Growth In Reverse

AUDIO - newsletter roasts 2
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Chenell Basilio: [00:00:00] I understand why people do this, but it drives me insane.

Dylan Redekop: I appreciate the effort and that they're trying to deliver a ton of value, but I don't know what to go to. There's just a lot going on.

Chenell Basilio: This just feels very long.

Dylan Redekop: I don't really know what this is about or what it's for.

Chenell Basilio: So it's an AI newsletter?

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Rare these days. I

Dylan Redekop: know. Hard to come by, especially on, on beehive. I've never seen any.

Chenell Basilio: All right, Dylan, are you ready to get into some more roasts?

Dylan Redekop: Let's roast 'em up. Let's be harsh this time. Amazing.

Chenell Basilio: Amazing. Um, so I know. I actually just opened this one for the first time. I know you pulled these out of the people who left ratings and reviews for this podcast. Uh, if you do want your newsletter roasted live on air, go to growth reverse.com/roasts and uh, yeah, fill it out and, uh, we might choose you next time, but for these, you have, you have chosen three, and they're all beehive newsletters, right?

Dylan Redekop: We tried to pick a little bit of a theme here. So this week [00:01:00] we're looking at three different beehive newsletters. So the nice thing with that is you can kind of, sort of do some apples to apples comparisons on what one's doing versus another. Um, or just in general see kind of the layout. So, um, opportunities to improve or do some things that are working for other people.

So should be, should be interesting.

Chenell Basilio: Awesome. Let's roast the hive.

Dylan Redekop: All right. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Roast the hive. Um, yes. So this first one is from Europe with Do Love is the Yeah. Domain. Um, yeah. And this one's

Dylan Redekop: by a gentleman by the name of Jacob.

Chenell Basilio: All right, well thanks for the submission, Jacob.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, thanks Jacob. So, first thing I think we should, first thing call out here is, um, Jacob is not yet monetizing this newsletter.

So, um, it is something he is doing right now. Just, uh. When we asked if he's monetizing, he said no. That's the first thing to call it here. This is kind of a, a bit of a passion project, but it sounds like he has plans to definitely monetize it.

Chenell Basilio: Awesome. Cool. So the headline says, tired of the same old stuff, question mark.

Mm-hmm. And then it says, new products pop up every day, but let's be real. Most of [00:02:00] them don't stand the fuck out. Uh, every weekend I'll deliver five. Awesome. Under the radar. Brands or products from Europe? Just the best straight to your inbox.

Dylan Redekop: First impressions.

Chenell Basilio: I'm kind of surprised this is a newsletter, but it's interesting.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I'm wondering of like the,

Chenell Basilio: the origin story here.

Dylan Redekop: Definitely novel concept.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Um, so there is a little bit of background. So yeah, Jacob actually, he, he started this, it looks like, because he's had about 15 years in the European startup space. So he's seen, he, he quotes saying he's in the. Rise and fall of numerous products.

Um, and he is even had a hand in creating two brands known for their handcrafted products. So he mentions that in the welcome email, which, uh, we'll get to in a bit. But that just gives you a bit of context to why he has started this newsletter. So he's got a bit of knowledge, experience and passion around that, um, which is interesting, but also.

One thing you notice on this homepage, he doesn't mention any of that. So I like to, um, and Chanel, I think you can relate to this, like have some credibility, authority, social proof, you know, um, prove that you sort of know, you're talking [00:03:00] about why people should listen to you, why should they trust you. Um, so I think that's one big omission here on the landing page.

Chenell Basilio: I'd agree. And I just went to his subscribe page too because pretty similar, um, more of a landing page type thing. Mm-hmm. And he just says, every weekend I'll introduce you to five small under the radar brands or products from Europe that have caught my attention. So it's a similar concept, but he still doesn't call out that they're like, um, so I just pulled up his submission and it says.

The newsletters for curious design savvy explorers who like discovering unique, beautiful, or quirky products. Mm-hmm. They enjoy aesthetics, but they're not snobs. So like, I guess I don't get that. So to me, the first, first impression I'm thinking like, okay, he found like five Amazon deals, he's gonna share them in a newsletter every week.

Like, I don't know that I want that. It doesn't feel like there's quality behind it. Mm-hmm. So that might make me hesitate to sign up.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I think the big question is like, what is this? What problem is this newsletter solving?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: What kind of person wants to subscribe to this newsletter? So I think the, the, I like the idea, the [00:04:00] the, um, the intention behind of finding like quality products from Europe.

So supporting kind of where he's from, his geography, European businesses. Um, and I think he even calls out like he doesn't want to. Kind of flog Amazon products, like low quality products. He actually wants to find these like quality companies. They're creating quality products, um, and sharing them with people.

I think the problem is like, that's, that's just, it could be of a vast and wide array of different types of things. So like if I subscribe to this, like I could be 20 issues in before I see a product that actually I'm interested in. So I think there needs to be maybe a little bit more focus on. The type of product, um, or, you know, the, the why I would wanna subscribe to this.

Like why do I need these products or, um, is it a specific, you know, industry, vertical, what have you.

Chenell Basilio: So this actually reminds me of, do you know the Chicken Shed Chronicles?

Dylan Redekop: No.

Chenell Basilio: Okay. So it's a newsletter by David Hyatt I think. Okay. Um, I actually didn't know about it. They actually rec, they. Put me in this newsletter once and I was like, I have never [00:05:00] heard of this, but now I subscribe.

