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I know you were laid off two summers ago. Also, I've been laid off before, so I think this is a really clever idea. Tell me all about this. I love this idea. I wasn't expecting it to blow up the way that it did.

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Obviously, destigmatize layoffs in, like, a creative way. Now some breaking news to bring you.

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Meta Platforms is laying off 13% of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees And there's some more companies announcing more layoffs. We've seen it from Microsoft and Alphabet and Amazon.

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There's a new round of tech layoffs. Amazon will lay off 18,000 workers. This is not just happening to, like, tech and media folks. You know, this can happen to anyone.

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Let's share our experiences, benefit from each other, and help each other out. I really like how you do this. [gentle music] Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast.

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Today, we're speaking with Melanie Ehrenkranz, a writer, creative strategist, and creator of the excellent and vital newsletter and Discord community, Laid Off. The concept is pretty simple.

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Every week, she platforms, interviews someone who was recently laid off. It's a novel and empathetic concept, and I am a fan. Melanie, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. [laughs] Yes, of course.

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[laughs] Um, so I really-- One thing that's really, really drew me to this is, like, one, the quality of vision. Um, it's, it's very clear what you're doing.

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There's no, like, what is this question, as there can be with, with some, you know, creative projects or newsletters.

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Uh, but also, I've been laid off before, so I, [laughs] you know, I, I found it very relatable, and as I said a second ago, uh, vital.

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I think, too, it feels rooted in this layoff culture that's happened kind of after the pandemic. I remember a few years ago, all these, like, layoff trackers popped up, um, during, during COVID.

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You know, Airtables where you could analyze which company laid off how many people, how long ago, how many times, et cetera.

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Um, I know you were laid off two summers ago, but then you didn't start this until a year later. What spurred, uh... Why did you actually start it?

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Yeah, that's a great question, and I think people ask me that a lot 'cause I think they expect the answer to be, "Oh, I started this in the immediate aftermath of my layoff," which is not the case.

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And I think for anyone who's been laid off, it's pretty clear that in the immediate aftermath of a layoff, you're kind of in this survival mode. You're kind of hustling to figure out what to do next.

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So I didn't really have that clarity or even bandwidth to think about starting something that wouldn't pay the bills, uh, right out the gate. So it really did come from a place of I was in this...

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I had a stable job, and it had been something noodling around in my brain for a decade probably.

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Coming from journalism, I have witnessed, you know, so many friends, uh, laid off who are just, like, endlessly smart, creative, cool people. It is not a novel experience for me.

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It was just the first time that it had happened to me. So yeah, I think when I had the time to really process what happened and, and realize that I maybe actually didn't ever process what happened.

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[laughs] Yeah, I was, I was in the survival mode.

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You know, I had my group chat with two friends, but I didn't really ever get to, like, talk about it or talk to my friends about their, like, really intimate experiences with it.

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And I caught myself wondering, you know, how are they doing? What was their experience like? You know, I never really talked to my friends who'd been laid off about, you know, the weeks, the months, the year after.

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Like, what is that experience like? What did they do the day after they were laid off? Like, I went to the grocery store and cried.

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Um, so I was really curious about those really human-level experiences, and yeah, I just had this idea of interviewing people, and Substack at the time was definitely this growing platform. Mm-hmm.

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Uh, there's definitely, like, a community element to it, and so I was curious about the platform. I was curious about this, you know, very increasingly common experience, and it just felt

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like a really great opportunity and time to just see, see how people would respond to it and put it out there.

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And I had no expectations of how it would be received, but I was really just genuinely interested in interviewing people about the topic. So I put it out there and was really surprised by the response.

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There was this survey you launched it with, right? Can you tell me about that? Yeah.

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When I announced that I was starting this newsletter, I created a survey to just kind of get a general sense of the landscape of layoffs and, you know, was hoping to hear from some people about, you know...

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I asked them obviously, like, demographic questions, you know, salary questions, if they had severance, what they did for health insurance.

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These kind of questions that come up in the immediate aftermath, but also, you know, who they told, where they were- Mm-hmm... how it changed their relationship to work.

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So it really was trying to just get at the f- like, holistic experience of a layoff, and I posted it on LinkedIn. It was, like, a Typeform survey, and within days, I had, like, five hundred responses.

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I had to, I had to pause them because I, I really wanted- Mm... to give everyone the respect of reading their responses, and it, it was so many. So I, yeah, I got hundreds of responses right away. It, it blew up.

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Um, I guess the- [laughs] it went viral. Uh, it's weird to, like, say that about my own content.

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[laughs] Um, but, you know, I wasn't expecting it to blow up the way that it did, and so I immediately had all of this context, uh, and information about, yeah, people's layoffs, both from a trend perspective, but also- Mm...

