnightin.co.
