Track Changes

From Lenny, every newsletter should have a “job to be done”, and do it better than anyone else in the world.

You can bucket every great newsletter into the “job” it’s doing for people:

• Help me parent better: ParentData by Emily Oster
• Help me cook better: Broken Palate, a newsletter
• Help me understand what’s happening in tech: Stratechery, Platformer
• Help me understand what’s happening in the world: Noahpinion, The Free Press
• Inspire me: Adam Grant, Austin Kleon
• Entertain me: Seeing Things, Alphabet Soup

There are many more categories of jobs, and there’s room for many winners within each category. So you don’t necessarily need to be the best in the world. But you should strive to be.

Start by figuring out what job you’re doing for someone by answering these two questions:

1. Who exactly is your audience? Think of a specific person—what would they find extremely interesting or useful?
2. What is the concrete job you’re doing for them? Is it entertainment, helping them make money, inspiring them, helping them understand the world, something else?