Hi everyone. My name is Patrick ill and for
today's episode, we have one of my favorites.
Knowledge sharing through riding Luca Rossi comes on to talk
about his process, his experience, his advice, and his
challenges, very open, very honest, and very inspirational.
I'm going to put all his socials in the description below.
Check them out as well as his newsletter refactoring that
club. And with that being said, thank
you for listening. I'll see you in the next.
I just messed up the end. Enjoy the answer.
Look forward to a time where I have a more flexible schedule.
I feel like my flight and my schedule is really flexible as
is. But yeah, I do have like a
normal kind of work Rhythm and it's not like a nine-to-five
sometimes it's an 84. Sometimes it's a 10 whatever,
sometimes I do work in the evening, but most of the time,
like, is pretty straightforward. Like I have a few asynchronous
calls here and there and then we work together as a team.
So I want to be working with my teams working as well, but I
feel like if you're Your Own Boss, or if you're in a team, By
yourself, like that becomes more flexible and then Rhythm and
routine and habits. All of a sudden are going to be
kind of your guideline in how much work you put out, and it's
much more. It's true.
It's true, it's true. Because this flexibility, I feel
that it is both a blessing and a curse and this is something that
I didn't really understand at the beginning.
You know, I thought this would be 80% of blessing writings
while instead, it's more 50/50 the way I think about it because
the fact that you don't have a team around you You don't have,
you know I trained of work that goes on even without you that
carries you forward. Anyway, creates more friction,
you know, between you and doing actual work because, you know,
it if you do not do any work, there is nobody else that, you
know, acknowledges that, that keeps you accountable for that.
So it's like you have to spend more energy to do any work
because it's just you by yourself while instead if you go
at the office, you know, there would be those days where you
feel very low. But anyway, when you get into
the team and the flow of meetings and other things going
on, you catch up, you know, with the with the train of things
happening and you get work done anyway, what it's much harder
when you're by yourself. Yeah, I can imagine that.
Do you, do you feel like that accountability is like you and
your own? Because for the listeners
listening in, like, Luca as like 25k plus subscribers newsletter,
like, I would imagine that you feel kind of a certain amount of
accountability to do Those people reading your stuff as
well. Sure, I sure.
But you know they are I tied to I kind of think about my work as
divided into the basics. Yeah.
The there are like the most important things that I have to
get done to get the newsletter going, like writing the wiki
article doing the basic research Etc and then there is all the
rest of the work that is about, you know, maybe replying to
people in the community replying to tons of emails.
Go going forward with the product Includes all the things
Etc, and all this accessory things.
I think that I could theoretically not do any given
day without paying too many consequences, you know.
Yeah, so these things require more mental energy to stay
focused and and say, okay, let's do them every day.
You have to do those Etc with the, as opposed to the actual
writing of the newsletter, which I'm very focused on.
And I know I I have to do every day and no problem with that.
Yeah, makes all sense. Interesting, before we dive
deeper into the newsletter, like, I'm really curious how
that newsletter got to be. Like could you walk us through
how we kind of got started? Because you mentioned earlier
that it started as a side gig initially.
What, why did you start the newsletter in the first place?
Yeah, it started in 2020 actually doing the the whole.
Look, first lockdown face at least how we lived here in
Italy. We Couldn't leave home couldn't
do many things and also, since my start up was in the travel
space so much of our activities pretty much stopped together
with travel in the in the country and so I had instantly
more time to do other things as well.
And I started reflecting on my journey on things that I had
learned as a CTO at my startup for about 10 years.
And so, starting to write more or write down more thoughts that
I used to. And I was already big video
about the newsletters. So I did most of my reading
reading through newsletters anyway.
So I thought it could be a nice idea to publish to get some of
these thoughts out in public and get feedback from people and
start some nice conversations. So this was really the main
motivation you to get more exchange, even with people and
then late that year in September after I had lined up, Some feel
like the your for articles in draft, I started doing that at
first bi-weekly and then and then weekly writing about things
that I had learned over over the years, as a CTO of a small to
mid-sized startup and then it grew very fast and and, you
know, above my, my own expectations.
Yeah. Totally really have those really
cool. That's really cool.
I like that such The same. It's similar for me doing the
podcast that I already had been listening to a lot of podcasts
and I could see myself doing this and then when there was an
opportunity like I jumped on it and for you with writing like if
you already follow those newsletters and you enjoy
reading them and you have your own thoughts and you don't
really see them represent it in there somewhere.