So essentially it's same thing. So it's five ideas, interesting products, um, other things that get sent to you. I think it's like every other week or every month or something. Um. But on there, here I just pulled up the, the landing page for this. Okay. So on the landing page it says for founders, so like they're specifically calling out who this is for.

Mm-hmm. We find the smartest thinking each week and share it with you. I still think there could be more to this. Mm-hmm. But they have like a raving fan base. So I think actually when I was in this, Jeremy Ends reached out and was like, Hey, did you know you're in the chicken shed chronicles? And I was like, I don't know what that is.

So then I had to like go back and find it. Um, so that's awesome. It's interesting, like this makes me feel, it reminds me of this, but for products. Yeah. So I'm wondering if you could position this more of like for designers or product people. I don't know. I don't know who the exact target audience would be for this, but for homeowners even

Dylan Redekop: like something.

A little bit more focused. Yeah. But not, um, I know you still wanna reach a pretty broad audience, but I [00:06:00] think maybe that's part of the problem here is it's just like too broad. Like are they, or you could be like, um, wood made products like plastic's, bad, bad for the environment, et cetera, et cetera. Let's focus on wood made products or natural sustainable, sustainable and naturally made products that are high quality.

Yeah. That maybe, I think he also mentions like they aren't like super, super expensive, so it won't cost you arm and leg kind of thing. That could be, that could be an angle to go on with this.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So yeah, I, I think that's a, a good call out. Um, and then I was trying to go into, to read it and they have like that subscribe box up there, which I'm not, not a huge fan of, but

Dylan Redekop: yeah.

Um,

Chenell Basilio: yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. So especially if, go ahead. No, I, I, I agree. I, I think it's good. It's good having that 'cause you. You do want to try to get people to subscribe, but it can also be kind of annoying if you're trying to read it in the box. Keeps popping up. Uh, I mean, that's a user experience type of thing. I know some people will just gate the whole is does he have it completely gated?

Unless you log in,

Chenell Basilio: you just get to see. Um, welcome to this week's installment. Every week I share five of the coolest products I've come across. Let's [00:07:00] dive in. Okay. And then I like start to see a picture and then right. Then, so it's, which I, I understand why people do this, but it drives me insane, especially just because I'm naturally curious and I like to go through stuff.

Um, and I don't know who this person is yet. I wanna get a taste of it before I give them my email.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It would be nice maybe if, um, if Beehive offered that sort of, if you could somehow filter out like. People who have, geez, I don't know if there's a way to basically like show more for people who are not subscribed or, I don't know.

I guess that's counterintuitive. Yeah. But it's just, it's frustrating because you don't wanna necessarily subscribe until you see what you're gonna be subscribing to and therefore you may not even subscribe at all. Totally. Yeah. So I think, let me show you, um, if I could share my screen. Let's see.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, let's do it.

Dylan Redekop: I was gonna say, I'll show you what an addition looks like. Let me just stop in here. You know what, before we do that. Before we do that, why don't we just quickly go through the, the welcome email, because there's always some, some gold in the welcome emails right here. I'll show you. All right. Okay. So good stuff from, [00:08:00] uh, good stuff from your fun, funky, and a bit off the wall.

Hi, friend. I heard a loud ping when I checked my phone. It was you or coming. Thanks for signing up. Um, you've got the, uh, uh. Oh man, the guy's, uh, I can't think of his name. I, oh my God. Can't think of it either. Oh, on the spot. I love it. Uh, very nice. So yes. Um, on brand great success, um, at least it's something playful.

I, I always like have an image of a person, but I guess if you're not, um. If you don't want to be that personal brand, the face of the brand, then that's good. Uh, I like how he says you'll receive the first email next Friday. Um, and he, this is where he talks about, like I had mentioned earlier, his experience in this space.

And so I, I do think you could lend a little bit of that credibility to the signup page. You don't have to go into too much detail, but just saying like, 15 years of experience, um, sourcing quality products or growing products. So I thought that was. Something that was good to include here, but also could be added to the welcome page.

Um, I personally think just as you scroll through, this whole page is a little bit much, [00:09:00] quite a bit to read. There's no real links to click on, so it's like, well, like what do, what do you want? I guess the customer to. Or the reader to do here, the subscriber, like he says, in search for a specific product or cool European experience, hit reply.

I'll send a personal recommendation with mine. I respond to every email, which is great. I think that should probably be higher up. I dunno. What are your thoughts?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I mean, a couple things I would, because you're gating all of the content. And someone took the minute to subscribe, I would probably send them to a recent issue or one of your favorites, ungated.

Um, just to give them like a taste. Yeah, exactly. Just to give them a taste of like what this is going to be. Um, I also like, I think this, like you said, this top section needs to be way more prominent. Um, a hundred years ago, almost every product was crafted with both beauty and functionality. Today, not so much.

I almost wonder if you can. Synthesize that down into just a couple words and say, I find five of the, uh, most beautiful and functional products every week and send them to you. Or, um, something along those lines of like, why are you curating [00:10:00] this? Like, I think that really lends itself well to getting someone to subscribe.

I

Dylan Redekop: agree. I was gonna even click through here to show you what an addition looks like, because there's a few things in the content that I thought were, um, I thought it was decently laid out. Um, so I wanted to give a review on that. But yeah, I, I think you're spot on with that. Feedback here. So highlight, highlight a few things.

Bring the reply thing maybe closer to the top, um, and maybe shorten this up a bit with a, a link at least to either like a call, basically you want somebody to do something with your welcome email. Either reply or click through to content. Um, engage with it in some way. Um, I know we are big fans of getting the reply, but even offering that a secondary link or a secondary call to action as like a link to click on would probably be.

