Getting the Ball Rolling

Building off of each week of our media & entrepreneurship class, with a particular focus on last week’s study on aggregation and curation, I believe I have come to a decision as to which direction I’d like to head for my newsletter.

I think for my niche audience and subject matter, I can make myself the most useful by designing a newsletter built around aggregation. There is a wide range of information coming from many different outlets and countries, and I feel this newsletter would appeal to hockey fans near and far.

One thing I am going to have to think about was a focal point of the “So You Want to Launch a Newsletter Podcast.” This is the idea of whether the newsletter will be paid/subscription-based, unpaid, or a hybrid. I found it extremely helpful that the writers participating in the podcast came from different backgrounds in the context of writing experience and have exhibited different levels of success. I found this more realistic than if the podcast was focused on the top 5 SubStack writers currently. I think I would lean towards making the newsletter available to anyone for free for a year or two to see if I can gain a legitimate following before trying to reshape it as a tool for generating income.

I think my concept would appeal to people for different reasons. For one, I would provide daily coverage of the games and biggest headlines from the previous day. This would be important particularly for the people who were not able to catch the late west coast games from the night before. I would look for content that I can aggregate and organize into an informed newsletter. Meanwhile, I could focus on some of the “non-game headlines,” like personal stories of players and teams, as more of my “evergreen content,” which was emphasized in the podcast as well.

Lastly, I found the articles on developing successful pitches in the field of entrepreneurship helpful in continuing to think about ideas. I particularly liked the idea of not falling in love with a particular idea so much that it makes you afraid to adapt. I recognize that this is merely a starting point of a possible years-long process and that I cannot get tied down to just one idea. I need to be open to making changes if need be.

I feel I am ready to get going with my idea and I am excited.