Then I can see that inkling growing stronger and stronger
until opportunity hits when you can jump on that as well.
When it comes to those newsletters that you were
following who was like a real big.
Him for you back in the day or even still, I can tell you that
I was already paying for some of them even though, you know, back
in 2020, it was still a very unusual thing to be paying for
newsletters because soup, stock was just had started.
I think maybe one year before, not more than that, and I was
paying especially for to newsletters.
One is, one was super organizers by then shipper which which now
got bundled into the every Collective of newsletters which
talked about productivity with interviews from some of the most
productive people in the world and was very, very inspiring for
an organization geek like me and and another one was Landings
newsletter. Definitely, that is still a huge
source of inspiration and it's still, it's about product
management. I mean, for those who don't
know, it is probably the most popular newsletter in the, in
the business. Space in soup stock.
And I may be in the world that no one of the most for sure.
And it was a huge inspiration directly for starting my own
because I thought about product manager as product management as
a very close space, to what I was going to write about.
So I took a lot of inspiration about the format about the
style, I love what landed us. And I told him many times, I
mean, huge inspiration for starting my work.
That's really cool. That's very cool.
What I was wondering is because at some point you decided to
start this newsletter, right? And at some point, it also hit
critical mass, where you were like, all right, I'm going to do
this full-time. Can you walk me through?
Kind of your train of thought when that happened?
And what were those decisions in there?
Like what was kind of a few fears that you have doing this?
It was kind of a combination of things coming together.
One was, as you mentioned, for sure, getting some critical
mass, I think it was around 10:00.
Thousand subscribers that I decided to leave my job and
doing, doing this full-time and launching the paid tier of the
newsletter. But honestly, it wasn't just
that because if it was for critical mass, I think I could
have launched a debate here. Even earlier.
You know, when I was like four or five thousand subscribers, it
isn't much about the number of subscribers you.
You, you have Because anyway, it is more about the maturity of
you. I think of your workflow.
The confidence you have that. You can keep this going week
after week and the fact that you're confident that the
quality of your material will drive people to pay for it.
So this was both a combination of reaching these mass and also
the fact that I had kind of completed, the big bunch of
relevant work in my past work, so I was more confident that I
would leave because Was the right time I could hand off my
work in a way that was reasonable and comfortable for
the rest of my team. And I could do this full time
and it all came up together quite nicely and I was happy
about that moment. It was hard for me to think
about. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's really cool. But 10K is a bigger number than
I expected like initially, I would expect it like a few gay.
Maybe. Yeah.
I was a Max but thank you. How did people find you in the
first? Place like, how do people find
you in general? Yeah, you have to think that I
started with very, very little network of my own, so I didn't
have a Twitter following. I have maybe like 150 Twitter
followers that were most like that accounts for many years
before and few people on LinkedIn.
So yes, of course, maybe the first hundred followers were
kind of, you know, Network colleagues friends friends of
friends. But then after that, I didn't
really have a network of my own soul.
For, as a first, I started to join and get involved in many
communities. What I thought I could find
people who are interested in my writing of course, without, you
know, plug in directly. My content all the time, like a
psychopath. Try trying to be helpful.
First, you know, answering people directly providing value
in comments and I chat. And then possibly, you know,
when you made the most sense, linking back to articles that I
thought could be helpful for people who ask it something
specific. So Trying to minimize, you know,
getting banned into these communities and the but this was
really helpful because aside from growth newsletter, you'll
also helping me make many friends, many people who with
whom I did more things, you know, over time.
And then what the mouth got bigger and bigger and Waves or
number of people who share the newsletter.
I also started doing some paid ads especially on Twitter which
worked very well. So overall I would say it was a
combination of things. So communities organic growth
and paid ads about, you know, 1/3 1/3 1/3.
Okay, interesting. I like that you interacting in
the community, right? A lot of people just really have
a goal of like broadcasting whatever they have, but if you
do it, effectively, you want to add Value.
Right? So finding the right people
asking the right questions and then sure you might have written
about. Like the thing you think is
valuable for them that then is coincidence, right?
Because if it's really of high-quality, then it will bring
them value. Yeah.
Totally. And I think it was also, you
know, you're at aspect very important because it gave me the
opportunity to build kind of a feedback loop about my writing
because audio, otherwise you don't have really many ways of
figuring out if people like what you write.