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an individual experience. Did you- Was there anything that surprised you in that survey? Hmm. I think,

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I think I was definitely surprised at how many people told, you know, the, the last question was like, "Anything else you wanna add?"

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Uh, just to give people space in case I, you know, failed to ask something that was, you know, eating at them. But so many people used the word, like, cathartic and therapeutic and even fun. They're like, "This was fun.

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This was cathartic. Um, I really needed to, to do this." Even though they were, like, talking to a Typeform, you know, they weren't talking directly to me. So that surprised me, that people were really

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almost enjoying talking about their experience.

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Uh- Was it anonymized or, like, an option to leave your email or something?You, it, you could be anonymous, and that also surprised me, is that you had the option to, you know, be anonymous or add a note that like, you know, "If I use this information, please don't use my name," or, "Please don't use my company name."

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Mm-hmm. And most people gave me their name, gave me their email, gave me the most vulnerable pieces of their experience, and were totally cool with me sharing that.

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So that also surprised me, that people didn't really wanna hide behind this anonymity. They were down to, you know, kinda put their name in front of what happened to them. Mm-hmm. Um, there's...

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I mean, you're talking about this catharsis. You're talking about how willing people were to share their names. I, I'm not in the Laid Off Discord, but I understand that it's a pretty thriving place. Um,

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and you know, whenever I talk to somebody who, who has some kind of community around their project, uh, it's always like, you know, what, how do you, how do you, how did you build that community, et cetera, which I think is the wrong question.

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I think a lot of like brand people, marketers, creators try to, try to figure that out when the answer is usually pretty simple.

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It's like, is there a common interest that like is mutually beneficial for people to, to, to be in community [laughs] talking to each other about this thing? Yeah. Which is very clear with this.

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Um, all, all that being said, tell me about the community, like infrastructurally, what it looks like. I mean, I know it's on Discord. Like, is it a bunch of different rooms? How many people are in there? Whatever.

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Tell me about the community. Yeah. So first, I, I didn't launch with a Discord.

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I, I just launched with a newsletter, but people right away were posting in the Substack chat, and so I noticed that there was definitely a desire to talk amongst each other.

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People had a lot to say that maybe wasn't, you know, the comment section and the Substack chat, which really is one not- Like, you can post one thing and respond to it, but there's not a lot of layers to it.

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So after about maybe a month or two, I noticed people wanted more topics, more spaces, more opportunities to interact, so that's when I launched the Discord. Yeah, we have like more than 850 people in there now.

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Um, it's, you know, definitely a ton of engagement.

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I started with channels just based on what I noticed people talking about in the Substack chat, which was largely around like sharing your layoff story, sharing advice around the job search.

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Um, I start- had a channel like for resumes of people and personal websites if someone wanted to, you know, drop in their resume and get feedback on that.

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So it was definitely started off as just like, let's share our experiences in a space where more people can kind of react to it and have a bit more nuance, but also the actual job grind, like this messy middle period.

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Like, there's a lot that people have to talk about.

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So it started with that, but since then I, I've definitely added more channels and surveyed the, the community to figure out, you know, what, what they wanna talk about.

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So you know, I actually [laughs] recently added a channel called share your rejections because I noticed a lot of people talking about like, "I didn't get the job," or, "Look at this email I got.

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It's super insensitive after having five rounds of interviews."

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And so that channel's actually been popping off [laughs] since I started it a few weeks ago, um, which I just imagine like, you know, as someone who's been through a layoff, you get a lot of automated emails, um, rejecting you from jobs.

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And you kind of like look at it, and sometimes you laugh because it is really cold. [laughs] And so I wanted a space where you could actually just be like, have witnesses to that experience. Mm-hmm.

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So yeah, definitely just like in real time trying to create channels based on what I see people talking about. So we have a l- I mean, there's a lot of channels in there. Um, but definitely,

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you know, it's like a scrappy mutual aid/vent session. Mm. And people also, uh, are also making friends, which is really cool to see.

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I know a few people grabbed drinks in New York this week, I think, earlier this week- Oh, nice... which was like really cool. So it's nice to see people, you know, trying to actually like take it outside of the platform.

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Like, I do want it to... Obviously it's a platform to, if that's the only place where your touchpoint is, but if people wanna like take it out of there, I think that's awesome and encouraged.

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So there are channels for like meetups and, you know- Mm-hmm... making friends, too. Yeah. No, that's really nice. I, the automated reply thing, I think the...

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One time I got one that was like six months later, um, but I mean- Yeah... I'm sure people [laughs] have much worse stories. Um, tell me about the trend reports. What are those? Yeah.

