What I learned over a year of asking users for money for the first time
About a year ago, I was really tired of clickbait, ad-riddled news like many others, and wanted an alternative. I had always wanted to launch a daily edition, so decided to just do it — and ask for money right out of the gate.
Thus, an experiment was born: re:Charged, a morning technology briefing, designed to be a too long, didn’t read, of the industry, and why it matters, delivered to your inbox. I launched in August 2017, and a year today, I’ve been delivering four days a week, without missing a day.
I felt that the industry went through too many hype cycles, press junkets and access journalism, and wanted to create the thing I needed years ago: an accessible way to interpret the industry from both inside and out, and save time reading the actual news.
Looking around, there were few products that could help me build this as a platform that would grow over time, and make community the center of it all. I tried a few platforms, but ended up building my own tooling. Yup, insane.
With more than 250 briefings now delivered, and hundreds of thousands of words, I wanted to reflect on a long, weird year of asking people directly for money, and what it took to get here today.
