Growing a Social Science Newsletter from a Creator House in Mexico, with Brett Goldstein

Brett Goldstein writes the newsletter SocialStudies.news, teaching social science to founders and covering Tech Twitter. We talk about the untapped riches of social science for creators and founders, and how to think about branding and growing content-creation projects from niche academic disciplines. We also talk co-living and hype-house business models, as Brett calls in from OnDeck's Launch House in Tulum, Mexico.

The number of different stories in a single newsletter seems inversely correlated to how shareable it is. That’s why newsletters are becoming Wikipedia pages: comprehensive one-stop shops on particular concepts or entities.

If indie creators optimize for growth, they’ll just morph into normal businesses. That’s great if you want that, but leaving some optimization on the table probably gives: More longevity (it’s more fun) and uniqueness (personality is a moat).

Understand sprezzatura. If it looks like you invested a ton of effort, people are less impressed with your content. They expected better. Crappy production quality sets the expectation bar low, which means your audience gets more dopamine per insight.

➡️ Brett's newsletter, SocialStudies.news
➡️ Brett on Twitter @thatguyBG
➡️ The OnDeck Fellowship at beondeck.com

✦ If you're working on your own long-term intellectual project, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.