Kind of killing two birds with one stone, or at least trying to get somebody to do something on the welcome email.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. The other thing that's calling me out, wait, can you go back down a little bit? Yeah. To where you were? Uh, it says like, each week, keep going. Each week I'll share five. Exceptional. Under the radar.

European products and experiences expect a blend of unique, innovative, and beautifully designed, all [00:11:00] handpicked for you. I love that. That does not come through at all on the, the landing page. I think, um, using a more refined design on the landing page might be nicer. And this isn't like a knock on your design aesthetics or anything like that.

I just think this feels more like I. Comic cartoony. Um, I guess I should, do you want me to share my screen again?

Dylan Redekop: Right. So right here, is this what you're talking about? Kinda the comic bookie. So the font is very, it's like that bangers, uh, font.

Chenell Basilio: Yep. Very

Dylan Redekop: popular headline font. Kind of cartoony. Yeah. So I would

Chenell Basilio: expect like a nice, like serif font.

Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know, just something a little more like. Minimalistic. Simple, well designed just to kind of keep the theme going. And that would help me understand like what these products are versus this kind of looks like a roundup of some Amazon stuff,

Dylan Redekop: which once you click in, which we're now in, you see that it's not like there's a really nice, um, I'm know even try to pronounce that as, I won't try to pronounce it.

Al Yeah. A rug from Rocco, which is, which is beautiful. Probably expensive. Unroll the magic. So you can click [00:12:00] through here. Um. A really nice cedar sauna. Lutra sauna. Oh, that's nice. Which, which I actually kind of wanted, which is cool. A power cable stand. Uh, what else? We got a little speaker and some wine stoppers, which are like wooden.

Handmade. I think he says, I like see guys, right? Yeah. Like, these are nice products, right? So you like get the vibe. These aren't like low budget like Temu, Amazon, um, Amazon Essentials or whatever products. These are, these are cool. They're unique looking. They have, they all have a kind of a similar type of aesthetic.

And so. I think that's where, like you're mentioning on the homepage, you should bring that in more play, play with that sort of feel. Um, and this is one thing that one, well, sorry. One thing I noticed on this is there's no prices on any of these and so maybe that's intentional or I'm sure it is intentional.

I wonder if there is a, I. If, if you should test maybe putting prices on these or not of, again, I haven't gone in the backlog of all his content to see if he was doing that before or not. It's something that I'd be kind of more curious about clicking through to [00:13:00] see, um, the pricing. And then he has a PS here which says, which one is calling your name this week?

And then he says, reply with a number 1, 2, 5, or just tell me what you'd actually buy. Always curious what makes it cut. So I kinda like that. But what I would do is like maybe have like a poll like. Beehive is a built-in poll. Like, which of these is your favorite? It's not a reply like I get the replies are valuable, but it's lower friction than a reply just clicking a poll, like, which of these do you actually like?

So I think adding that kind of engagement in this would be, would be interesting or could be helpful, um, for him to at least get some data and get people to actually click through and engage on, on stuff if they aren't necessarily clicking on these links.

Chenell Basilio: I think my mind is racing with so many ideas for like the future of the newsletter.

It could be so cool. Like brand partnerships and even just content on like Instagram and like how you could put together carousels and I don't know. I think it's really interesting, especially because I don't even know if you need the poll, honestly, because if someone clicks on a link, it's kind of registering interest.

So I almost wonder if, I mean, I know you could capture this data and keep looking at it and be [00:14:00] like, okay, well people really enjoy this kind of product.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um, the one thing I did while you were scrolling through that, uh, I subscribed and there's no like, thank you page. Yeah. Um, it just. Sends you right back to the, uh, or the homepage.

And so I'm wondering if you couldn't put up like a little poll or a form that captures some information about these people. Like where do you live? Um, how like, I don't know, just like interesting information that sponsors will eventually want to know. Mm-hmm. Um, and honestly, I think this is gonna, it's going to bring in a higher profile audience than someone who's just looking for cheap Amazon products.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So I think knowing who your customer is is gonna be really important for you down the line.

Dylan Redekop: Um, and then being able to like even filter if, like, I know Beehive has some pretty decent filtering, uh, mechanisms. Mm-hmm. So if you could even like start filtering out types of products and stuff like that and helping people sort through that way, or additions that have a certain type of product would be helpful too, just from a user experience.

Cool. Okay. All right. Thanks Jacob for submitting. Um,

Chenell Basilio: yeah, thank

Dylan Redekop: you. Hopefully [00:15:00] we have sufficiently roasted you. And we weren't too harsh, but harsh enough that we can call this a roast.

Chenell Basilio: Yes. All right. Who are we going to?

Dylan Redekop: Okay, next up we have a newsletter called Auto, GPT and is by a gentleman by the name of Joey Mazars.

Chenell Basilio: Awesome.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, if you wanna share your screen and you can take it for a spin

Chenell Basilio: auto GPT. Uh. Reclaim five plus hours a week with AI automations. So it's an AI newsletter.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Rare these days. I

Dylan Redekop: know. Hard to come by, especially on, on beehive. I've never seen any joking. Just, uh, taking the piss outta you as the, as the English would say.

Um, yeah. It's weekly

Chenell Basilio: custom a. Go ahead.

