|
|
Dear <<First Name>>,
I'm excited to share a new project that I hope to keep going for a long time: Agency Journey is a new monthly series on my blog that will chronicle the various happenings within Barrel from my perspective.
The initial format is pretty simple:
- Highlights: reflections on wins, new policies/approaches, learnings, and whatever else was worth remembering in the past month.
- Top of Mind: 1-2 items that have been most pressing/important for me in the past month.
- Shared with Partners: I regularly share quotes from books or interesting Twitter posts with my Barrel partners via messaging app mostly as motivation and as lessons to remember; these are a few of those shared items.
The first "episode" clocks in at nearly 3,800 words.
Why am I doing this? It's been an action-packed year filled with ups and downs. I wanted to find a way to pause and reflect on the business but do it in a fun way where I could also share my learnings with others. My Barrel partners were on board with my idea and gave me the go-ahead to write. I'm most excited about how I'll be able to look back years from now and revisit many of the challenges, wins, and decisions we made. My hope is I'll be much wiser and have made a lot more progress with the business by then.
Last week's newsletter got a 54.2% open rate. The most clicked link was Stripe: The Internet's Most Undervalued Company by Packy McCormick whose Not Boring newsletter Barrel sponsored this week!
Consumed
The Billion Dollar Blog by Nathan Barry (blog post)
Nathan Barry, founder of email marketing software ConvertKit, writes about building audiences and focusing on brand and products to scale up to a massive business. He offers a few rules for creators to follow and points out those who stayed small because they didn't. The rules are:
- Build More than a Personal Brand
- Sell Products, Not Attention
- Drive Higher Customer Value Through Recurring or Repeat Purchases
- Choose a Better Business Model
The Memos: Shopify by Bessemer Venture Partners (blog post)
VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners published a library of their investment recommendation memos written by their VCs looking to get approval on funding early stage startups that have gone on to become big names. These include Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twilio, and Twitch. I enjoyed reading the Shopify memo and the commentary on CEO Tobi Lutke, the consumerization of enterprise software, and how a $500 million exit to a large tech company would've been a great outcome (Shopify is a public company that's valued at nearly $110 billion).
Farewell Letter from an Independent Restaurant Operator (article)
When Barrel turned 1 year in 2007, Sei-Wook and I invited a few close friends and celebrated the happy occasion at The Mermaid Inn in East Village. I saw this article pop up and was saddened to learn of its closing. The article publishes a letter from co-owners Danny Abrams and Cindy Smith. I found this part striking and a worrying trend for NYC as more and more businesses shutter from the aftermath of COVID-19:
Over the years, The Mermaid Inn on Second Ave has:
- Welcomed over 850,000 guests
- Paid over $15 million in wages to our more than 2,000 employees who have spent time with us
- Contributed more than $2.1 million in taxes to the city, the state, Medicare, SS, UI, etc
- Sent in excess of $4 million in sales tax to New York state
- Paid over $ 15 million to our hundreds of hard-working vendors
- Given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city and state for permits, licenses, etc
We are providing these numbers to show the effect that the closing of a SINGLE restaurant has. Now multiply that by THOUSANDS of NYC restaurants closing. The loss of opportunity for employees, the loss of income for city, state and local governments, the loss of sales to our fish companies, our vegetable company, the linen company, even the company that comes to take our used oyster shells or our discarded grease. If we don’t pay them, they do not pay their employees and so on and so on. The chain is never ending.
Created
Agency Journey Episode 1 (Year 14, Month 4)
This is the first episode of what I hope to be an on-going series. Please enjoy!
Cheers,
Peter
P.S. Check out my Reading List of books and my Stock Investing page for a peek at some of my stock holdings.
If you like what you've read, please share with your friends. They can sign up for the list here. Also, I always welcome recommendations of any kind–books, podcasts, movies, etc.
About me: Peter Kang is co-founder of Barrel, a digital agency in New York City. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, son, and dog.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|