 Thank you, Pramay. That was very exhaustive and pretty much you had covered everything but you made it sound very easy as if someone has to just read and someone has to just Just write some 200 words a day, but it is a lot more difficult Probably your background is that of research and you have been doing so much of writing already before doing the newsletter But I have so think of it like this. I know that Writing is very difficult. It takes a while and Developing an audience audience also takes a while and since you also had you also had access to an audience for some time Before writing the newsletter But yours is a very niche audience Perhaps a lot of them will not even mind paying a bit just to access the kind of content you guys do so I would want to know when you started the newsletter Or maybe even past in the past if you have tried to do something similar What did how did you think about your audience because your audience comes from across the board? Like I have experienced I have done a course at Takshila and they were engineers. They were students They were medical professionals. They were policy guys They were PhD the PhDs who have joined So how did you decide about this audience like anticipating the unintended then who should I? Focus at who should I target? Who was your target audience when you started thinking, right? So my intended audience as I told you the main aim was to educate about public policies, right? Let people know that what is happening around in public policies. So my Intended audience when I began with was anyone who's not in the public policy domain already So someone who's just as a marginal interest about reading about government and what happens. So that was the aim So it's not meant for an expert audience In fact, it's not meant for a niche audience as well It is meant for just people who are interested in what happens in the government. That's all Those who even have a cursory interest towards it. So that's why a lot of frameworks and all which we share are Basics, right? Do we are not dealing with really complex ideas in the newsletter? As in in the frameworks, we don't want to complicate things. It's not meant for an expert audience as well So that was what I began with and we've Stayed along that path over the last seven eight months. So a lot of our audience is people who are You know, just wanting to know about public policies well across age groups Who want to know about it? Largely people it's a lot of our story telling is about India. So that's that's how we went about it But we've seen an additional, you know bonus coming in that there are people who are also experts in that area also being subscribers But that is not what we intended and that's not what we aim to do also when we're telling stories on our So I am a subscriber of your newsletter and before I would subscribe to your newsletter I got attracted towards that Sheila because of the demonetization because I did not know how It happened why it happened and I wanted answers I had lots of questions and I thought understanding a bit about policy would solve that question Sol sol those answers and give me those answers But so I know that a lot of people like me But when I when I when I reached when I reached touch they were People who had already decided they wanted to get into the field of policy in the future and so on so forth What I want and when you decide about decide about the audience one way of knowing about the audience is not exactly knowing So today you have 2000 subscribers But did you also like did you try to speak with couple of people personally? Over a phone call or over a cup of coffee. Hey, I'm wanting to write Do you want to read something like this because you have access to That's one of the ways to know about the audience in the best possible way I mean agencies do that a lot of researchers do that We call it field research. Have you tried doing that or have you done that or do you plan to do that? No, what I did is write the first edition and send it to a bunch of people and then get feedback So that was my idea and I had already done writing before so I thought I'll Include some parts of it Create a structure and I just sent it to around 30 40 people whom I know and I sought feedback from that and then try to Improve on on that break that was my mode and not to think about it a lot first get started That's the most difficult part. So once I got started then I thought I'll I'll keep improving on the All right, any any specific example of Audience member or a community member who who you did not expect but they are there or they've written to you or you just Say someone who is a musician or someone who is A sportsman and they are kind of enjoying your newsletter I know like a lot of academics would be there And wanting to write and wanting to know about these things more Yeah, uh, I don't have I don't have an idea about that Uh, I have not I don't think any sports person is there though. I would love to have sachin dendulkar subscribed to my I think it would be raul dravid more so of Maybe I'll come I think we have arvin who wants to ask a question. Uh, arvin I will try to unmute arvin And see Arvin, please go ahead. Uh Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you Hi, uh, brunette. Thanks. Uh, this was nice. I I wanted a bonds of an idea I'm uh a portfolio manager And I work at quantum advisers. So I write A lot on india macro And india investing and I have two sets of audiences one is the For an institutional investor So that those are some of our clients and and we have potential clients and I write them and I write them And then we have quantum mutual fund in india, which is retail investors And so the the language the context should be the same but the language is very different I have been thinking