Dylan Redekop: I was gonna say, uh, this one is monetized again via ads and sponsorships, um, and product sales. Joey shared as well when, when he, uh, submitted this. So just keeping that in mind as we go through here.

Chenell Basilio: Um, so the subhead says, weekly custom AI agents workflow tips to save time, scale the unscalable and grow your business.

So these are for business [00:16:00] owners. Um. Well, that's what the last line makes me believe. Um, 'cause initially I just thought it was like, for anyone, everyone is using AI these days. Um, like Anna, her boss even was like, look, maybe you should start looking at AI and see how it can help your workflow. And I was like, what?

She's like, craziness. Um, yeah, I really wanna see what else is. Oh, okay. So look

Dylan Redekop: on the right there where he has the Callout Weekly AI newsletter, join 10,000 AI enthusiasts, learning how to build and deploy custom AI agents. So we're not even calling out really a specific segment of people. It's just like essentially people who are interested in using ai, right?

I guess you consider enthusiast and then he's got this popup that I also noticed that comes up. So join 10,000 plus AI enthusiasts, learning how to build. It's kind of the same copy as on the top right? I dunno. I kinda liked this copy a little bit better than the landing page for the subhead at least.

Um, I wonder if they've played around with that or not, but I thought the,

Chenell Basilio: yeah,

Dylan Redekop: the landing page, um, maybe could slightly improved or modified or at least tweaked a bit, [00:17:00] um, and tested.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So just for the people listening, I don't know, you probably wanna watch this on YouTube. Yeah. Just 'cause it's so much easier.

But I went, I went back and went to just the homepage of the website versus the landing page. And so on the right side, there's a call out to join the weekly AI newsletter, um, and the copy that Dylan just read through mm-hmm. I. I don't, I don't know how to build and deploy custom agents versus I'm just trying to go back and now won't let me.

Workflow tips to save time, scale the unscalable and grow. Yeah, that it's definitely very different.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I'm not a big fan of like scale the unscalable. I like the reclaim five hours a week.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, that's good. Reclaim five hours a week is nice. Yeah. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Is this like an ad? Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: So he is got sponsorships right on the main page and if you go to even his, um, sponsor us page, he says how much traffic he's getting and that sort of thing.

So he's really kind of, he's playing sort of two. Multiple sort of, um, I guess media ad streams here. Like he's doing like an actual newsletter. Then he's, then he's doing like SEO [00:18:00] sort of website webpage views. Um, and then, yeah, I believe there's something else he's doing as well.

Chenell Basilio: Okay. So this is almost like an affiliate site with a newsletter.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Interesting.

Dylan Redekop: But also sponsorships. Built into the additions too. Yeah, so, so here's a few questions I had. I was like, who is this really for? Is it just for anybody? What kind of business? If it's not, then what kind of business is it for? We're not really speaking to a specific avatar. AI enthusiasts. I think everyone is going to be an AI enthusiast when they realize that they need to be.

So I think we could like maybe hone the focus a little bit more here. And then I also saw, like if you click into one of these additions, he's got a lot of content so. It's pretty impressive how much content they're putting out. It's kinda like a daily AI newsletter, but it looks like he's not sending daily additions to inboxes, but he is publishing pretty much daily articles.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, like

Dylan Redekop: there's a lot, there's a lot of articles. So if you click into one, um, yeah, I click, let's say, I haven't opened this one yet, but um, if you scroll through, uh, okay. This is a bad example. It might've been his newsletter. So is

Chenell Basilio: this written by AI [00:19:00] too? Probably.

Dylan Redekop: Probably, yeah. But if you go down, there's a, there's an author credit, um, and that author credits image looks very AI generated.

Maybe Ono May is a, is a person. Um, but maybe not. We could Google the image. Interesting.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I was just trying to see if it would come up anywhere else. Um. It looks like you're starting to get into YouTube too.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, so I think a lot of good things going on here, but still a little bit of an, I, I don't know.

I'm kind of like a little bit overwhelmed when I go to that main page. There's a, there's a lot going on there.

Chenell Basilio: I'm not sure what to do with that. I don't know. I'd probably put something more interesting in this. So in the actual subscribe box, you know how you can have like a example email address?

Mm-hmm. It's just info@autogt.net. It feels very generic. I'd almost put like something more like. His name Joey at auto jpt. Do net. Yeah, or just something more interesting, some more

Dylan Redekop: playful elon@whitehouse.gov or something like that. Uh,

Chenell Basilio: yeah, please don't, no. Um, okay. So the thank you page, after the newsletter says you're in, check your email and find a welcome gif.

Expect a weekly email [00:20:00] showing you how to start using ai. They have a course too.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I've not clicked through on that yet.

Chenell Basilio: AI Mastery Challenge. Interesting.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Um, I'm almost, I'm almost wondering if like, why it's a weekly email. Um, you have like three articles getting published a day. Mm-hmm. I'd probably start doing daily.

Mm-hmm. Um. Just because you have the content, I'm just trying to see if they had any, or

Dylan Redekop: multiple times a week at least,

Chenell Basilio: right? Yeah, like three times a week or,

Dylan Redekop: and most, sorry, not most. A lot of these successful AI newsletters that I've come across are publishing almost daily. Like,

Chenell Basilio: yeah,

Dylan Redekop: at least five days a week it, it would appear.

So I think you're kind of, if you are creating that daily content, you might be leaving some money on the table. Um, so something to consider,

Chenell Basilio: I guess this all. Runs together. Like there's no visual separation. Like I'm finding it, it hard to like understand. I don't know. This is just the des like the design side of me.