Yeah. Or whether, you know, they would
like To cover something else. So at the beginning, talking to
many people in the community and also talking with people that
were early subscribers of the newsletters, I connected with
them over LinkedIn. I mean, I reached out to them
one. One by one, asking for feedback
or you, or other topics that would love to hear about because
they were about challenges of their work or something like
that. Really helped me figuring out
what was working, what wasn't Was not especially because at
the beginning of I wasn't, I hadn't very clear in my mind,
what had to be the scope of this newsletter.
So that was pretty much a thing that came into shape over time.
Yeah. How did you because a lot of
people talk about finding your Niche right element very
specific subset that is also going to resonate with your
audience, a topic or like at least a certain amount of focus
in the content that you create. It's one of the many things that
I've thought about in creating this podcast and I'm very sure
it Similar in creating your newsletter.
Like how did you find either your topic or topics or what is
your thought on that? Yeah, at the beginning, I really
obsessed or this, I'm a guy who tends to plan a pretty much
things. You know, the that I try to
achieve my projects or to an extent that is probably too much
right? So at the beginning as an
engineer probably so at the beginning I really thought about
what are the things that I'm most known Knowledgeable about
where I could can write being in the most value.
But I think in the end, this was not very, you know, very useful
as a train of thoughts. Because as if you think at the
newsletter, or podcasts, or whatever, you know, Creator
activity as a regular, you know, business or startup thing, you
know, that these activities have risks, right?
And so you have to Defuse The Risks that you can, that would
make you fail about what you do. And I think the risk of not
finding your Niche, you know, of or the risk of writing about
something that is uninteresting to people is for most people way
more, you know, less problematic than the risk of not being able
to show up every week and being able to add something twice a
week, or once a week. But But anyway, in a consistent
way because that's the most important thing for growing.
Something that is based on content.
So showing up and having something to say and writing
about it every week. So, the advice I would give, you
know, to myself and also to somebody who's starting
something similar is just go with the topic or style of
content. Type of content that you are the
most comfortable writing about and you can see yourself Thing,
or creating videos or anything like that for the longest time,
because you enjoy it because, you know, about it.
But it's always a combination of these things, you know?
Yeah. If you write about something
that you know about, but you despise is, it would not work or
in the long run and the opposite is true as well.
But try to optimize for that rather than figuring out where
you Niche should leave or should be yeah.
I love that advice. I think early on, I also focused
on kind of my vision of what I thought my audience would be but
since then like it has involved in so many ways and also my
interests evolve and the fact that like you need to be
motivated to keep doing this. And if you put yourself in kind
of a corner and don't allow yourself to get out then you can
be Dreadful doing the next article, the next newsletter or
the next podcast, right? Because you have put those
Shackles on yourself. Well, if you have a creative
freedom and you Really care about like your niece or your
audience. And you just imagine that if you
enjoy that your audience might as well and if that is actually
the case that can be hit or miss but still you need to enjoy it.
First and foremost and only then get an all-out, also translate
to your audience. I feel like yes, because it's a
long game. I mean for for this kind of
activities to be successful, it usually takes, you know, years,
probably, you know, to get to meaning for returns that make
for Or a business or you know a full-time job if that is your
your end goal. But then also for another reason
is and I think that we tend to think that people are there for
the content itself 100% but actually one of the reasons why
the creative economy is so strong.
Even, you know, counter-intuitively in many
situations, is that people also appreciate the connection with
the person creating The content. So your it without even
considering, let's say that the topics that you cover in Beyond
coding. I mean people are will
appreciate the way you think. You know the way you interact
with guests, your style of presentation to your style of
thinking and so with that in mind, even if you diverge a
little bit from let's say your usual Niche, whatever it is,
people will still be okay with that, you know.
Within an extent because they they like you, they having a
connection with you. So it is more important to stay
personal harnessed to with yourself.
Then to stay 100% coherent with any given Niche.
That's what I believe. Yeah, I believe so as well.
Like I had a real vision of where I wanted this podcast to
go. And this is going to be like
episode 90 something, and still I feel like I hold true to that
vision and I have like questioned it because I put up a
poll recently for example on my YouTube where I was like, okay
I'm thinking of things to improve the quality of the show
and this is one of the options. It's some feedback I got from a
random person on LinkedIn. They said shorter episodes might
be better, if you edit them, it might be a bit more Snappy.
