Welcome to 2025!

It’s been a while since I’ve been on Beehiiv. Last time, I didn’t know what I wanted to create or document, which made me procrastinate. I thought that things would become clearer when I moved back to Substack, where my original audience had been.

But that made things worse.

I’m Starting From Scratch

The people I have in my Substack email list are primarily inactive. And that is mostly my fault for not being consistent with my posting schedule. For a substack to be successful, it needs to either be very focused or talk about how to succeed on Substack. The latter gets a lot of views.

So, I decided to step back from that audience and start from scratch. I also told them I was doing this to attract people to my small community. A handful of you are here now, receiving this email in your inbox. Welcome to my small community!

Overall, it’s very cozy. Right now, 23 people are on the list, which is a lot of people to have in one room.

I’ll Document My Journey and What I Learn

I’m no expert. If I were, I would not be in the life situation I’m in right now. I learned a GREAT deal about content creation, platforms, social media, and more. I want to document all that somewhere, and this newsletter will be it.

Here are just some of the goals I have in my goal list:

1. Build and publish an iOS app.

2. Start a ZettleKasten.

3. Build my YouTube Community to the first 1000 subscribers on my personal channel.

4. Create personal connections with people in my newsletter. That’s YOU. Yes, I’d love to receive replies from you!

5. Biggest dream: One day, replace my day job income with side-hustle income.

I’m 37 years old. I had enough years working for someone else, and it’s time to build my own thing.

I’ll Keep These Short AND Frequent

When I have something longer to say, I’ll write it as a proper blog post, but when it’s just an email like this one (which is still published online, BTW), I’ll have some headings and keep it pretty short.

I’ll keep you in the loop about whatever it is I’m working on at the moment.

What’s Today’s Update?

I recently told my main channel’s YouTube community that this might be the last season of my Podcast, Geek Peek. Why? It’s dying a slow death. I don’t see growth. When I publish new episodes, they get double-digit views.

Although the video did not go viral, it is getting more views than any long episode I have published in recent memory, which is ironic.

In the video, I told my community that we’re postponing new episodes until March. During that time, I will explore short-form content and see where it leads us.

There is a lot of potential for shorts and highlights from my long-form videos. I will update you after I make them.

Would you like a tutorial on how to take your long-form video and create shorts and highlights from it? Let me know in the comments or by replying to this email!

That’s it for today!

Thanks for being here. If you have any feedback or questions, hit that reply button and let me know!

Talk soon,
Oren