But yeah. Um,

Dylan Redekop: I do like the free bonuses I like, but like that should pop a little bit more.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I like the, the concept of it. [00:21:00]

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um, I almost wonder if you could put like an image next to it or something. Mm-hmm. Maybe make all of these like gray. Then if you're gonna have featured in, you might as well have, like, why should people trust you to learn about ai?

Mm-hmm. Uh, some authority, credibility by agents, workflow tips. Yeah. See, I guess I'm confused. So the newsletter's talking about custom AI agents, but then the whole website is about. What seems like AI news?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um,

Dylan Redekop: that is correct. I

Chenell Basilio: don't know. I'm waiting for a welcome email, but, oh, here we go. Welcome email.

You're wasting time without these AI formulas. Hi there. And welcome, uh, free AI resources. Oh, it's just like a Google Drive folder. Interesting. Um, I won't give away the whole thing on the screen, but I'm just curious, like maybe it makes sense once I get in there and once I start getting the emails, it just feels like the content on the website is not being used to its fullest extent.

Let me see if I can

Dylan Redekop: grab the email. I was sent and I subscribed on Monday and it's Wednesday, so it's two, three days later. So I've only received the welcome email. So I think I've [00:22:00] already at this point, offhandedly if, if I subscribed, I've probably forgotten that I've subscribed. Um, when that email finally hits, I might be like, I don't remember sign subscribing to this AI newsletter.

Who knows? So hopefully there's some call out to some context of why I subscribed to where I subscribed in that next email. But I guess my whole point is like. Like you said, Chanel publishing a lot of content daily. Um, probably relying on some SEO to get the views there. Mm-hmm. But I still think there is a missed opportunity here to get content out, if not daily, at least like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, kind of a cadence.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. The other thing I like to think about is like, where are people coming from to this page? Mm-hmm.

Dylan Redekop: Like,

Chenell Basilio: is he posting a lot on Twitter or LinkedIn, or. Anywhere or is this just like SEO traffic? It does make a difference, I think, like where these people are coming from. Um, I guess I could go look. Nope, nothing on Twitter.

And it's all in a different language.

Dylan Redekop: It's not gonna be helpful.

Chenell Basilio: No.

Dylan Redekop: And it looks like there's a company page for auto GBT.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Anyway. Um. I don't really know what to [00:23:00] say about this one because it's hard to grasp like how they're growing it or where people are coming from. I feel like it's not clear enough who this is for.

Yeah. I also am a huge proponent of like, including some part of like who's behind this and like why it exists. Um,

Dylan Redekop: this is gonna help with readership and that's gonna help with sponsors too. Right. Having like an actual person behind it.

Chenell Basilio: That's

Dylan Redekop: not what

Chenell Basilio: wanted to do. I was just trying to see what it looked like on mobile, but that's fine.

Yeah. Um,

Dylan Redekop: well, if you look, so one other thing too, on the homepage, you've got categories listed out, which is good. Like ai, AI events, knowledge, um, like blockchain chat, GBT, like there's a lot going on here. So I think this is like an opportunity to segment people. And again, we haven't gotten the first email, so maybe this comes with.

In the emails, like, um, kind of a choose your own adventure type of, like, what are you interested in reading about, like cybersecurity, Claude, um, blockchain, AI tools. AI news. And I think there's an opportunity to just like, get people to self select or self self segment. Send them [00:24:00] that content, um, when it, when it's available.

And then, and then maybe do a weekly like, um. This week in ai And then that kind of like, is your larger summary sort of article for, for everything. Yeah. There seems to be an opportunity here with all the content that's being created and all the news every day coming out about ai, um, to maybe filter that a little bit more for people.

Chenell Basilio: Um, I don't know. It's hard, it's hard to roast something. I don't really know what the, the issue is. Like if he's not getting a bunch of subscribers or if you know, whatever. But, um, it's just, it feels impersonal. It feels very. Corporate-y which is not a bad thing. Um, just a different way to do things. Lemme see.

I would just lean more into like refining this copy.

Dylan Redekop: Um, oh, I, I was gonna check to see if they added anything in the roast form. No, I didn't. I hope that was somewhat helpful, Joey. Uh, yeah, thank you. Either way for submitting, uh, I think there's a lot of opportunity here 'cause you're obviously putting in a lot of work and creating a lot of content.

Um, it just doesn't seem to be. Getting out to enough people and maybe not sure what type of person needs to subscribe to your newsletter [00:25:00] would benefit from it. So if we could kind of focus out a little bit more, probably be good. Um, alright. Should we hit the, the third and final newsletter for today's roast?

Chenell Basilio: Yes. All right. So. This one, the Curious Procrastinator. Um, so it's the curious procrastinator.beehive.com is the URL we were given. There's a little logo with a guy pointing up in the air.

Dylan Redekop: He's curious. Uh,

Chenell Basilio: and then it just says, the Curious Procrastinator works smarter, procrastinate better.

Dylan Redekop: Do you wanna share your screen?

Chenell Basilio: Oh, yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um, so work smarter, procrastinate better, join free. Now I don't understand what this is. Yeah, exactly. Who's this for? What is it? Yeah. I'm a big procrastinator, so ideally this is probably a great one for me, but I don't know what I'm gonna get or anything like that. Mm-hmm.

Dylan Redekop: So like, my first thought is like, okay, productivity.

