More Pains Ahead + Chloe's Take Turns 1

#outlook #fintech #macro #debrief #newsletter

What You’ve been Waiting for

As promised in my 2023 outlook post, I’m sharing the rationale behind my outlook. Instead of writing in my newsletter, I shared the rationale first with my company’s clients and followers here.

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Debrief: One Year of (Resumed) Public Writing

Happy 1st birthday to Chloe’s Take! First, some fun stats:

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# of subscribers: 3x in one year 🚀

Highest readership 🏆: 2023 Fintech Outlook

Amount of feedback: not as much as I wanted 😿

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Below I share what I learned after year one of running a public newsletter:

Start Small, then Iterate Quickly

Much like developing a new product, running a newsletter requires courage, nimble actions, and frequent iteration. Some of you know that I started this newsletter with a private beta, first sharing my thoughts via email (yup email!) to a small group of contacts. The private beta allowed me to just get started in a safer environment (i.e. courage). Further, an email “distro group” required minimal overhead (i.e. nimble action). Last but not least, writing in itself is a form of thinking: after sharing the first few email newsletters, I experimented and crystalized the focus of this newsletter, and confirmed to myself that I wanted to run a newsletter for good (i.e. iteration).

Depth and Brevity are a Sign of Respect

My first job was a research analyst on Wall Street, which involved publishing thousands of investment research reports per year. Two valuable lessons from my research days still inform my strategy for Chloe’s Take. (disclaimer: nothing here is investment advice! Do your own homework, as always.)

First, depth over speed. On Wall Street, one way research analysts compete against each other is speed-who can publish the first report after an earnings call, who can key in expectations vs. actuals the fastest, and so forth. Yet my boss at the time made it clear to me: never publish a report without insights, even at the expense of extreme speed. As a result, our reports always strived for analytical rigor, and actionable investment insights. Such a standard may have cost us a few points in the short run, but over time I realized it’s a sign of respect: don’t waste clients’ time with repetitive information, and only grab their attention when you have something substantive and thoughtful to say. Similarly, at Chloe’s Take, you won’t find secondary news stories or summaries of a long-form article. ChatGPT can help you with you with that. Here at Chloe’s Take, I strive to go deep and share insights not found anywhere else.

Second, brevity. On Wall Street, many of my clients had the attention span of a fruit fly. So it was crucial to get my message through, fast. We had a rule that all key information had to fit on the first page of the research report. This was easier said than done, especially for smart, opinionated research analysts :). Over time, this rule has trained me to radically crystalize my message and get to the punchline fast. Similarly, at Chloe’s Take, you’ll find condensed insights that’s actually worth your time.

In summary, going deep and staying brief is a sign of respect. Readers of Chloe’s Take will spend the least amount of time gaining the maximum amount of insights.

Now, so much extra time on your hand, what would you do?