And ask the question like should we edit the episodes?
Because I always set from the very beginning.
I won't do any editing, I wanted to be a natural authentic
conversation, but yeah, if I do get, the feedback that editing
might be better. I'm going to question that with
my Audience, and they were like, no, no, no.
We like it as if it's like, that's not really.
And they had other ideas which I'm considering now, which is
really cool that you can have a community of your own and a
dialogue about the thing that you're creating and yeah, even
feedback. The thing you touched upon
earlier, some people are going to give you feedback and you're
going to be like hot that I'm going to take with me on a going
to incorporate another and of the other end, you can get
feedback and you can be like well this is just this is not my
vision so this is not what we're going to do in this case.
Yeah. And I think being able With to
tie the the feedback to you see to a vision is so important
because otherwise you know, just listening to feedback without
that overarching Vision. In the first place leads, can
lead you to know to suboptimal places because you can never,
you know, trust feedback. I CDs, you know, for what it is
because it's tricky, you know, you might have like a vote very
vocal minority, small minority of people that advocating.
For something, you know, but there but they are very small
minority with respect to the to the band, the whole of your,
over your audience, but it feels to you like something that
becomes super important because there are like these 10 people
who ask you for that all the time.
And that's where that's where it maybe.
They're right, right. Oh, maybe they're wrong.
And that's why you have to compare that to your vision.
If that is coherent with that, if that is where you want to go
in that, that way. Feedback becomes useful, but not
if you take it at face value all the time without thinking about
the overarching strategy. Yeah, I like that.
I mean I've gotten feedback and of incorporate that and it will
always stick with me where someone said something I'm like,
huh? That's a great Point.
Yeah, from now on, we're going to change that.
Have you had that as well in the feedback that you've gotten
like, what is a piece of advice or feedback that has always
stuck with you? There are many.
There are many that I'm there. I see them.
I can Tell you the ones that I receiving the most recently that
is making the content available either in Olson other formats
like, video or audio podcasts and because I know and send,
this is a good feedback because I know there are people who
prefer to listen to things rather than reading things.
There are more like video people rather than newsletter people,
but maybe just because of their routine, like they may watch.
Deals over lunch while they don't have really a slot for
reading newsletters. So some things may work better
for them than others, but I'm hesitant right?
Because of some of the things we have discussed before.
For example, you said you were a big post podcast listener.
So it came natural to you to start the podcast.
As I was a big newsletter either, I'm not a big podcast
listener. So I listened to a few, but I
don't feel I have Have you know my tastes very educated about
what makes a great podcast. So I'm kind of hesitant in, you
know, doubling down in something.
I don't feel 100% prepared on similar when it comes to video
even if I watch more videos so I could probably, you know, have
my way around that but It's Tricky.
It's tricky sometimes you know that the feedback is good but
it's still not easy for you to go in that direction.
Yeah I can imagine if someone told me like you should do a
Newsletter. I'd be like man you haven't
listened to any of the episodes because I don't read a lot like
that would never work up but if we look at the skills because
you have to you've been doing this riding then since 2020
we're kind of the the skills that you've noticed you've
gotten better at like obviously you're riding is going to get
better but also probably the ideas that you have the topics
that you create or like what are some of the skills that you've
really hold? One of the things that I've
learned is really what's behind the writing?
Because as long as you write every once in a while maybe
you're at your notes but it is not like a professional
continuous thing. We tend to think about writing
as something, that just happens while instead.
When you do this week over week and you write long form,
content, every week and every day usually it's like you get
more sensitive to what happens in your brain but what are the
process? What are the things that you
think about? And writing is really just clear
thinking? It's being able to take some
thoughts that you have that maybe, you know, in disordered
shape and being able to put them in a linear shape, that is
understandable by people to finding the relationship between
ideas Etc. So that kind of structured
thinking is what I think I've become the most.
I've grown the most over these two years and also since I know
that anything, Thing that happens over a day, you're in a
conversation with somebody may turn into some ideas for an
article. I feel I've become even more
sensitive to finding new ideas. So one of my concerns at the
beginning was that I would run out of content than out of ideas
because I would run out of my home.
I my skills and knowledge that I could reasonably talked about
right one. Instead the opposite happened, I
mean, I have more Is now the when I started but just because
it's like ideas were all around me all the time.