Right. Work smarter, procrastinate better. Sure. Um, that's good. Maybe call out, call that out a little bit better, um, in that headline, because like you said, I don't really know what this is about or what it's [00:26:00] for, and I think you'll see as you scroll through here, down the content, let's not get into the content quite yet, but as you scroll through the content, you'll see that, like, it kind of, I dunno, there's, there's not.

A lot of, um, I don't know if the, what the right word is, but like the themes of everything are, are kind of all over the place. There's not real, a clear focus on what the content's about. And once you click into an article, there's quite a bit in it. So I think there's a lot to unpack. Uh, we're not gonna unpack all of it today, but I think again, the theme today seems to be a bit of around focus.

Like all of these newsletters seem to have a lot of potential, a lot of effort that's being put into them, but they're all kind of like maybe trying to do too many things to too, for too many people. And I really think, I know. Niching down apparently is like, you shouldn't tell people to do that anymore, or you should, I don't know.

It depends on the flavor of the day on Twitter and on LinkedIn, but I think focus, I don't even say the word niche, just focusing a little bit more on either a specific sort of topic or industry or person you're trying to reach or what stage in their journey they're they're at. I think could, yeah. Do all of these [00:27:00] newsletters wonders.

Chenell Basilio: The other thing I'm thinking is like, okay, so you have this purple dude pointing. You have the eyeball emoji. Mm-hmm. Um. If you don't wanna put your face in front of something, I, I'm okay. I actually enjoy sometimes when newsletters or brands do like a specific avatar and it's like a human based type of thing.

Mm-hmm. Whether it's like an animal that looks like a human or whatever. Um, but I think if you could have like a, the avatar that's the same here and have that be like, written by Joey, the Curious, whatever. Yeah. I don't know. Something, um. Then have each of these like featured images be that same person.

'cause right now they're all different. Like it's the same probably vibe. Like it

Dylan Redekop: is that

Chenell Basilio: younger. Yeah. Somebody always

Dylan Redekop: looking up, thinking thoughtfully. Right? There's like a prompt they're using over and over again,

Chenell Basilio: but it's like different people each time. So I would either scrap these images and do something different or have them be consistently the same person and have it be like, related to what is in the content.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. [00:28:00] And if you, if you do a quick scroll through too. They all blend into each other and you're like, are these all the same images or are they not? And so I think just like, it's almost like having the same image for everyone, even though they're a bit different. And I kind of like, my brain just goes like,

Chenell Basilio: yeah, then

Dylan Redekop: nothing's like popping out.

You could

Chenell Basilio: even like, 'cause they all have this like golden orangey yellow undertone in the background. You could, even if they're. Related to each other. Like maybe every third one you do something different. You could have those all be like a purple background or a blue type background or something to like keep them visually different but also consistent and people can see it.

But I just wanna click into one and see what this is because now I'm wondering, um, and this

Dylan Redekop: I should have mentioned on the top, this is a duo. Writing this newsletter. Um, another Jacob, we had Jacob from the first one we looked at, but this is a different, Jacob spelt a little bit differently as well. And then Alex, so it's a, it's a duo.

One is more the, um, writer and the other one is more kind of the ops. And they mentioned that in the Welcom email too.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, cool.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, they're not [00:29:00] monetizing, but they say they have a plan. To monetize.

Chenell Basilio: Wait, so is this the same people as from Europe with one I know.

Dylan Redekop: No, it's not

Chenell Basilio: really. That's,

Dylan Redekop: that's what made me think.

And I went back and like, wait, Jacob with an O? Jacob with a U looks like two different people. Um, I know that is a really odd coincidence. I know

Chenell Basilio: it's a little fishy. Um, wow, this is long.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. That was the other, I'm procrastinating doing whatever I need to do by reading this newsletter. The irony. Wow.

It's got some cool graphics and stuff, but yeah, that was my very first impression as well was like, wow, this is, and the. Yeah, it, it just, I think the content is good and is, sorry, it's, it's, well, it's decently well written if you actually read through it. Um, but yeah, there's a lot going on in here, so I would probably simplify it, dumb it down a little bit, or do multiple issues again.

Yeah, there's lot, so

Chenell Basilio: there's like a whole, there's like a whole intro. And then there's a quote and then a whole story it looks like. Mm-hmm. Which again, it's well written. It's like formatted pretty nicely. There's like bullets and bold and headings and it breaks up pretty good [00:30:00] nicely.

Dylan Redekop: But if you go up back up to the top of that, it just is called power moves and it doesn't really open any kind of, is that like a normal.

Chenell Basilio: Section,

Dylan Redekop: I don't know, but I'm like, I see a picture of a guy in a tutu and it says power moves and I'm not really sure. Yeah,

Chenell Basilio: it's the same every week.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So I would, if it's the same every week, I'd probably put like a little, just because it's in subhead seems like a newer Yeah. Uh, newsletter or maybe not enough people know about it, but at the bottom or underneath this, say like, this section every week in this section we do X, Y, or Z.

Yeah. Um, context. Just to give people some context. Yep, exactly. Um, and yeah, they do let it sink every week too. This is like long, long, not bad, just long. Curious. Procrastinator relies on word of mouth. Okay. Then they're asking people to, I wonder if you could put like a button to share it or something here.

Yeah, a workspace at Envy. Okay. Yeah. So I feel like you're trying to include almost like the five things from, from love with Europe, uh, from your, from Europe with love, with love. Okay. But maybe they need to be numbered every week too, or like shorter. I don't know. [00:31:00] Maybe this is just not my newsletter.