about writing Uh Something on india. So maybe something on india insights uh So but but the thing is my the Where i'm confused right now on starting that thing on substack or something or any other platform is Part of it would be common. I i'm not my I don't have different views right my views are same I have a particular view on demoralization. I have a particular view on gst And I have particular going over it and fiscal And I will be writing very similar pieces. So one will go as an official email from quantum As an as an official piece or And I also wanted to start something which is on my name, but I'll use quantum references Uh, uh, is that does does that make sense? And and I don't I don't want to be there This is gonna be the picture that I'm I'm working. So the india insights also is a Is an effort from quantum from urban Uh to get more people to know about quantum know about our views So it's kind of half marketing but But also just to get your views out because when you do your own news letter with your own email It goes only to the dedicated potential plans that you have But here with the subject if it's good enough It might just Let me move over and also Get people to engage. So this is where I'm stuck. Should I do it or not? So I mean we will cover uh, I mean since we're right not talking about audience But this part of it will surely cover towards the end towards the next few questions It will probably give your answers. If not, then please come back and obviously we'll discuss more about this Just just give us a couple of because Let's understand how to first address the audience because that is the most key thing the most important thing to start with the newsletter Uh, with writing obviously, there are various strategies and various ways to look at it I'll come back to you. Maybe give us another 15 minutes Just stay there Yeah, Pranay Pranay can you hear me? Yeah Yeah, so my my Obviously he has an idea and he wants to know more how to go about crafting the newsletter. So this is what I you should also kind of When you the first idea which came to you and you have an audience in mind now that okay This is the kind of audience I want to write it can be anyone who has a cursory interest and Uh, reading about public policy Then how did you start thinking of what what should be the larger? Like you said you chose a theme and then you started coming up with a format with raghu There is another question. Who is raghu? How should people find raghu on twitter or elsewhere? So that is another thing which I think uh, we should we should do So please share about raghu for a second. Who is raghu and and then tell us how did the initial idea Come to the fusion. How did you think about the format and the kind of uh topics or the content pieces you wanted to do it Yeah, so raghu is raghu like I I don't know who is that's that's enough. It's just like Okay, so people can't find raghu online or talk with him. It's just okay. Generally not online So you want to find him on any social media He's the policies here policy sage sitting in the jungle somewhere and thinking of ideas Okay, so the next part Yeah content wise, right? So when I started as I told you my idea was to pick a discipline and not a domain Uh that I'm on a deep dive on so the way I thought about it is let me just Share things which will make my audience You know reflect on any public policy that is happening and make them think that you know What was this the right way to go about things or not? You know, so that was the Reflection that I wanted to spark in the audience and that's what my aim was That's why so then I went about thinking. Okay, given that I have to Make people reflect on any public policy. What content should I have it? So that's when one content that I thought was I'll share frameworks, right? So when you there are frameworks in public policy, we still when change happens in any Policy, there are frameworks which when a public policy actually gets picked up for implementation There are frameworks which tell you why uh, you know, our capacity is low state capacity And that's why implementation policies are always good. But implementation is always bad, right? Why is that a common thing to say so Given that I had read some of these and I thought I'll share those frameworks Stakeholder management another important thing in public policy. There are a lot of frameworks on that So I thought if I try to educate people, maybe it will help them reflect on when they are thinking about public policy That was the one was one way the second one that I told you was a lot of policies which are You know Happen and then a lot of times we give excuse right that you know, you know, the idea was great But just the execution went wrong I wanted to break that myth because a good policy should also have implementation in mind And that's why I thought we'll have this section called policy WTFs and talk about Uh things that happen on a daily basis and the repercussions that might happen Even without that policy happening, you can foresee some of them An example I can give you is there was this In the national green tribunal has banned RO water purifiers about a particular TDS range I don't know. It just happened a couple of weeks ago. So I mean, that's quite egregious that you're banning water purifiers And so we wanted to look at what are the consequences of it How will how are you going to administer this even if you ban it? What will be the consequences when you ban something? How there will be a black market which might develop and so on and so forth, right? So those are the kinds which we wanted stories which we wanted to tell And that's why we have a section on that The third one is we read a lot on foreign policy as well And it is another subset of public policy But that's