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So I kind of, my first trend report was like that first Typeform I sent out, which was just a general overview of the landscape. And so I ended up getting, you know, 500 responses.

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I did a second one, which I got like over 800 responses, and I was really looking at, you know, kind of common patterns that people experienced, uh, just generally with layoffs for the first trend reports.

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You know, like who are people telling? What are people doing right after? Does it change people's relationship to work? So being able to kind of share these trends I found.

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And since then, obviously I don't wanna just keep repeating the same ones, and so in the, the most recent trend report, I wanted to look at people who were laid off specifically in an office because I saw that was definitely a smaller group, um, that took the survey.

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But, uh, it was super interesting to me 'cause I was obviously laid off on Zoom, and most people are laid off in a video chat. Like, that's the increasingly common experience.

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But there's still this group of people who are being laid off in the office or were pre-COVID, and so, you know, I'm also trying to kind of dig into these like more individual experiences or unique like tangentials to just layoffs and zooming in on that.

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So that was really fun to kind of talk to people 'cause a lot of people were a bit more removed from that because they had been laid off pre-COVID for most of the, um, office experiences.

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Um, but there still are people being laid off today, and I'm like, "Are you... Do you like get a box?" [laughs] Like, "Pack up your stuff. Uh, do you have a desk?" The classic like banker box.

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[laughs] Yeah, like exactly, um, 'cause that's what I picture, and I'm just like, what is that experience like? Are you in like a glass conference room where everyone can see you?

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And like, yeah, the answer for many people is yes, and that's obviously very different from someone- Mm-hmm...

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today who's, you know, has like a 10-minute Zoom call, and then they close their computer, and they're sitting like alone in their home office.

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So yeah, just trying to kind of-Also build out these trend reports where, um, we're looking at different aspects of the experience Mm-hmm And I try to do those, like, once a quarter. Um, yeah. The, the office one was...

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I mean, it was really good. I, reading through it, like, I don't know, there's almost this, like, uh, I, I don't know how to put this. It almost feels like, like fiction or something, you know?

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Like, it, like you were saying, like, that fantasy of like, oh, you know, getting laid off in the office in the glass conference room, everyone sees you crying or something like that. Like, it felt, I don't know.

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It was, it was cathartic to read.

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I, last time I got laid off, it was in, in the office, um, in a c- but it was in a co-working space, and I was the only person there, so it was over a, a Zoom [laughs] meeting, but I was at the office.

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Um, and then I walked six miles home. So, [laughs] great experience. Um, [laughs] anyways. That, so that's actually, that was a few people who filled it out were in person on a video call, and I- Mm-hmm...

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that w- I was, if they had to, like, if I had to write down 10 ways someone got laid off in person, that wouldn't have made my top 10, so that's wild that you had that exact experience. Modern times. Yeah.

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[laughs] Modern, that's- That's true... that's the modern, uh, [laughs] workplace. Um, okay. Tell me a little bit more about monetization.

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So there's, there's these subscriptions, um, about around 150 or so, so that's, that's one of it.

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Uh, I know you have some merch, and then in early April you also begin doing these classifieds that are, I, I really like how you do this.

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Um, talk about that in a second, but what is, would you say, the percentage breakdown of the revenue of this project between subscriptions, merch, uh, classified/ads, and anything else? Yeah.

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So for paid, just paid subscriptions, I would say that's a very small percentage of the money that I'm making, which is how I've expected it to be. Mm-hmm.

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Uh, a lot of my audience is obviously experiencing job loss, so to create a monetization model that leans exclusively on them wouldn't be s- either wouldn't be super sustainable- No, antithetical to the whole idea...

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or would probably be pretty- Yeah... yeah, and exploitative.

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So, you know, obviously I create these paid perks that if someone wants to join or get the trend reports, which might apply to someone who's not experiencing job loss, um, that will always exist.

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But the, you know, weekly interviews and the Substack chat will always be free. Uh, they'll always be, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna paywall content that people, that people need.

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So yeah, the, I would say the breakdown is right now the, you know, I just launched this, the Coffee On Me collabs, which is, like, my s- kind of brand partner posts, and the, the hope is that those will be

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a large percentage of, um, you know, the monetization model is, you know, having brand partners and creator partners and being creative about that so that I'm not, you know, not sacrificing the mission of, of the work.

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So yeah, I, I definitely am leaning on that. Merch, I actually haven't launched merch yet, but, like, is launching within the next week or two.

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I actually have a bunch of laid-offers meeting in, like, Fort Greene this weekend who are doing a photo shoot with the, the hats.

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So I'm very excited to see how those turn out and finally launch f- finally launch the merch.

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I'm also [laughs] working, um, this is, like, slightly tangential, but I made laid-off thongs that I [laughs] will be doing- [laughs]...