Dylan Redekop: That's one thing that I've seen. Um, like, uh, bay Area Times does this, Tim Od Tim Sto, his newsletter, he used to do this, where it's like every week there's 10 sections. Um, or like, I think Bay Area Times there's like five sections. And so every week, you know, there's just gonna be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And so you're setting that habit and that expectation every time the email comes, it's not like, what am I getting this week?

Um, there's a little bit more thought, um, structure to it, I guess. Even though you do have structured sections here, if you numbered 'em off, that might, maybe that would help. Um, yeah. I

Chenell Basilio: know Tim used to say like, uh, here, let's get into the eight. Whatever he called them. I forget at this point, but, um, and then you'd know as you're reading, okay.

I'm on number five. There's only three more. Yeah. But like here, I'm just like, I have no clue how much farther I have to go.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um,

Dylan Redekop: short and sweet. So just

Chenell Basilio: giving people context throughout the, the piece.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Tweet that hits, add this to your shelf. I just think there's too much like

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I

Dylan Redekop: think the, I like, I appreciate the effort and that they're trying to deliver a ton of value, but it like, by delivering a ton of value, I think.

I don't know what to go to. There's just a lot [00:32:00] going on and we consider that everybody's getting emails like this, multiple emails like this in their inbox every day. Um, there's just a, there's a lot to, to go on here. And so, and I'm guilty of this, like I published my newsletter today and there's too much in it.

I already know that. I'm like, uh, what do I take out? And I decided not to take anything out. So like the temptation is real and I totally understand and I empathize with it. But I think bring, I roast your newsletter next. Yeah, roast it. Roast it. Um, but I guess my point is like, I need to take my own advice, but my advice is to slim this down a bit and then you could always do multiple editions, like shorter.

Chenell Basilio: Well, and here's the thing. You could also do. Um, like a monthly roundup? Like, yeah. Okay. So every week we have three to five things we find, whether it's a book you like, a tweet you like, um, a workspace or something. And then in the monthly one you have, it's this long and you're like, here are the 20 things we found this month that we really enjoyed.

And you could actually curate them based on what people are clicking on. So you like have the data to know. Yeah. That your readers actually enjoy that this just [00:33:00] feels very long.

Dylan Redekop: And,

Chenell Basilio: um,

Dylan Redekop: and so I guess the other, this also calls out like, again, who is this newsletter for? Yeah. Like what, what problem is it solving?

Um, like is it, is it either I guess, entertaining, informing, or, um, educating me? Like is it doing one of those three things? So,

Chenell Basilio: and I have to wonder, even if. If they left it the same but at the top, put in in today's newsletter and then had like the 10 bullets and then you could like click to each section.

Mm. To be like, oh, that one sounds interesting. Let me go to there. Yep. Instead of just having to scroll through. 'cause this page is long enough that it warrants a table of contents. Mm-hmm. So I think that would make some sense there.

Dylan Redekop: Because as you're, as you're scrolling down, you've got that bar, the, the progress bar at the top.

It's like you've scrolled quite, quite a ways. It's only halfway. So I know my first inclination when I'm checking my email is like, how long is this thing gonna be? And usually I'll do a quick scroll and I'm like, ah, I'm out.

Chenell Basilio: The other thing is I have to wonder if these are getting clipped by Gmail, because there's so many links and there's so many design elements in here.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. [00:34:00]

Chenell Basilio: Um, I was having this issue recently and I had to fix it, and my open rates have gone up just because, Hey, so. Um, yeah, so with emails, with email service providers, I think they put the tracking pixel at the bottom of the email. So if Gmail clips your newsletter and people don't open the whole thing, you're not gonna get that.

Um, you're not gonna know if someone opened it unless they like click on a link that's above there. Just a little fun fact for you.

Dylan Redekop: And is it also, I thought I had heard that if, uh, emails are getting clipped, they're more likely to end up in spam?

Chenell Basilio: I think so, yeah.

Dylan Redekop: So that can also obviously impact your open rate, so, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Lots that can be done with this one. But I think the biggest thing is the landing page slash uh, call out should be way more specific. Like, who is this for? Like, yeah. Is this for board professionals at work? Is this for students? Is this.

Dylan Redekop: And what am I going to,

Chenell Basilio: or

Dylan Redekop: what problem am I solving by subscribing to it?

Like what am I, what's it gonna help me with? I, I guess not everybody's looking for that, but um, you know, we're talking about working smarter and [00:35:00] procrastinating better. So work smarter. How procrastinate better, like, it's clever, but like give me, give me a little bit more. Um, and then if we wanna quickly just look at their welcome email, I can share my screen and show you what that looks like.

So I don't think you've subscribed, have you?

Chenell Basilio: Oh yeah, I have not. Let me just do it real quick 'cause I wanna see what comes up. Yeah, no thank you page here either. No. Um, that

Dylan Redekop: was one thing I had in my notes as well. There's no redirect. Okay. No, um, that, I mean, they're on beehive, so they could put like a boost at least to get some revenue starting to go in there if they wanted to recommend other newsletters, no matter how you feel about that.

System at least that could get maybe a bit of revenue for you. So yeah, there's, there's improvements to me there. And then, so here's their welcome email. Uh, Monday's just got better. Trust us. There's the eyeballs again. So excited. You dropped to the email, uh, dropped your email address. They're texting each other.

I guess we don't even know that it's a team right here. So it's kinda like weird. Like, what do you mean we're texting each other?

Chenell Basilio: Right?