something which we read on often and always there are many interesting things happening in the public in the foreign policy realm So we picked one story a week on that particular section And then the fourth section which Raghur writes is he's a movie buff. So he writes on How movies tell you something about public policies, you know, so That's how it's just a combination of our interests Which flows into public policy and we come at it from different angles So I am looking at it from the point of view like I am creating a newsletter So I okay, I know about my audience now somewhat from what I interest what you've said I know about my audience. I also know about the Broad things and also some bit of depth in which I have some depth and understanding which I want to share Now I have these two ideas, okay Raghur can write about movies and policies you can write about the foreign policies And and then about different formats and frameworks and to evaluate if something has gone wrong Now I have these two things in mind now and I want to craft the first newsletter And I want to send it to 30 40 odd people who I already know How could how did you decide? Oh, it will have three Longish articles one 150 word article or it will have a image and an interesting One liner right next to it so that people can have some it It can it can have some humor So if you can recollect like the first one, which you remember How did you go about setting it a type setting as they used to say in the past? How did you put it in on the paper and this and before sending it? Yeah, so One thing that I thought was it shouldn't be long at all So initially when I began with each story each section which I talked about the thing I had in mind was it shouldn't be more than 200 to 300 words because the longer it is The more difficult it is for people to read. So that's how I thought of it Just give an image on frameworks generally I share an image and just tell the story of what that framework can Help you think about public policies. So that is how I thought about it And I always started with the policy wtls because that is the humor part. There are a lot of things which happen Which go wrong and then they have lessons to learn from that So I thought keep humor in on top and write really short articles So 200 words each you can buy in five sections if you have thousand thousand 200 words Did you have a reference? Did you really appreciate some other newsletter before you thought of writing a newsletter Like when I started writing a newsletter, I had a couple of very good references like Benedict Evans newsletter used to be like very short and at times a crisp summary about it Then at the same time someone from scroll called Rohan started writing newsletter more the political fix It had like first appeared like articles on the news on the website itself Then obviously it became a newsletter. So I had these references So do you have like did you start with the reference of the two which you really liked in the beginning? Actually, I have been subscribed to all these newsletters that you mentioned from a long time back And brain pickings by yes Also really good, but for this newsletter I didn't have any sort of reference in mind because I was doing something which I have been seen elsewhere. So I didn't have a specific model in mind when I started, you know, I thought let me just try with this But I'm sure because I would have read those some of those ideas would have Poculated in this as well Like for example, the thing that I took away from Bill Bishop's newsletter is If you have a lot of blog posts and you can have really short summaries about Particular news item that is also a great way to tell right. There's like the old blogging style, right? You have just 200 words about what you felt So those were some things that we still have in our newsletter as well But for the newsletter as such I didn't have a specific model in mind All right, so now I so it's like a ladder We are like kind of climbing like we have started with the audience in the next is a broader content strategy Which is like you just mentioned these are the four or five building blogs that you have And then how did you decide about substack because I'm sure you guys were not using substack before In the like takshila sends out dispatch. I'm assuming it uses mailchimp to send uh dispatch And probably you were familiar with that software But since you were mentioning that it kind of bothers you when you use mailchimp, then how did you look for the new Uh platforms which you wanted to subscribe to because a very some something very similar Platform has come into the market. It's called scroll stack, which is from the same publishing house, which is scroll And they're also Giving you the same set of tools are probably more customized towards Indian audience How did you go about looking for it? Uh, did you have a reference or did someone guide you? Or what and what was your learning from that? Yeah, which you could share Sure, uh, so yeah My colleagues also write two newsletters on china and they use mailchimp. Uh one another colleague uses uh mailer light for uh her writing so there are And as you said we were using mailchimp as well So there were a bunch of these platforms already existing, but uh, the thing was when I started using mailchimp the formatting and It was really painful for me And it is really good if you're writing an organizational newsletter because you will be having 30 articles So you want to put a lot of uh images and you want to put Articles you want to uh, you know format them differently indent them differently and all that right so for that I think mailchimp is really powerful, but that was not what my aim was my aim was Uh, just to write stories which are text heavy right and have an image or a