What if I have a small list? 🍆

Hell yeah. That makes it easier to know what to say — what to write. I used to have a [relatively] big list. 10,000 or so subscribers. They signed up through dozens of different channels for different things. I didn’t go a great job segmenting them, and eventually, it became such a convoluted mess, I got rid of it.

This list is small. A few hundred people. 90% of them came through Instagram over the last 16 months. 

This allows me to write to you differently. If I was still dealing with those 10,000, there would be at least 8,000 of them who didn’t see the IG meltdown last year. I wouldn’t be able to assume as much knowledge.

Their frame of reference would be so much smaller than yours, I’d have to work harder to make sure they were caught up — every damn time.

Which would be fine, but it would also decrease the intimate connection I have with you — and the others who already know the story. You would get bored before I got to the point I was trying to make.

Because I know who’s here, I can safely assume I know what you know. Therefore, I can speak to you more like I would a friend who already knows what’s going on in my world.

The list will grow — as will yours.

I know how to get subscribers. I know how to attract people. But right now, I’m not concerned with attraction. 

I’m focused more on connection.

Connection with you, and as strange as it is for me to say it out loud, connection with myself.

Connection with what’s important to me, connection with the ideas that bring me joy.

That’s why I’m doing this.

A time will come when I shift some of my focus to attraction. I’ll write longer pieces that assume less knowledge. I’ll spend money on advertising. I might even post about it on social media.

For now, a small list is better for me.

And I assure you, if you haven’t writing, a small list is better for you too.

Less pressure, less self doubt, fewer concerns about what to say and how to say it.

In fact, if you have a big list, I might even recommend choosing a segment of that list that you can more easily connect with, and focus on them before hitting everyone else.

-Ry

PS - I tried to think of a “it’s not the size of the list, it’s the motion in the ocean” type joke. But I couldn’t find it without mixing metaphors. 🍆

PPS - still got it in.