🥳 Personal Message: Reviewing Month 2

Today’s email is a personal one covering some of the highs and lows of the past month.

I'm glad we’ve made it this far, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the content.

Let’s get into it:

This is good. Don't worry about the estimated reading time.

The Highs:

It was a good month.

The Level Ups just about tripled in size. So thank you!

We featured companies/advertisers like beehiiv, Samara, and Avatar AI. Remember how I mentioned signing advertisers in the Month 1 recap? These are small steps in that direction.

The team’s growing! Faye Yu will be joining as a part-time research & content coordinator! She’ll help keep us on track and boost our research efforts. A big step forward!

Some of our most popular posts this month:

• The MrBeast Edition

• #1 CEO Coach Gives Away Entire Curriculum.

• Anonymous Smack Talk, But For Corporate Employees.

• How Rumours Killed A $32B Business.

Will have much more on FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried next week. It’s a wild story.

The Lows:

Running a one-person business is not so simple. One bad week can undo months of work.

That’s exactly what happened. You’ll recall that week when we didn’t publish anything. Thanks to those of you who reached out to see if everything is ok.

Even if circumstances were extenuating, it’s never a good thing. As the business grows, I’ll surely learn more lessons like this (the hard way).

However:

While it makes me “look bad,” I always find it interesting to see a business grow first-hand. So, I share both the highs and lows openly. It’ll make for an even better story once the business is up to 100k+ subscribers.

Hiring, planning, and adjusting our content will be critical for Month 3, along with a few other things.

What’s Next?

The good news is that the business is growing, and I have many of you to thank. Sharing with your friends has been huge for our growth, and I’m very grateful for your support. More on this later.

First, a recap since last month.

Recap: Month 1 Initiatives:

Product Hunt Launch. Status: On Hold.

I surveyed 200 people on the list (a random sample), and only 20 knew what Product Hunt was. Launching on Product Hunt requires people to go and “upvote,” and it’s hard to do that if my readers don’t know what I’m talking about. This will happen, but I’ll wait until the list is bigger so we can win “Product of the Day.”

Signing Advertisers. Status: On Track.

This is good and totally in the right direction.

Value-Add Services. Status: On Track (though a bit slow).

In addition to resume reviews, I’m testing “Landing Page Teardowns,” “Sales Deck Reviews,” and a few others. You’ll see one or more of these in Month 3.

Business Community. Status: Delayed.

This was a tough one. For a community to thrive, the infrastructure needs to be in place. There needs to be an efficient way to distribute community perks, onboard new members, and host events. The business just hasn’t grown fast enough to create a good community yet, hence the delay. Some of you have purchased memberships in advance as part of the pre-sale, and I will be in touch with you next week.

New Plans for Month 2:

One big initiative:

The Referral Program:

This will take sharing The Level Ups to the next level. Readers will get a unique code and receive credit for successful referrals.

Each referral will be added to your profile, and specific milestones (like 10 or 20 referrals, for example) will trigger rewards like company swag, digital downloads, or other perks.

I’m creating this because a valuable part of our growth has come from friends/family sharing the newsletter. This program will help formalize and incentives others to do the same.

But don’t worry.

I know who’s been actively sharing this with their friends. I see you ♥️

You are on a list for awesome bonuses as my thank you for supporting me.

You never had to do it, were never incentivized to do it, but did it anyway.

I’m very grateful. Thank you. I'll msg you personally in Month 3.

That brings us to the end of The Level Ups Recap of Month 2.

Thanks for reading!