Scaling back to grow

Hi there 👋

Before we get into the main topic could you do me a favor? Can you hype my latest video?

• Open this video in the YouTube app on your phone

• click like and a pop up should show up to

• hype it.

It’s a new feature that YouTube rolled out and I’d like to test if it actually does something for the video.

Thank You!

One thing has become painfully obvious for me this year: As a solo creator, my resources are limited and I can’t do it all. Doing everything the big creators are doing is simply out of my scope.

Sometimes you have to trim back branches to allow a tree to grow stronger.

For two years, I’ve been trying to

Publish weekly videos Write a newsletter every week Engage with people on social media Create short form content to promote Orbit Stay on top of business opportunities Connect with potential guests And doing basic admin

All while living life, leads to most of the tasks being done poorly or not at all.

So I have to pay close attention to what really moves the needle. At this point what I see is that

The podcast is growing LinkedIn is working but the newsletter is stagnating.

For most of the year the newsletter subscriber number has been flat and the open rates have dropped.

On top of that I realized that I only kept writing it to maintain the streak. That really put into question if, how and why to continue investing time into it.

Because I don’t want to contribute to the noise and clutter up your inbox. Just because it’s a good business practice.

My gut told me to shut it down completely to focus on long and short form video content. But after having a few calls this week with you I ruled that option out. Because I saw how many of you really care about these letters.

But I have to make time to answer who it is really for and what it should look like in the future.

So for now this is my last weekly newsletter.

For the last 3 months of the year I’ll put a pause on it and will change to a monthly schedule. To continue updating you on what strategies are and aren’t working for independent creators. Sending out one issue at the end of each month.

Your input will directly shape what this becomes. I've set aside time specifically for these conversations. If you want to help me shape the future of the Orbit newsletter schedule a call or drop a voice note.

💛 Valentin