Welcome to 2026. In the last episode, I shared what I'm grateful for and the personal questions I'm sitting with. Today, I'm sharing the strategic side: what I learned in 2025 that changed how I work.
Six concrete lessons from running this podcast and newsletter, plus 300+ conversations with independent musicians and creative professionals. Some of these lessons were uncomfortable. Some contradicted what I thought I knew. A few are still unresolved—I'm learning in real-time.
If you're trying to build something sustainable as a musician or creative professional, there's value in seeing what worked, what didn't, and what I'm still figuring out.
Topics Covered:
- Newsletter-first architecture: Why the newsletter became the business and the podcast became newsletter growth infrastructure
- How better questions in guest submission forms filter for quality and save time
- Why systems don't kill creativity—they enable it by removing decision fatigue
- Content gating creates better value through a clear hierarchy (free vs. premium)
- Guest quality compounds; guest quantity doesn't—one excellent guest beats three mediocre ones
- The tension between strategic thinking and creative joy, and the warning signs to watch for
- The shift from SEO optimization to conversion optimization in episode descriptions
- What "sustainable" actually means when building a creative bu
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