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a limited edition drop around that I just, uh, the designer just sent me pictures, and they're really cute. Those are funny.

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Um, which is, I know, it's, like, mostly, it's like a 25 product drop, but I, you know, I think these merch drops, you can have fun with them.

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So, you know, I had a lot of people joking around, like, "Laid off and still hot," and I was like- [laughs]... "Let's make these really cute thongs that have laid off embroidered in them."

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So, you know, I'm, I'm kind of just trying to play around with merch and, and have fun with it and- Mm... des- obviously destigmatize layoffs in, like, a creative way.

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But yeah, I would say brand partners are, the intention is for those to be the primary monetization model- Mm-hmm... behind it. That makes sense.

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I wanna talk about that in a second, but the, the, the merch idea and the way you're talking about how, like, oh, there's only 25, but I, I think that it's limited is, is part of the appeal.

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And, like, I think the point of merch, right, it's not just for people to buy it and wear it, it's, like, for it to be, like, something to, to be shared online.

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Um, at, uh, [laughs] actually at the company that I got laid off from, when we were working on some merch once, we spoke with somebody who we didn't end up working with, but he said this, w- who makes, like, great physical products.

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I, I wouldn't call it merch, it's kind of his own brand. But, um, he had this great piece of advice that it's like, it's not about the object.

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Like, when you're designing the object, you wanna think about how it's going to be photographed first. Like, that should be how you think about it, which is with merch, it's like, what's the, what's the photo shoot?

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What's the Instagram carousel? What's the video? Like, that's more valuable than any, anything you get from the merch. It's like people come together on it. Anyways, um, also [laughs] tangent on the tangent. Um- Yeah...

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the, uh, okay, the, the coffee thing, the classified.

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So the way this works is the sponsor provides 10 $10 coffee shop gift cards for your readers, and anyone who opens the email within the first 24 hours or so, uh, is entered to win.

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So I think this is a really clever idea that's, like, such a value add obviously to your audience, but I, I would say also to the advertisers because it then places them in this really positive light.

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Also possibly raises your open rate because people [laughs] want, wanna get in there. I don't know. Um- Yeah... but tell me all about this. I love this idea. Yeah. Yeah. I've been calling them Coffee On Me collabs.

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I, I definitely wanted to do brand partners in a way that benefited the community in s- even some small way.

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And so, you know, I had done, I'd actually done Coffee On Me when I first launched in the Substack chat, um, just out of my own pocket every once in a while.

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I'd be like, you know, like, respond to this prompt, and I'll s- randomly send 10 readers, you know, a Starbucks gift card.

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Um, and s- I got a ton of engagement from that, and people, it really made people's day, and so I wanted to bake that into the brand partner model.

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And-You know, I just bake the price right into the, the brand partner cost and, you know, facilitate the, the giveaway.

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And yeah, I definitely think it, it looks great that a company is interested in, in partnering with someone who's giving back to this community.

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And I also understand that, you know, going into this I was hes- I was worried that brands might not wanna align themselves with my brand, um, especially if they've gone through layoffs or they're going through layoffs.

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It's always something that's been on my mind where I'm like, "Do they... Are they worried about showing up in this space if that's something that they've gone through?"

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[laughs] Which is, like, true for a lot of companies. So I- I've always thought about that and wanted to kind of do it in a way that felt, um, yeah, mutually beneficial for every, every person.

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And, and yeah, as you mentioned, open rate. It, it definitely encourages people to open the email and open the email when it hits your inbox.

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Um, and I just think building community is really about these moments of delight, and that really captured that. You know, it's nice to just have someone treat you to a coffee.

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I think when, when my friends were laid off, you know, in the, you know, pre-COVID days and I didn't really know what to do to help them besides, you know, send them job links every once in a while, it was like the first thing I thought to do was, you know, send them a Venmo for a sweet treat or a coffee.

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And I know that that was something that made my day when I was laid off.

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And so really just kind of continuing to build in these moments that benefit the community, um, into these brand partnerships, I think is, is super important. I... No, I love that.

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The, my layoff story I was talking about, um, when that happened, my friend Venmo'd me six bucks. He was like, "Go get a beer." [laughs] Uh, which I did. It was at the... They laid me off at the end of the day.

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They waited till the end of the day. Um, anyways. I need a beer. Still love Lost. Yeah. Beer on me collab next. [laughs] Though, yeah, actually, I mean, that's a whole 'nother... This is...

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Well, okay, tangent for a second.

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A framing, this is often a framing, like, with newsletter subscriptions, uh, where it's like, you know, it's only the price of one beer a month or something people will say, or one coffee a month, you know, explicitly.

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I've seen these framings.