podcast link write up so, uh The main factor in my mind was that it should be Most uncomplicated to start off with I shouldn't be thinking about the Platform at all to begin So that's why I started searching and uh, a couple of people I knew were already on substack So I just thought uh, does it work for them before that? I was on medium as well So there's a lot of writing on medium and blogs as well But then medium sort of became a gated thing right and you were not uh able to anyways reach out to a larger number of people So I was searching for something else and that's when so I saw a bunch of people writing on substack and The just the setup and all was so easy to get started off with uh, so I thought let me try this And it sort of worked that was my thinking and the bonus was I got a good URL also like public policy.substack.com it wasn't taken So why not and I'm sure people when when they search public policy At least it might help in the SEO later. So that was another sort of a small motivation before making that Right now substack does not allow you to domain map Map your domain and MailChimp allows it I I I think the new kid on the block scroll stack may allow that as well but that just I can understand and There are two more questions, which I want to like get slightly deeper with you is okay. You've decided everything You have decided the format you picked up a platform. You've written your first uh newsletter You're probably sent it to 30 odd people and you have gotten some feedback So there are two things. How did you incorporate the first feedback or the larger feedback which you got? What was the most useful feedback which you got from these users? and then how did you go about telling more people about your about your newsletter because Uh, obviously you can always write on twitter and facebook and instagram But then it's not that easy to just get those users the right right kind of users to start subscribing So what did you do the other two things? How did you incorporate the feedback and how did you spread the word around? Yeah sort of one good feedback that I can recollect now is that uh, when I started I just had a boring name like public policy review for each of the editions, right? So one Uh friend and colleague told me that, you know, don't have such boring titles and number them So I now you will see if there are any traditions numbered Uh, so that gives uh the audience uh an indication that you know, if 50 editions have been written These guys must be writing a lot, right? So they can expect more But the second thing was use a nice quote for the uh article title. So we have uh some cheeky Mostly it is a very corny title from Bollywood or something that we put but uh aim is that it should be funny And it should make people think, you know, it is let me just wait on it. So that was one good feedback. Uh, I I got Uh, the other one was yeah, generally feedback was don't write a lot like it shouldn't run into 3000 4000 words and We've not kept that sometimes we break that rule ourselves. But generally that was also a good feedback. Keep the article uh succinct Short they should tell uh the main story as soon as possible Because people hate scrolling. So the the more that you have That that just reminds me a scrolling point reminds me the sub stack look and feel on the phone is really good the font size that Uh, it gives even though Capabilities quite limited, but the appearance on the phone is really good and that was another thing that sort of Won't mean that let me start writing that Yeah, and how did you spend the word? That was how did you spend the word? Uh popularization was uh, I sort of uh, just thought I'll share on twitter itself because uh, I On twitter a lot of people who are related to public policy Uh, sort of uh, I'm connected to them. So I thought I'll share on that. So every edition. I just put screenshots of the stories Uh, and then I just put that week on week. So that's been the only channel that I have explored Um, yeah, I don't know. You might have better ideas on that friend. So it's just been built through that You pretty much have nailed it because headings matter a lot even the subject line of your newsletter matters a lot People tend to open after reading that. So I make a lot of effort when I write the heading Like you make a lot of effort before those headlines and you want to write it cheeky or interesting or humorous and uh, they they help actually and reaching out to your core audience is more important than reaching out to everyone in the world You know, if you already know your friend ask the friend or you ask your readers to share it with their friends This is a better way of building your audience and usually a building an audience takes a while like a year or two So people should be patient. They will not only few are lucky to have thousands of people You're a publishing house. You have the you know luxury of reaching out to Lacks of people but that's only for a few set of people last question um Is there a process which you have is there a routine which you follow like every day you devote an hour to write To reading you have already mentioned a bit about writing every day for some time Uh sending it on the same time I send on friday at 7 30 a.m. Every day every week I don't budge from that. I mean I you also do the same thing Is there is there a process or routine to you building the newsletter in terms of you read every day for two hours or something like that um Actually, uh, I don't have a routine because that's my job in the sense that I'm reading public policy in and out so but what uh Like I said that once you have that frame in mind the theme in mind You will start filtering all the news that happens all the events that happen from that angle so I just maintain a list of uh