But I was not that sensitive, you know, to figure out that
this particular thing could be something that I could take and
write an article about interesting.
I love where you closed off that.
You said like the ideas were already there and yeah, in
yourself or like with writing the skills have developed in
such a way that you see, those more right?
You see the opportunities and the idea is all of a sudden come
to life, or they're more clear than ever.
To write about us. And I think that's a really cool
skill. Do you think you in?
I think a lot of Engineers would benefit from riding in a way for
themselves as well or like as a form of knowledge sharing like
you're doing. Definitely definitely.
I mean these whole refactoring thing.
I mean, this will activity of mind buddhih.
Be would have been successful to me, even though it was not
successful as a business because As did the way it fueled my
personal growth because I did more research because I grew you
know this skills that we talked about where we would have been
invaluable on their own on their own and also even though you
don't have an incredibly successful newsletter something
I mean your writing. Anyway, attracts more people
that are similar to you and we likely get you to meet people
that are interested. Testing for your career for your
life. I love the the quote but I don't
remember the author, but they said that writing is like
networking for introverts because you don't have to show
up reach out to people, but it's other people that reach out to
you so that it's like a dream. So and that that is really that
work that way for me. So I encourage everyone to write
a blog even if it's just, you know, three articles per year.
It's it's worth him anyway. Yeah, I can imagine I mean,
riding is like from a technical sense of writing makes a lot of
sense as well like next to YouTube video, because if we're
talking about like, actual software and creating the piece
of software, just showing how you did that or what you did
exactly with code Snippets and text around it with the context,
I think that is one of the best ways to convey like, what
actually happened. And I think a YouTube video is a
great format in and of its own for that as well.
But Different formats are there for different types of content,
right? I think if it's really like
storytelling, I like podcasts. That's why I listen to podcast
as well. So it also depends on like what
you really want to write about. Like do you have yes in the
writing that you do? Do you really have like favorite
topics that you really can't wait to write a bio or is it all
like your favorite? Because for me it's really hard
choosing like favorite episodes or topics.
It's a it is the same for me. I love writing about topics that
are more that are broader So that I'm more about personal
growth organization mental models, but they are kind of
rare, you know, it, when you find something that feels to
lie, you know, General and that you can apply to many different
contexts and and it's valuable idea about maybe your your, the
way you think about something. It is truly a gem.
It is something that I'm really, really happy when it happens,
but it happens. Rarely.
So I mean to make you an example it's like when you read Paul
Graham isais if you're familiar with them it's there are some
ideas that you feel as Timeless and you can feel that and you
are incredibly proud of one. You can achieve something like
that. But anyway the only angle that I
try to follow for things that are that I write is to strive
to. I think that are they will stand
the test of time even if It's more technical writing or
writing about management things. So, mohnish it should I say, I
always try to write something that is advised, that I wouldn't
say Timeless. Because, of course, all things
change, but will stand to probably a year from now, two
years from now. Rather than, you know, writing a
tutorial about the latest front-end framework.
There are many online, not interested in that and we try to
steer away. Interesting i-i've never been
conscious about like the length of the content or the value of
the content that you put out there, maybe you would be more
conscious in writing in a way as well because it is true that
when I Google something and I see a blog post of like a few
years ago, that solves my problem.
I'm like, man, they already thought of that, like, a few
years ago, or this is the context that I was looking for,
which is really cool. I don't know if it's the same
for podcast so different. It's a different ball game.
I feel like, but you know why? Because I think it's because of
the medium. I mean, one of the things that I
find harder for audio and video is that they're harder to index
and search, you know, online. So they become like kind of a
black box where it's hard to mean, they will come products,
you know, in the future that, of course, make this easier.
But so far, it's still hard to search for new nonspecific beats
within either a single podcast, or is a list of many podcasts.
Yeah. Well, One instead, you know, for
articles and write a written form, the documents you have all
the, all the ways of the world to do that, that makes writing.
I think in a way Superior when it comes to the shelf life,
let's say of the content because you can find it over time but
maybe I'll do and video. I more easily to consume on the
spot. You know, because they require
less of your work to just follow the content so it straight.
I think it's straight. Indian I can imagine.
So yeah, I never thought about that.
One of the things I was still wondering is like when you wrote
and this thing was kind of a side hustle.
Like you had your let me call it your day to day job.