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Um, when I was talking to, uh, my co-host on my other podcast, Tasteland, about this, how it's like that's almost the wrong thing where it, like, sounds subtractive when you wanna give something that's additive.

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Like, instead of, you know, um, you know, it's only co- the cost of a beer a month, it's, it's like join this community, right? Um, I don't know.

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I- I'm not sure that I saw any language like this either way in, in, in Laid Off, but, uh, I think a note that I, that I think about often. Hey, if you're enjoying this conversation, consider subscribing to the podcast.

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We release a new episode every Tuesday. All right. Back to the show. You're one person doing this, um, but it's also not your full-time job.

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You, you have a full-time job actually as a head of content [laughs] and community elsewhere, so, you know, this is, this is what... This is your bread and butter, but this is not your full-time job.

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How many hours approximately, how much time do you think you spend on Laid Off each week? Yeah. I mean, I'm like today two hours chatting with you. [laughs] Yeah. Um, but usually it's like nights and weekends.

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Uh, so I don't know, when I first started it out, I w- I had, like, a calendar event on Sundays for like four hours. Mm. Or I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna work on this on Sundays for four hours."

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And then as the community grew and as I kind of branched out to other, you know, parts of the, you know, you know, I had the Discord and I created other little programs, obviously that requires more time.

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And so yeah, it's mostly nights and weekends. Mm. It's mo- [laughs] I would say most of my waking hours that I'm not at my day job, I'm probably doing something for Laid Off. But I enjoy it.

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I mean, outside of the actual content creation and, you know, checking in with the community, a lot of it is just, like, being in the weeds with everyone and seeing what people are talking about. Mm-hmm.

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Um, you know, texting my friends who've been laid off and asking them for their input and, you know, what would be- An endless supply, I'm sure. Yeah. It's, it... Unfortunately, it is.

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Um, but yeah, so I, yeah, most of my time. [laughs] That being said, like, a big ethos of Laid Off is, like, rejecting this hustle culture. Mm. This, you know, our identity is tied to work. So I do recognize that.

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Like, I'm not trying to burn out- Mm... doing this. But I genuinely feel fulfilled through it, and so that's, like, the benefit of spending my nights and weekends, a lot of it, on this project- Mm...

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is that I, I genuinely enjoy it, and it is very community forward.

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And, and they've kind of taken it and cre- you know, and I don't have to do too much for them to create this engagement and to have fun and benefit from each other and help each other out, and that's kind of been really cool to see.

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I wanna go on a little tangent here. Uh, when you started talking about hustle culture, something came to mind.

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So I listened also to your appearance about a month ago on the Never Post podcast, uh, where you were one of a couple people interviewed about LinkedIn, um, and kind of the odd, twisted nature of the platform.

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Another person from the same interview, uh, called LinkedIn the ultimate platform of capitalism and said that Twitter and Instagram had more cultural zeitgeist relevance that LinkedIn never had.

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Personally, I swore I would never make a LinkedIn in college, and then by 2018 I'd made a LinkedIn, and now I post on LinkedIn a lot for work. My last job, it was kind of one of these thing...

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I mean, I worked in content, so, you know, it's especially expected. But there's this expectation, like, if you post something, we can't tell you to post on LinkedIn, but if you do, it'll help the company.

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And now I've kind [laughs] from, you know, seven years ago when everyone was like, "Okay, fine, I'll finally make a LinkedIn," now I fully understand that for me to have a presence there is an asset.

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This idea of content capital, you maybe you've read about it in, in, in [laughs] Creator Spotlight, um, you know, your following, your reach, et cetera, I know that it's one of many assets that can make me competitive to a job.

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Um, and it's just something I've accepted now. And I work, I mean, Creator Spotlight is owned by Beehiiv, right, where there's a big culture of this as well.

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A lot of people who work for Beehiiv are very active on this, and I'm sure it's something, you know, I'm sure when I was being interviewed it's likeLet's... Is he active on LinkedIn? Um, I'll land the plane here.

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Basically, I think it's a delicate thing, right? Like,

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it, there's this level now where if you don't have this sort of self media training and this willingness to be always on in some way with your social platforms and use your social platforms, yes, to further your own self and, you know, your, your own content capital, but also as a way, a h- for a halo effect for your work, like, that then becomes kind of a chalk against you.

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And, you know, surely not every job requires this, but definitely the world I move in, and, it, you know, we both work in content, I imagine it's the same for you. And I don't think anybody needed this.

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This was n- was not a requirement for anybody, like, 30 years ago. Um, anyways, long kind of meaty thing, but I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Yeah. I know, I know.

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I've, I've talked to so many people who have varying opinions on LinkedIn, and I actually didn't know people kind of thought it was... [laughs] I've heard people describe it as, like, s- like a psycho platform.