all my sections in my newsletter and uh whenever I come across something which is you know Which might fit into framework section. I just note it down in a checklist, you know, and uh, then at the end of the week my flow is to write whenever let's say on a saturday or a sunday Then pick uh go through that checklist look at what has happened this week Is there something that relates to what has happened this week? Then just start writing on that particular topic. So that's how I write Uh, but raghu follows a different method. He writes sort of More regularly on a daily basis kind of a thing. So If if raghu is not if raghu is not an imagination if he exists he writes like that Okay, you also have to ask you also have to answer a arvind's question You want he has an idea and he works in a financial Company he wants to write about india in the same set of topics which he thinks everyone else is writing Writing uh, what how should he go about writing that or start writing about newsletter because he thinks everyone else is also Kind of writing the same kind of stuff. Yeah, uh, yeah, that was a good question arvind that I would say don't worry about it, right? I mean the your take that you will bring in your insight will be different from someone else. So there's uh, There's no problem with that the way And he mentioned about the marketing point as well, right because what he's going to write for the organization might be similar to his view so The way I thought of it is that you can think of the india insights or your own product as your views And in between you can obviously reference some things that your organization is saying or you can even put an ad That you want to put in towards the end. So that sort of works But this is sort of your view your point of view that you want to share with people. So, uh, I don't think it's a You need to worry about it. It's your view you want to share it Just get started and see the feedback the advantage with your own newsletter as against the organization if that is obviously you can it is more freedom You can explore any topic that you want in your newsletter. You can combine it the way you want You know, you can have very vague references if you want so that those things are an advantage for you So that's why I guess it's good to start with your own newsletter and And then it I try based on the feedback All right, Arvind. Do you have more something else to say something to add? Yeah, just a comment like uh, because I write on macro and investing I can't have charts A lot of our explanation is I don't charge to charge. So subtract You said subtract is not a is not as conducive for charts Or is or if if it has a piece has one or two jars All right Yeah, Arvind, we kind of lost you for a second So I think Arvind was Arvind was saying that it because he's he writes on macros and you'll have a lot more data and charts and graphics to Right and maybe subtract is not conducive. Uh, so should we also explore something else? Uh Do you want to add something to it? Yeah, I it's it's good for putting some images in so if you're going to create charts and visualizations of those Figures, then it's that works. Uh, it's not a problem on substack as well But if you have uh more complicated things and that's not the platform it's Even I observed it's a work in progress. So some things don't work in that for example, uh currently embedding a spot if I link For podcast doesn't work but embedding soundcloud works. So there are still work in progress But if you want to do a more complicated stuff, uh, I think ghost is another platform you might want to explore That is work and another one for slightly more academic thing is pubpub.org And it basically allows you to again combine a lot of things and Just fashion in the way you want and it's available free Open source so you can explore that as well. I I just found substack so easy to navigate and use so So I would I would say that don't worry too much about let let the problems arise when they arise And then you can tackle them just start with the first news letter which you want to publish publish it Just do it. Uh, Nike has made this made it easy for us to do it. Just do it and then worry about the So you have to develop your lens say demonetization happen when I would say that it's a policy problem I would say it's a public health problem because there would be less money in people's and Or I would say it's a small business problem. So depends upon the lens that you develop a data charts and all They're all secondary to your lens. I mean, whatever you want to convey There is a way out on each of these platforms for you to figure it out So don't worry about it. We are all here. You can always help. I mean reach out to us I will help you or maybe other members from the community Will help you. Thank you So I have Shavik We also have Shavik in the house, I guess and I think uh, I if he's here Shavik would raise uh He would not agree with you that people don't like scrolling because he he has already told me a hundred time people love to scroll Shavik, would you like to add something about scrolling and how should what should be the length of the newsletter? Should should they like keep it to 200 words and not have a longest one? Do you have any? Um, do you have any input Shavik? No, I don't think Shavik is here. So the thing is, uh Researchers have found that people do not mind scrolling. Uh, people don't mind scrolling And people as long as they find your so you have to kind of think and probably substack solves the problem that It has to have that. Uh, yes Shavik, please please speak Why Shavik not speaking do I have to allow him? Shavikji, please speak. You are allowed to yes Shavik Uh, can you hear me now? Yes Shavik. So no, I People don't like to scroll. I have not I have