And this thing as a side hustle and probably your day-to-day job
was a lot of experience and inspiration for the things that
you wrote about. But then, and I asked this for
people that go full-time contract creation because this
is always a thought from my end at some point, you're like,
okay, I'm going to do this full time but you let go of that day
to day job. Which also might have meant
day-to-day inspiration. Like, was that a concern?
And if so, like, how have you Comet ate it for that?
It is probably the biggest concern that I have even right
now to turn into one of such no Ivory Tower.
A writer that I love their, you know that.
Yeah. And I don't want to be that.
I mean one of those guys that write about things that they
don't know anymore because they're just no detached from
work for they've been so for such a long time, you know?
Actually in a space that is Tech where things change so fast.
Well basically if you stay away from work for like three or four
or five years, I mean nothing that you know is going to
lecture. Yeah, you gotta get chopped.
So I mean, the way I'm dealing with this is two ways.
I mean, one is I try to allocate like 10% of my time to 20% of my
time in doing some small consultancy to Companies that
that I know that I like about the topics that are close to
what I write about, you know, to keep myself grounded to stay
close to real world problems. Even though I know it's not not
the best use of my time when it comes to, no leverage.
When it comes to being coherent with making the newsletter grow,
but I think long term is, is why?
So at least I hope it is. Yeah, and the other thing is
talking with as many people as possible.
Who Instead have a very practical hands-on experience
about work. Interviewing people embedding in
my articles experience from other people who I asked about
the newsletter has a community as well, for example, and I
anticipate that the articles that will write and people can
join basically and some with their own ideas during insights.
And I quote, the authors in the, in the newsletter, so that I
stay somewhat somewhat close to the Real World experience.
Even though I cannot make much of my own anymore.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What I wonder is because for me
podcasting, like, I've done 2qa episodes actually nowadays, but
that were two episodes out of 90, where, it's just me and the
camera and obviously have questions which I answer from
the audience. But I always have like a
counterpart, always a person to bounce ideas off of, or have a
train of thought with. But for writing, I feel like I
don't know if you are always Like kind of solo assure, the
also have like that collaboration aspect with all
the writers even like your audience in that way.
This is also such a good question.
I mean, you have lined up very good questions.
I mean, the, the last point about the might be, they're
really, they're really the, my actual concerns that I'm
thinking about right now. So, another thing that I'm
worried is that if I focus too much on my solo writing, I mean,
as much over, you know, brilliant writer.
I might ever be it will all Only be my single perspective about
things. You know, my perspective is
limited especially because many of the things that I write about
like management. Themes and topics don't have a
one-size-fits-all solution. So I might have seen something
that worked in my case but it might not work in somebody order
case and it's how to synthesize some general rules that work for
everybody. So yes, I try to involve all the
writers and impart. This is what I'm trying to do as
as I told you with the community in a small scale in a way.
So that there are many people who answer to the upcoming topic
of the newsletter, telling them were telling me what are they
bad? The best ideas about that and
I'm bad them. But I did.
This is still a small scale because I'm still the curator of
all of this. But I, I'm trying also to open
up with a bit and write articles together with other leaders or
doing, you know, skill skills leadership.
Ders and writers that I know, and trust to write about
something specific that maybe I'm not much experience about
so. So to turn the newsletter
eventually into something that instead of being just myself
writing, is a collective of gifted writers that can each
bring their own piece of experience to that.
I like that a lot like that, diversifies the perspective and
probably also challenge your thought process which in the end
makes the content of a higher quality.
Julian and better write in a way, which I think is really
interesting. One of the final thoughts.
I had was more so about your writing process because you
already mentioned like, as you write more and more and more
like you become more apt at finding ideas and actualizing on
those, but what is really your writing process?
Like when you think of ideas, do you pick up a pen and like, make
a note, or do you write a piece and like stash away for later?
Because I've if I would do that now, like even my notes that I
take now have been a mess. Us until like a few months ago
where I was like a guy need to organize this because this is a,
an organism going out of control, what it's going to look
like. This is a great question and I
think this is one of the most counterintuitive aspects at
least judging from people. Like, I talked about, I talked
about this because it all starts with note-taking.
So I take notes in a very structured way.
So I save what I want to eat for later.
I highlight on really Opps. These are lights go on my notion
so it's it's all very careful when it comes to taking notes
and organizing my notes. Yeah.