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Not 'cause people are psychos, but just, like, the energy is really strange, and there's, like, so many different types of content being shared on it, and I was, like, so unaware of that, um, mostly because I wasn't sitting there critiquing the platform.

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Mm-hmm. I was using it how I needed to use it for, you know, building my community. But yeah, it's definitely has, like, a lot of different ways it's being used.

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I, I see people use it almost like old Twitter days, where it's like- Mm-hmm... little jokes. Um, obviously there's a lot of people who've been laid off and are looking for jobs. Um, but...

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And you mentioned, you know, a lot of Beehiiv folks who are on it, and I f- you know, I follow a lot of people who, um, are building that platform, and I actually really love seeing people build out loud on LinkedIn.

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Mm-hmm. I think that's obviously the p- the platform most suited to, you know, building your, your, your company, your platform, your service out loud, and that's what I've been doing for Laid Off.

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You know, I post a lot about, you know... [laughs] I'm very transparent with, like, milestones. Like, hit 6,000 subscribers this week. I posted that on LinkedIn. You know, 6,000, I don't know.

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It's not, like, a number people usually celebrate. And I like, I like those posts. Thank you. It's... I love to see this. Yeah. And I just... I don't know. I, I think it's fun. I... You know.

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I've never been huge about self-promotion in that sense. Mm-hmm. Like, I... It kind of makes me uncomfortable. I, I, I don't, I'm not... Like, I don't consider myself a face of Laid Off.

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Like, there are many faces of Laid Off. I'm just, like- You're a facilitator. I'm a facilitator, exactly. Um, so yeah. I know. I'm, like, really taking, um, a trip away from [laughs] the question you originally asked me.

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Um... [laughs] No. I mean, this was a, this was not a direct question. No, no. [laughs] But yeah. I think... I... Yeah. I think LinkedIn... People actually talk about LinkedIn a lot in the Discord. Mm-hmm.

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I think just this week someone was like, "How do I post about... Should I post about my layoff? Like, it feels really cringe, but, like-" I didn't. This is something I thought about. I made the decision not to.

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You didn't? Yeah. This... I- Ooh... I thought a lot about it. Why did you decide not to post? I, I didn't think it would serve me at the time. I mean, I, I...

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It was kind of one of those things where it was almost a coin flip. Like, this could go either way. But I was like, "I'd rather [laughs] move in silence right now," and, like, you know, post...

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I was actively posting, but more positive stuff. Um, which, you know, there's this element of fear there, and this goes back into the, the whole purpose of, of Laid Off and de-stigmatizing this.

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I think of another person who you interviewed recently, Max Peet. He... Very active LinkedIn user. Very, [laughs] very big poster. I see all his posts.

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Um, but he posted a, like, a lengthy one about it and updating people on how, like, I think him and his wife had just closed on a house right before he get, got laid off, and, and all this stuff.

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And, and he very quickly got a job from that too, and I think he's a community manager.

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So again, this in itself, the way he was posting, was he was showing this, like, this, the, his personality and his ability to, like, communicate, um, and, um, like, crisis management PR you could say, which is definitely a skill that community professionals need.

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Uh, so I think it depends on, again, on what kind of job you o- you have or you're looking for, how you do this. Um, but for me, yeah, I don't know. Some... It was some insecurity.

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I can't say, like, what deeper thing there was, but definitely I was just like, I, I was like, "I'll wait until the, uh, I got hired again post to, to, to address this," and, and that's what I did. Yeah.

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I think that's so interesting, and I think that feeling really speaks to a lot of, a lot of other people's experience that don't post on LinkedIn or any platform is they... You know, they, there's different reasons.

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Some of it's shame. Some of it's, like, you know, not really knowing if it'll help them, and so why share this experience if it doesn't get me a job?

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And I think those, that's like a really common thought process behind people who are- Mm-hmm... creating these posts. And it's very vulnerable. Like, you put it out. It's out there.

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You know, you're dropping this, like... It's like self-promotion in, like, the darkest [laughs] sense 'cause you're sharing, you know, an update that you've lost your job. And, and...

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But I do think, like, I hope Laid Off de-stigmatizes that feeling of, like, let, just, like, let it rip, because you might- Mm... you might find a job. You might find an opportunity. Or you might, you know...

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When you were talking about that, your experience, Max actually did come to mind. Shout out, um, Max [laughs] if you listen to this in the future.

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But he did a really good job, I think, of showing his, you know, chops as a cultivator of community, but also- Yeah... balanced really well.

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Like, no one wants to see the toxic positivity of a layoff on LinkedIn, but there is a way, I think, to build out loud in the sense of- Mm... your post-layoff experience of, like, here's what happened.