not followed the entire thing that prena has said Uh, so I I thanks for pulling me in on this But uh, I my comment is more in the web space And in the email space There is very recently As recent as yesterday. I think jason freed had put out on his twitter account Answering a small public question. What is good writing? And on on that front his response was a good writing is something where Someone who's reading wouldn't what would not want to stop reading and would want to continue reading the next line and the next line at the next line Uh, so if you can I think solve that problem that it doesn't matter how long your article is If you if you are not doing a good writing, I think if you look at it from that perspective Then then it doesn't matter how short your article is Even if people just skim through it, they'll probably not want to read through it And just skim through it and leave on the web side of things. I still agree with this But both the things have the same Uh, uh root point which is as long as the audience's interest is grabbed And that is not getting broken In that case scrolling is a secondary thing It's that you can't completely take it as an independent thing that oh people will always crawl or people will never scroll Uh, it it is more of a part that is the is is the content on that Page or on the email interesting But this one thing that you are quoting me on uh, Abhishek I would still stick to it being in the web context and I am still I'm nowhere near an expert on newsletters Uh, so that uh, so I'll rely on uh, Pranay's observation on this Okay, so I answer to that question and we'll click on the link We'll go to the web and then you can answer that question We are not reading in the in the client now and that's more of a bad thing. Thank you, Shobhik. Thank you so much Okay, we also have a Joseph Jude in our uh amongst us He's an attendee I don't I feel be interested in because he also sends a newsletter about uh inspirational about work about technology Um, I hope he if he has a question I would want him to join us and raise a question or two if he wants to Um, Joseph are you there? Yeah, Abhishek Yeah, Abhishek. I'm here. Uh, I didn't expect that you will you will should have questioned to me It was a surprise One of the things that I have observed is I mean, I've been writing for 10 years Uh, but only in the last two years or so There's an interest in my blog people are coming in and they are reading What I see is uh, probably you are an institution at the front but for independent bloggers like me Distribution matters Even in the newsletter space like wow This year beginning. I wrote a blog post which abhishek linked in his newsletter Still that is the top most uh traffic Blog uh in my uh blog, right? So I think the distribution matters. It is not only about writing. It's not about the medium. We talked about both I think the distribution also matters to bring in attention It is not like a question, but it's just my comment. Uh, thanks abhishek Welcome sir. Thanks a lot for sharing Can I just add to what Joseph mentioned? Yes. Yes, please. Yeah, no, that's a great point Actually, one thing that helps us again It's like in podcasts you have people referencing other podcasts and then they become popular, right? So given that now there's a critical mass of newsletters developing It also helps in some other references or new letter in that so even we observe sometimes the traffic went up and It was mentioned in another newsletter and someone, you know and said, you know, why don't you go and check this out kind of thing? So yeah, that is a good point. Okay. Shavik raised the question about ghost. Uh, is ghost How is ghost related to newsletter? Is this is has do you know anyone who uses ghost to send a newsletter or something? Because it's more of a cms website publishing thing as far as I know about it Uh, no, I haven't uh, I was uh evaluating this before writing Picking up substack. I don't know anymore written on ghost, but it provides uh, one of the settings in it Sort of provides you to write just uh, newsletters and email integration, which is quite good in that So it does what substack does it can do that plus some extra things. So, uh, you can use it to do any newsletter kind of function Is what I thought So I think uh, we have pretty much covered everything. I'll just recap very quickly like Most of what we have discussed falls into like four broad things finding your audience knowing about your audience Knowing why you want to write a newsletter because do you have a domain expertise? Or do you know do you read a lot you're passionate about it? And this is the larger thing you knowing your objective very clearly why you want and what are the outcomes you want Thing third thing is to developing your strategy, which is the kind of like you're developed Okay, these are the broad articles broad frameworks. I want to write and this these are broad broad content types I want to write and then finally Picking up the right technology, which is the right platform, which you picked substack So these are the four broad things which everyone has to like keep in mind when it When it comes to newsletter and the strategy and the content strategy behind it so and obviously And the more you read and the more the audience about these are the four broad things i'm just capping up Wrapping it up. Um, I want to thank pranay you for joining us for the discussion And the audience shawi joseph arvind for asking questions And to know more about this, um We have to you can go to to the hasgig.com slash content web for updates videos And the next session and hope to see more people and more audience in the next session We will cover more interesting things about the newsletters. Thank you pranay. Thanks so much. Thanks all. Thank you