Be wary of growing too fast or big

How Isaac Saul Built Tangle into a Million-Dollar Newsletter by inboxcollective.com →

I remember when Tangle was a one man shop where Issac would bang out neutral perspectives of all sides of whatever political topic was brewing at the time.

He’s done astonishingly well with it, growing to an over a million dollars a year in annual revenue. His team as grown as a result:

Isaac has since hired Magdalena Bokowa, head of ad operations and social media; Ari Weitzman, Tangle’s managing editor; Will Kaback, their editor and communications lead; and Jon Lall, executive producer for YouTube and podcasts.

Part of Tangle’s appeal is Issac’s personal hands-on approach:

Early on, I’d have ten emails, so I’d spend an hour a day or two hours a day writing 1,000-word emails to readers who were writing about my political views. We’d have these rich, robust exchanges. Now I’m writing back one-sentence responses, or I’m not replying at all, because there are a lot of new readers coming in to whom I want to give those responses. It’s just a time management thing, and I think that’s been hard — more for those people who had that relationship that’s gotten narrowed, but it also sucks for me because I wish I had more hours in the day to give people that kind of attention.

This part has become hauntingly familiar to me. My own business has grown from basically being a message board forum to a full blown media corporation with reporters, etc. with massive overhead.

We used to be tiny and agile, able to keep a step ahead of competition because our small size demanded that we be innovative and inexpensive at what we do. And we were good at staying in touch with our customers because we were a big family.

It was a whole lotta fun, too.

That’s changed. We’ve now become the competition: mainstream media.

And lost our roots as a result. It’s no longer my company in the sense I could do what I wanted and pivot on a dime and I know we’ve lost some customers due to our “mainstream”ness.

The fun’s gone.

I’ve lost passion in the company so I’m wrestling what to do about it and bring that fire back.

Be careful of getting too big and losing your roots. I sense this beginning to happen with Issac’s Tangle newsletter (and others on similar paths to be the next big Hustle, etc.).

That personal touch falls away and everything becomes corporatized. All too often it’s the customers that lose out. Owners look back and think, “sheet, we should have kept things simple and easy.”

Looking back on these things I ask why is there a need to keep growing and growing and making more and more $. When is it enough? What’s the end goal here — a superior product or to get rich (there’s nothing wrong with getting rich, the question is when is enough and why)?

Any thoughts? _↴

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