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Toby Howell
I'm Toby, I was a writer for the Morning Brew and now lead content at Launch House. AMA 🔥
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I'm Toby Howell, I helped write the Morning Brew newsletter for 1.5 years and grew Launch House’s newsletter to 15k in under 5 months I’m the content lead for launch house and the author of Homescreen a newsletter read by 15k founders covering the startup and tech ecosystem. Ask me anything about Twitter and newsletter growth strategies, content creation, drops, and community building. I’ll be answering all questions on August 17th!
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Alexander Isora 🦄
Hey Toby. Nice to meet you. I'm a big fan of Morning Brew <3 Could you please post 5 must-follow persons on Twitter? Thanks ✌️
Aditya
Hey Toby! Curious to get a sneak peek of your content calendar. Want to know how do you define your brand language and what's the best way to transmit it to other verticals of the startup to maintain consistency?
Toby Howell
@adityavsc I'm not a huge fan of content calendars when it comes to social actually. I prefer to immerse myself in the daily flow and post content as it comes to me. Definitely not standard but it's what works best for me. As for brand language, we defined it in a doc, but the best way to ensure consistency is to train content creators personally, then edit their content. They'll pick up on what you're looking for and your brand language will stay consistent. Or just create everything yourself! Easiest way to keep consistent lol.
deepu
I am a huge fan of morning brew, robinhood and launch house newsletters. - For someone who's getting started to write newsletters, what are your tips on content and growth?
Toby Howell
@pradeeb28 Tips on Content: Constraints are your friend: Whatever platform you are creating on, set a target cadence for your content. If you commit to sending 3 times a week, the anxiety around writing fades away because you know that the content has to get out. It’s counterintuitive, but constraints end up freeing you up to be more creative. Trust your gut: We all consume content and have a barometer for what we do and don’t like. When it comes time to create yourself, create something that you would want to consume. Not only will it lead to better content but you’ll enjoy the process and outcome more. Tips on growth: Throw events/meetups: It’s really hard to get people to care about your newsletter. A good way to get a core group of users is to begin hosting regular meetups and signing people up manually. Developing these relationships and gathering subs manually is super time intensive but will pay off in the long run. Morning Brew gathered subs manually by singing up students in businesses classes while at college. Since we’re past college, you have to gather the people yourself but the same concept applies. Launch on PH: We gained around 2,500 subs from launching here. But don’t just throw up a generic landing page. Put in the effort to make your landing page unique, create some killer slides, and hammer all your channels for distribution and you should do alright.
Ankur Singh
Hey Toby. Nice to meet you. I'm a huge fan of Morning Brew!! I want to know how do you organize your day to be more productive? Thanks
Qudsia Ali
What would you recommend to someone just starting content creation or content writing? I would be interested to know since you had a significant role in one of my favorite newsletter, "morning brew".
Sandra Idjoski
How did you get the initial subscribers to your newsletter? Do you have some tips for founders who don't have too much time on how to create an interesting and engaging newsletter?
Toby Howell
@sandra_idjoski If you don’t have the time to create a newsletter, don’t do it! Newsletters are a lot of work—both to write and to grow. I would recommend tackling the lower hanging fruit first like LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok. Whatever platform you are most comfortable on, double down on that first to build an initial audience. Down the line if you have more bandwidth and/or find an awesome writer, then you can go the newsletter route using the audience you already built as a jumping off point.
Sneha Saigal
I really enjoy all your content, Toby. For how long have you been working on your Twitter growth? Given your experiences, you probably get a lot of DMs from those wanting to learn from you/pick your brain, what do you usually do?
Brittany Joiner {Britt the Builder}
How on earth do you come up with titles for a newsletter when you're talking about so many things in it??
Shawn Myers
Hey Toby! Curious to know what some of your favorite tools are when it comes to growing and engaging online communities?
Cristina Bunea
Hey Toby! Curious to hear about the behind-the-scenes of writing the newsletters -- do you have a team and assign roles for each section? How do you plan for each edition? Any tools you've found useful?
Hélène SAN
Hii Toby, I love Morning Brew, As a Webmarketer working in a Startup I need to do a lot including write emailing, do you have any tips on how to get your community to be more engaged? And how do you usually find topics to write about?
Tom Orbach
Many say that the opening / 1st sentence is most important. Do you agree? What are your top tips for writing that opening section (of anything practically)?
Toby Howell
@tom_orbach I definitely agree that the first sentence is important. I like using the lede of my story in tandem with my headline. By extending a joke made in the headline, it makes people reread both the headline and the first sentence which helps grab their attention for the rest of the story. There’s also the rule of 3 in comedy. Your first joke will likely be decent. Your second edit will be better, but most stop there. The people who fight to find that third edit are the ones who produce the best writing.
Stas Voronov
Could you recommend books for beginners in writing? Maybe something specific for SaaS founders or tech founders and about long-form posts.
Toby Howell
@stas_voronov Steven King's "On Writing" and Anne LaMonte's "Bird by Bird" are my two favorite books on writing.
Kyler Phillips
How do you stay accountable to finding and writing content for your newsletter when there aren't external commitments of say a job or revenue?
Scott Kosmach
From a 10,000 foot view looking at your TOFU, MOFU and BOFU. What process/framework do you use to keep the messaging on brand and smooth for prospects as they make the transition between these funnel phases?
Victoria Koval
Huge fan of the Morning Brew - the newsletter is just so inspiring. Thanks for all you work! The only question I have - how do you get to be so cool? Anything you would recommend beginners who want to write better?
Toby Howell
@viky_koval the only way to write better is to write more! its a slow and painful process but read a lot of good writing, then try to emulate it yourself do this process over and over again till you suck a little less. I'm just trying to suck a little less every day
Hi, Toby. Nice to meet you. Could you please tell us something about how to build a really useful and active community. Cause we just launch a collaboration platform for small team, and we build a community on discord. I'd really want to know how to creat efficient content for our users.
Sergei Petrov
Thanks for the session, this is a very important topic. 🙏 I do more of the technical part, but I would be interested to read this discussion.
Anat M
Hi Toby, Big fan of your newsletters! I would love to hear how you manage to increase the newsletter subscribers with such impressive numbers! also, my company (trinityaudio,ai) is all about, well, audio. Do you think adding an audio version to a newsletter is in demand?
Sabahet Amjad
Wow! I am a big fan of morning brew and I'd love to know how you brainstorm ideas for the newsletter? How do you keep them interesting?