So that I basically never have to stare at the blank page to
write something. It always starts with something
that I've already jotted down in the past so much that at any
given time I have like 10 to 15 draft drafts of Articles.
I'm a right, you know, because I would each With the, you know,
some just some notes written down and maybe so maybe most of
them are not ready, you know, to be picked up and, and that I can
follow up and write the full article about them.
But any given week, I can just go through them and pick the one
that I feel is it is the most ready.
Hey, it has the the most numb, the highest number of highlights
and ideas for myself, you know, and references from other
articles that I can follow to create something that is
original original is valuable and so on.
So my advice would be to provide.
This is never tried to do like the the bulk of your working,
like one sitting this heroic task of sitting in front of the
white page and then creation happens, right?
Right. It's doesn't have yet the
inspiration that it shouldn't be that way.
If you staring at a blank page, something is wrong.
You have to start with the note-taking with the baby steps.
Also at the way I love that you have like it sounds like your
process is down to tea, like honestly where you like have
tens of 15s of drafts, already ready with notes and things that
you go inspired by probably like just living your life or reading
or writing about other stuff which I think makes it a lot
more sustainable at the end of the day, right?
Because you've already touched on this, this is a long game
like for the longest and making an optimizing your process to
Some, yes, it for whatever you need.
I think that's going to be key in like the long, Jagged
longevity of this thing. It's the it's long game and I
totally agree about optimizing it for being sustainable for
you. And anyway, for the sake of
clarity, when I said, drafts ready, laughs, for me, it's like
maybe five bullet points. Sure.
Okay. So, something like very, very
small that I should then take and turn into, not to go at some
point, but only, when I feel I have enough ideas.
Has inside sweetened down as bullet points in that way.
So that there have been times where maybe a draft has been
sitting there for like six months.
Okay? And then eventually, you know,
after I had one more article or like, talked with one more guy,
that told me something more about that, I felt, okay.
Now, maybe I can write an article about that and I choose
that for the week, I can imagine that.
Yeah, for me, with the, with the podcast, like, at some point
you're like, okay, this is kind of my Quality level, and I can
write more stuff for as you create more content, the quality
level, you also want to increase that have you had like an idea
of the quality level that you want to have and even so in
releasing have you at some point have been like, okay, I need to
put out something and I know this is like either on the level
or maybe even below or just above.
But I really want to put that out for consistency sake because
I've absolutely had that Quality.
Quality is one of the things that When my mind this, the way
I think about it, it has changed the most over time because I'm
I'm a perfectionist, you know, by Nature.
If I follow, you know, my own feelings and desires I would
spend like forever to write a single piece and while any I did
so at the beginning when I told you that I lined up like three
to four articles before to have them ready before the start of
the newsletter, it took like four months.
Seems to work toward right them. But then, I think that the
accountability of having to be consistent and publish a
newsletter every week, really curious that because you begin
to accept that it's there is not a like a level of quality that
is absolute but it is more about what you can produce in a week
that that is, you know, your level of quality and you try to
do baby steps. We increase that over time when
I'm not going to tell you like many do like every article that
you write you have to think it's the best article you have eaten
otherwise. It doesn't make sense.
No, it's not like that. I mean let's be serious.
I mean that's their articles that you think like there will
be some among the best you've written and others that you
think this is good. But this is the best I got this
week. You know for my energy at their
better weeks and worse weeks, but if you have the process down
and you If you are you know if you trust your workflow you will
never go below some quality anyway that that is what you
should assure that you know, you have stroke of inspiration.
That makes an article maybe three times better than another
one, but the workflow in the process is what makes the
Baseline level of quality that you never go below.
I love that and I love the honesty honesty when people say
like this is the best one we've had at that is my hope which
each and every episode. These three we strive to be and
strive to be better and improve but yeah, topics differ.
It's a moment that's I was going to say something very Dutch but
it's a time in. I don't know how you say that in
English. Even like it's a time how place
I guess romantic drama for the Dutch listeners but in any case
it's a snapshot of time that's that's the thing I was looking
for and that's going to be different.
The next time I'm going to have a similar conversation with some
other person, like this going to be similarities, but it will be
very difficult. Current even you.
And I if we would do this conversation in a week, after we
might not hit all the points we hit and it will have a different
flow in a different Cadence in a way as well.
Yes. And that also makes it
increasingly, I think this will come back to the fact that this
is a long game. Yeah.