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Here's, like, the latest in my life. Um, and yeah, he did find a, he, he got a job in community building, which I think is really, like, a success story in terms of how the platform can be used. Um, but yeah.

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I mean, you mentioned, like, media literacy or having, like, a sense of, like, how to exist on that platform. Mm. If that's not, like-The work that you do, it is like a really daunting thing to send that post out.

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When I sent my po- I mean, I'm a writer, and I still workshop my post with, like, my two coworkers I was laid off with for, like, an hour being like- [laughs]... "Should I, should, is this okay?"

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Like, "Should I post this?" Yeah. And I was so nervous, and I write for a living, and I was still like, "I don't know. This is so scary.

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I'm gonna just post it and then close my computer," and like I said, go cry in the grocery store and come back [laughs] and see how it went. And so it's, yeah, it's scary. It's definitely scary.

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Uh, you know, those group shops are, or those [laughs] group chats are for workshopping, and if you write for a living you know that you also, you [laughs] it's very good to be edited, so, so that makes sense.

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Um, let's bring it back a little bit to, to the business of Laid Off though. Yeah.

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So one thing that I'm sure you've spoken about but I don't know if I've seen addressed, um, in any, in, in, in any of your LinkedIn posts perhaps, have you considered offering recruiting services?

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Uh, or like matching, like, as, as another monetization stream that's also additive to your community?

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Like, you know, a company comes to you or you post like, "Hey, I've got this many people in this industry searching for this jobs." Yeah, have you considered offering this kind of thing? Yeah. I've thought about it.

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I've been asked about it. It's definitely, like, I w- yeah, I would love to just get everyone hired. That's, like, the dream is to just matchmake all the people in my community with a job.

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Uh, I haven't really figured out a sustainable way to do that as a person of one yet, and but we do have actually in the Discord we have jobs channels where you can share job opportunities.

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I've had people who, like, are now hired or, like, had a recruiter reach out to them but it wasn't a fit, drop stuff in there.

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So I do try to at least not just post, like, links to LinkedIn job postings 'cause those maybe are ghost posting or have been up for 48 hours so it doesn't matter [laughs] anymore.

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So I do try to just post things where it's, like, an email. Um, but I do think there are a lot of creators right now doing a great job of sharing, curating jobs that aren't just links. You know, they have- Mm-hmm...

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connections to people, and so I, right now I'm just sharing those resources. Like, I'd rather amplify someone who's doing that really well already than try and, like, bake it in when I don't have the model yet.

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So yeah, I do think some of that exists, but yeah, down the line in my 10:00 PM LinkedIn idea post where I'm like, "Let me just put a Typeform out and if you have a job, you know, drop it in here, and every week, you know, I'll share it with the community," is something that's, like, you know, my late night thoughts have circulated.

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But I haven't really figured out a way to do that yet that doesn't just feel like another place for them to post it where these people are already posting it.

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So if I, uh, do do it, I want it to, you know, there is some vetting I think that needs to happen for jobs.

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I don't want someone to go through an experience where they're, like, ghosted or, you know, exploited in some way, and I think a lot of job postings these days, that happens. Yeah.

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So I don't wanna be another facilitator of someone feeling shitty because they had a bad job search experience. So that's just a long-winded way of saying I've thought about it. Yeah.

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I haven't nailed how it would look like for Laid Off yet. Yeah. No, that's interesting.

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I mean, I'm thinking of two other examples of newsletters that do this kinda thing, um, that I'm not, you know, don't fully know how, how they work.

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But one is Kyle Sheldon who runs Pathway, who I had on a few months ago. It's this specifically soccer-based newsletter. He runs an agency that helps soccer businesses in the US, a marketing agency.

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Um, and he's been in this industry for, like, 30 years. He, he runs it with his brother, who's also been in this industry for, like, 30 years.

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And they ha- It's, like, a classified thing where you, you know, the job, people with jobs will pay 100 bucks, couple hundred bucks.

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They might have turned off the paid aspect for a little bit, but to get posted in there. And it's a small list of, or, like, you know, relatively small, of, like, 2,000, maybe 5,000.

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But so that's very curated, and that's very specific, and it's, like, pretty likely that if you're subscribed to this newsletter, you are the kind of person who these companies will wanna talk to.

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So there's that one, and then another one if you're familiar with, uh, Word of Mouth by, I can't remember her name, Rachel- Rachel Smith? Rachel Smith. Rachel Mine Smith. Yes, Rachel Mine Smith. Yeah.

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This is one of my favorite newsletters. I've been subscribed for years, since probably, probably multiple times [laughs] where I've been looking for a job. Um, [clicks tongue]

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and hers, I know it's pretty vetted, where she's like, "You have to give me the direct link. It can't just be, like, to some LinkedIn thing.

