I'm Toby, I was a writer for the Morning Brew and now lead content at Launch House. AMA 🔥
Toby Howell
51 replies
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!
Replies
Christina Potts@christi22453182
How do I create content and where do I get content from.
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Unicorn Platform
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 ✌️
Audio Writer iOS
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?
Morning Brew Daily
@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.
WorkHub
Following the conversation to get your valuable insights.
Could you recommend books for beginners in writing?
Maybe something specific for SaaS founders or tech founders and about long-form posts.
Morning Brew Daily
@stas_voronov Steven King's "On Writing" and Anne LaMonte's "Bird by Bird" are my two favorite books on writing.
@tobydoyhowell Nice, thanks!
I'll be taking notes! Can you talk about emerging platforms and how to decide when/how to jump in? BeReal, Geneva, etc etc... soooo many to keep up with
What are some ideas to grow a newsletter like morning brew?
Product Hunt
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?
Hi Toby. I had an office in WeWork next to Morning Brew back in 2019 and saw the meteoric rise of your startup.
Question. Did your company sponsor the lunch meals every day or it was tied to some kind of KPI goals or occasions?
News Sentinel by Blockbrain
Hi Toby,
thanks for doing this. I'm currently helping grow a movie NFT project (movieshots.io).
The NFT space is full of sketchy figures and it isn't easy to establish a brand without a huge budget and big influencers. Do you have an idea how to grab the attention of the NFT crowd?
Thankful for any kind of pointer! :)
Have a great day.
Trello Tip Generator and Newsletter
How on earth do you come up with titles for a newsletter when you're talking about so many things in it??
Vadoo AI
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
Hi! Our company is having problems delivering specifically to Yahoo/AOL addresses. We have a separate IP for marketing and account servicing, but even the servicing one keeps getting caught for password reset emails. Sender reputation score doesn't seem to be the issue, and we have no problems delivering to Google. Is there something special we have to do for Yahoo deliverability?
Product Hunt
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?
Morning Brew Daily
@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.
Snov.io
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?
Morning Brew Daily
@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
Trickle
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.
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?
What steps do you follow from ideation to publishing the content?
What does your typical day look like at Launch House?
Morning Brew Daily
@ryangilbert On writing days, my mornings are spent working on the copy for any partnerships/cross promos we have coming up. Then around noon I start really digging through the news cycle and getting a sense for what we might cover for that day.
Then near 1 pm I go off into a writing hole and start cranking. I have a writer on staff that helps me out with stories so the next 4 hours are spent writing and editing the newsletter. On good days, the newsletter will wrap up around 5:30-6pm.
On non-writing days, I batch some time to produce social content then work on some higher level strategy stuff. Right now growth is a big priority so I’ve been running some experiments (currently have an ad for Homescreen on Product Hunt so if you see it, give it a click!)
Non-writing days are a bit more chaotic because there are a million directions I can go in. Been working on setting goals for the day and going deep on 1-2 tasks.