A Letter For Process & Progress

My Weekly Update (12/10/24) of Radical Transparency

Well, it’s been 1 week since I first launched A Letter For to the public. The Tuesday after Thanksgiving will now be memorialized as Letter Launch Day 🚀

I had the idea over the weekend, as I did some reflecting and deep thinking on the project and it’s progress over the first 5 days, that I should continue documenting the process of what I’m doing. That being radically transparent with everything I’m doing is a worthwhile activity.

Right now my goal is to write one of these “process & progress” posts every week, documenting my thoughts, ideas, progress, whatever inspired or motivated me that week, and I guess whatever else I want 🤷‍♂️. That’s the beauty of doing a completely solo project where you can make all the decisions. I’m the only one accountable to how this project plays out (for now).

The motivations to be transparent are clear in my mind, because I believe documenting the process will provide value, and as Sahil Bloom recently pointed out it’s all about doing things that provide value.

Which means receiving value, or making money, is the exchange for doing so.

I realized this when random strangers along with people I know started paying me for this project, despite my best efforts to tell everyone it’s free to subscribe and get every letter every day. I will promise you this and please hold me to it. Every letter will always be free. Every process post will always be free.

However, if I can provide enough value through those free things to make money from this project, either directly or indirectly, I’m going to pursue that. 1 week into this thing I don’t know what those direct or indirect ways would be, but I have some ideas (and I fucking love ideas):

1. Executives/founders/leaders could pay me to teach them how to write personal correspondences and letters of gratitude and really tap into the source

2. Executives/founders/leaders could hire me to consult them and help them execute a letter of gratitude strategy for their teams, partners, clients, etc. Tons of value in being different and personal and authentic with the other humans in your sphere that matter the most

3. Branded Stationery Set - sell it to people to use or give as a gift. Would come with READ ME file on how to use it in different ways

4. Build a “Share Gratitude App” where technology guides you to be thoughtful about someone, and then sends SMS or email or even printed out and mailed to that person and makes it special and repeatable. This could be a consumption model, $1 per letter or $5/per person you send to per month.

5. A Letter of Gratitude AI that you could pay a monthly or yearly subscription to help you write letters for birthdays, holidays, special occasions, etc.

I’m in a moment in my life and my career where I’m going to take action and try all of these things. If any of them resonate with you or you have thoughts - please share them. If you have other ideas for me - I’m all ears

If you’re a founder/leader at a company or VC firm (sending letters to your portco founders) and you want me to do either #1 or #2 above for you - let’s talk about what that’s worth and get a deal done and get to work… we got 14 days left until Christmas and 21 until New Years.

That’s enough monetization talk.

Here is the progress update on my first full week of A Letter For:

• Subscribers: 22

• Paid Subs: 5

• ARR: $122

*never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen - that in my first week I’d have paid subs and 3-digit ARR

Traffic:

• My best performing post was my Letter to Randy Moss. A big reason for this was I posted it on the Vikings Subreddit on Saturday and engaged with that post heavily through to the start of the Vikings game on Sunday. At one point is was the #3 post on the subreddit on Saturday night.

Biggest Learning:

• I’ve only posted the letters on LinkedIn and Reddit (the one Randy Moss post only) to drive traffic. This isn’t good enough. I absolutely need to figure out promotion on other platforms for every post. I need to think about where a relevant audience would be and find other ways to get people to share and engage with the content.

• Is Substack Notes a good way to engage with new audience? Asking honestly

Biggest Win:

• I just did not think people would volunteer to pay. It’s changed my whole world view.

My LinkedIn performance is off the charts (for me). It wasn’t just my letter posts, but I think they added a huge boost just by writing and posting something original everyday at the same time.

Best Thing I Saw That Resonated with Me This Week (gotta work on this title):

• This diagram and how Gratitude is the pinnacle of an ENERGY GIVER. Couldn’t agree more and it’s why this project is about just that. It gives me YUUUUUGGGGEEE energy just thinking about why I’m grateful, writing about it, and then sending it out to the world (and in particular to the people the posts are about). The love I’ve gotten back in the last 7 days from my posts has been tremendous, two of the people said it made them cry. I creid a little too in response.

Last Thing:

Thanks to my readers and anyone new joining me here. I love you and appreciate you. Go spread the gratitude along to others and be blessed in the energy it gives you and to others.

-Andrew