Dylan Redekop: I like the What's next Hu? A small ask. Huge favor that'll take zero effort or next to zero effort. So I like that they're calling out, like, basically like making sure that people, you know, [00:36:00] do the, the thing you need to do with a new email.

Like put it in your, get it from your promotions tab into your, um, primary or re replying. Like that's great. I like to call it there. But then I think of what to expect. I don't even know if they know what their newsletter's about, because. They talk about when it's gonna come and that it's manually written and they really harp on it being manual, which is fine.

Um, you know, they're rallying against ai, which is fair. Talk about grammar and spell check, but it's just like, what is like this about? I think there's too much emphasis here. Then they get down here, wait, there's more curated articles curated based on like you're curating them. When you're curating something, what are you, who are you cur curating it for?

Like what type of person, what kind of theme? Like what is the theme? What is the topic, what is the curation around? Right. Um, 'cause that just to me, it's a little bit too vague. Um, and then they talk about, um, keeping your brain sharp and your mindset. I. Moving. So they share a link to articles, which is, which is a nice touch.

And then they share who's behind this. So there's Jacob from Slovakia, relocated to the USA, and then there's a, [00:37:00] there's an image of both of 'em and Alex as well. Those are the two guys behind the newsletter. I like the, the personal touch. Um, but yeah. Any thoughts and feedback on, on this welcome email?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I mean, it's good that they have a welcome email.

Um, I think the pieces are there. It's just. Done super well. Um, I get that they're trying to do like the hustle style, like, Hey, did you see this? We just like signed up and like high fived each other. But it just kind of is confusing because you're talking about we, and then in number two it says if I landed in promotions.

So like, you gotta keep the consistency with like the we mm-hmm. Kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Um, and before we dive in Yeah. That kind of whip. Yeah. That kind of gave me whiplash. 'cause I was like, wait, is it us? We, what do you mean you high five? Or, oh, I think it's supposed to say, I think it's a typo anyway,

Dylan Redekop: if it landed in promotions.

I think that was, that's a typo right there even.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I don't know. Because then it says, drag me to primary. Oh,

Dylan Redekop: nevermind. You're right. Well, they could just add a manually written newsletter about. That's where drag this, like what is it about? Right? So put that, expand on this a bit more. Curated articles, [00:38:00] tools, books, and videos about what, um, and then put that, put that here.

And then you can talk about how you do it manually. And if you're not using AI or whatever, you know, your, your rationale or reason behind that is.

Chenell Basilio: I feel like some of this should go in a second email, uh, like the welcome email, ideally. It's okay. You si you're confirmed, you signed up. Please reply. Put us in primary, and then maybe a little bit about what you're gonna get or like a link to recent editions.

This just feels very long and I, I would not see the reply thing, so I would probably wouldn't do it.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Um, I don't know. It feels very. Uh, discombobulated. Yeah. Or too long.

Dylan Redekop: Good, good intentions. Um, I think yes, yes. Right. Totally good intentions, but definitely a little bit long. This can, this, who's behind?

Okay. Who's behind, um, section Could all be in a sec. Separate email. Like, you've been reading this for a week or two, or whatever it is. You's a email just so you know who's, who's behind it. So,

Chenell Basilio: or just say like. Uh, we, I don't know, like put that picture below, like the signing off, like the signature and then you could [00:39:00] say a link to learn more about us and why we created this or something.

Right. Like under the cheers, Jacob and Alex put that picture and then remove some of like the why and just have them let people click through if they really wanna know.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. Some good, some good steps here, but it's

Chenell Basilio: good. Yeah. I mean, you have everything there. I think you just have too much in there.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. Just like the other newsletter. Uh, auto, GBD, I've not got a regular edition. Of this one yet either. I did again, just subscribe on Monday. I'm sure it's, oh, they said next Friday. Was that in this? Oh no, that was in the other one. We've been looking at too many newsletters now. I'm getting confused.

Chenell Basilio: Awesome.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Was that the, the three we had for today, those

Dylan Redekop: are the three. Those are the three, three B guide newsletters. Two to the three are not monetizing yet. Um, definitely some improvements to be made. I think the big takeaway for me is like, talk to who your newsletter is for. In the signup page and in the welcome email and yeah, focus, I think focus, not say niche, but focus, focus on focus.

A more central topic or idea or, [00:40:00] um, part of somebody's journey of your avatar's journey. Kind of the job to be done for them.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. No, I agree. I think focus is a huge piece of this. Um, lots of trying to do too much, I think. Versus trying to be, keep it simple and, uh, focused.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Focused, yeah. Um,

Chenell Basilio: but yeah, no, overall good stuff.

I think there's some potential with some of these, but yeah, gotta keep going and keep it focused. Talk to your readers, figure out what they need and help them do that.

Dylan Redekop: Good stuff. Okay, cool. Um. Again, we'll mention the roasts. If you want to get your newsletter roasted by us, you've just experienced one. So if you can handle our, our rustiness, um, or you think it's too soft, let us know.

But you can go to growth and reverse.com/roasts to submit your newsletter. You get roasted and we do amazing, uh, all three, um, of these newsletters. Um, the publishers submitted a rating on Spotify to. To be selected for this. So just go to Spotify or Apple and, and give us a rating and a review if you can.

And that will definitely up your odds of, [00:41:00] um, us picking your newsletter to be roasted.

Chenell Basilio: Awesome. Cool. This is fun.

Dylan Redekop: And we'll have all the links for these newsletters down in the show notes too. So check 'em right there. Yes. See

Chenell Basilio: you next time. Bye-Bye.