Edition #29 - 6.21.2021
Housekeeping Items
Dear readers,
I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and a Happy Father’s day to all the dads in the readership! This weekend, I travelled to upstate New York (Rochester to be specific) to meet some family members that come from my grandfather’s side of the family. My grandfather’s cousin, Carl Chiarenza, is a renowned photographer and abstract artist who we’ve heard so much about through various family members. It was me and my mom’s first time meeting him and his family, and it was so interesting to put the pieces of our genealogy together in real time.
It was additionally exciting because Carl had his final art exhibit featured at the George Eastman Museum, named after the American entrepreneur George Eastman who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and revolutionized the film industry. The exhibit has been up since January 2021 and this weekend was the finale. It was a special family reunion & was so amazing and motivating to see someone bring their art, creation, and passion to fruition at the highest level. If you have an appreciation for fine art, I highly recommend taking a look at his website and checking out some of his work, which can be found in museums across the world.
With that said, I did not have time to write a typical newsletter for today but we’ll return back to the normal routine with a fresh newsletter on Tuesday morning. I also wanted to remind everyone who may not be as familiar with SubStack about some of the functionality of these newsletters. While these emails get distributed directly to your inbox, SubStack is really an online platform that provides the infrastructure for independent writers/creators to systematize their publications. As such, when you open this newsletter in your email inbox, you can simply click on the title of that newsletter (in this case, “Edition #29 - 06.21.2021”) and it will immediately open the article in your web browser with improved formatting and a clearer reading experience. On the website, you can like & comment as well! I highly recommend following this process, but if you appreciate the convenience of reading the newsletter in your email, that certainly works! In addition, you can always visit my direct SubStack website (calebfranzen.substack.com) and you can see the entire archive of my publications!
In regard to the overall process, it’s been a great experience so far and we’ve surpassed the 1-month mark of the newsletter. It’s a minor step in terms of what I envision accomplishing with this medium, but I truly appreciate everyone’s support, kind messages, and the critical questions that I’ve received from some of you. I want to hear more! What am I doing right vs. wrong, what would you as the reader like to see more of, how can I communicate my ideas better, etc., etc. Feel free to comment on this article, or send me direct correspondence at calebfranzen@gmail.com.
One challenge with SubStack is that their platform forces a creator to play two roles: an author/researcher/journalist, and a marketer of their newsletter. Their local website lacks strong explore features & they don’t have an app for people to use. As such, I’ve turned towards Twitter & LinkedIn to promote the newsletter, which has yielded good success. I will continue to ramp up these efforts, but want to turn towards the network of existing readers to help stimulate new readers. If you’ve been finding value in this newsletter, know someone who is interested in economics & investing topics, or know professionals in the finance industry, please forward them the direct website and encourage them to subscribe.
I’m super proud of the quality of the existing audience, ranging from corporate executives, senior bankers, cryptocurrency experts, wealth management professionals, real estate agents, accountants, lawyers, and curious retail investors. I appreciate everyone being apart of this so far, and look forward to ramping this up even more. I’ve stepped up my marketing efforts on Twitter, and continue to engage people about what we’re building on here. I saw nearly a 50% growth last week in email subscriptions, which is a great sign that these strategies are working. Let’s keep growing this thing into an even stronger network.
Until tomorrow,
Caleb Franzen