So you have to optimize for your own comfort for it to be
sustainable. So there are times where you
have to go easy on yourself because maybe you are more
tired, maybe you had a bad week for other reasons, and When it
comes to this, you know knowledge, work creative work,
it all affects your performance. Let's say you mean, if you slept
badly or you know if you have concerns that are related to
your family or to your loved one of two, other thing it all goes
into the war into your work. So you have to learn about when
it is time to push more and when it is time to go to go easy with
yourself and this is this, this has been very hard for me
because when you You're by yourself, not surrounded by a
team. You have, you haven't like a
support net as you do when you are in a team.
It's different. Yes, it's different.
So and this is something that most people do not realize.
I think from the outside that it comes back to the thing that
flexibility and being on yourself.
It's both both a blessing and a curse.
I think you can imagine. But then having those
conversations like you're having can probably really energizing
right and inspirational what you talked about Persons context
with the idea and the experience you've had for yourself that for
me, like, even with a podcast that really gets me going that
really inspires me figuratively Like Trains of thoughts and
talking to people, totally conversation, like this one that
we are having your it is very energizing to me, you know,
being able to speak openly, you know, with somebody else about
this, kind of work is really energizing.
And even, you asked me before, what is something that I became
better at? At or time with because of the
newsletter. And one of these things is I
think speaking openly about the way I do things, my concerns.
They think I worried about the things I'm proud of ya and I
think this is also because I work mostly by myself.
So every situation where I can speak deeply and openly with
somebody, it's a great occasion, you know, for exchange for for
building bonding and a balloon relationship and so on.
I'm more open to that than me. Then I was probably when I was
in a larger company. Well, you can imagine.
So I really love this conversation.
So far learning from how you got the loser started in the first
play, the process that you have in place now.
And just it's just been a joy like learning about how you
share knowledge in writing for film.
Much one of the final thoughts I had is like, what is the future
for this newsletter? Like do you have like a future
vision for like, a five to ten years?
Even though I hate people, Asking those questions.
What's kind of the long-term game?
Why to me, one of the why they come to intuitive realities of
paint along games? Is that to plain long games.
Well, you don't have such plans so it's so long in time it
because you the I mean, you don't have to for you don't
Focus anymore on games that you just enjoy, you know, winning
but games that you have to enjoy playing as well because
otherwise you Get through these five to 10 years that you
mention, but sometimes that also means that you are and you feel
you are going to directive action, you enjoy doing that.
But you don't know exactly where this will go.
And it's fine, you know, and when you are going in the
direction that you're comfortable about even though
you don't know what what the distillation will be, I think
you're kind of in a good place anyway, so transparently I can
tell you I don't have like, a final goal with this.
I think this is good for me right now because of the way it
affects my skills, my relationships.
It is sustainable for me financially, so, so far, so
good. But anyway, I have some thoughts
about the future, of course, because as I told you, I'm going
to guide the plans anyway, so I can tell you that I would like
to involve more and more people in creating content in with the
factoring, we neither It's my sad curating ideas and thoughts
of others or I have guest authors and panel over writers
that contribute to the newsletter.
Because one thing that probably comes to my co-founder mindset
is that I'm not thinking at this as Creator / influencer, you
know, gig where it's myself doing this.
I really think about this as a product.
Yeah, so the fact that is overly reliant on Me.
It is also a liability. Okay.
So and I think it is something where many creators struggle.
They are not able you know to detach over time from from the
from their product, whatever even like very big ones, you
know that it stays something that is too closely related to
their Persona. While I like the fact that I'm
building a product that is not like, Lucas newsletter I called.
We're factoring because it is about something that is larger
than myself. I mean, my hopes of course.
Yeah, but but that's the way I think about it that is, that is
really cool man. I really appreciate your
honesty. Like you've been so open about
your concerns and your challenges.
I think it's really valuable for the people that are listening in
and hopefully inspiring for people that love writing about
the hose or like to pick up. I was going to say pain, but
like keyboard is more after this.
It's probably empty mug. Be somebody who still creates
new setup by pen and paper but yeah, mostly I think keyboard
exactly. I'm gonna run it off.
Look at. Thank you so much for coming on.
I'm gonna put all Lucas socials in the description below as well
as his newsletter refactoring. Dot Club, check out the website.
Subscribe and thank you for listening.
We'll see you on the next one. Thank you, Father, for having
me. Thank you so much.
No problem.