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There has to be a really direct way to contact you, um, and there has to be a salary range attached," long before that was, like, legal in, in, in certain states.

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Um, so I don't know if there's something in those models that you can, that you can take from, but... Yeah. No, I love... Rachel is Word of...

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I also have been subscribed to that newsletter for years, and it is one of the first ones I recommend to people who join the Discord and are like, "What are some good newsletters I should subscribe to?"

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I think she does an amazing job, and yeah, if I could figure out what that model looks like for Laid Off, that would be amazing because I think that is, like, the perfect example of vetting people, being really transparent, and, like, clearly serving communities of job seekers, not, you know- Mm-hmm...

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the employers. Not the employers, yeah. And I, I, yeah, she does, she does an amazing job. And also I think it was Anne Peterson. Mm-hmm.

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She does, she does something where I saw recently it was like she opened up the comment section for all of her readers and all of... She's like, "I know a lot of people who read my newsletter."

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She has a really rich community- Mm-hmm... um, both in terms of, like, the value, but also some people [laughs] who actually are rich and hiring.

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And she was like, "I know some people are hiring, so, like, let's open up this comment section- Mm... for, you know, my paid readers, and if you have a job, drop it in. If you're looking for a job, reply."

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And I think it had, like, hundreds of comments. She did that. Forgot what she called it. It was really cool though.

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It was really creative, and I, I thought that was a really interesting model too, where she just kind of opened up the comment section both to people looking for jobs, but she was like, "Hey, any of my readers hiring and important and have a lot of money, like, come hang out in here."

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Uh, and I s- I think that was a really cool way to do it too, and, like, lean on the, the community aspect of it. Mm-hmm.

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Um, this is the point in the interview where I have to ask the question I ask everybody, which is how do you define the term creator in the ter- in the sense that we're talking about it here? Yeah. Oh my gosh.

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Um, I feel like this is [laughs] probably something going into this I should have, like, had a written statement. Um- Better that you don't. Better that you don't. I know. Let's, let's, here we go. [laughs] Um-Yeah.

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I mean, I do think creators, creators are entrepreneurs, right? Mm-hmm. They are building something typically from scratch. You know, they're testing ideas. They're managing multiple roles.

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They're, you know, usually doing all the things. So I do think creators are entrepreneurs. Um, but I... And this might be, like, a mis- you know, misconceived or outdated notion.

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Like, I always imagine creators as, you know, face first. Like, you're the face- Mm... of the brand. You are... You know, it's personality driven.

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You know, when people think of your brand, they think of you first and then what you're building. And so in that sense, like, I've, I didn't identify myself as a creator because I'm not.

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I don't consider myself the face of Laid Off. Like, my face is not essential to the success of Laid Off. It really is everyone within the community. Um,

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but I say, like, I'm the creator of Laid Off, but I'm not a creator. It's like, you know, a weird dichotomy. Yeah. Um, so I think there's definitely, you know, connotations attached to creator.

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But at, in, in, in the spirit of everything, I do think a creator is an entrepreneur and a founder, and, um, I, I consider myself both of those things. So I don't know. I think it's just kind of like is a creator...

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Maybe you can answer this for me.

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You know, do you consider a creator- Like, do you think being face first, being, you know, like, the kind of personality driven element, do you think that's important to calling yourself a creator these days?

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Or do you think that's- Mm... maybe an outdated notion of a creator? Well, no, we're at a permeable border here, I think, of multiple overlapping circles in the Venn diagram.

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But, uh, and, you know, this will change depending what day you ask me. I was just, the newsletter that went out today was the one about the Webbys and, uh, Jesse Feister, their executive director.

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I, I, I was, I was looking for how he defined it, and on another podcast, he said something about, like, a creator is somebody who, like, they are...

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I don't know if he said explicitly the face, but it was that, where it's like the brand, the project relies on, on them, whether it's their face, it's, it's who they are, um, which in some sense that applies to you.

250
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I'm interviewing you. The New York Times interviewed you. You were on a couple other podcasts all about this thing.

251
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Like, people are coming to you as the representative of this thing, um, and if you stopped doing it tomorrow, it wouldn't exist.

252
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I'm sure somebody would be happy to pick it up, but it's your editorial sensibility, all these things. Um, it, but it becomes, like, a slightly blurred line because it's your name but not your face.

253
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Um, and does the face have to be attached? I don't know.

254
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Uh, I think one sense though where I, I would call you definitely a creator is, like, there is, this person has ownership of the thing, whether partial or full, um, and they

255
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are, they carry both all the risk and all the upside of the project. So I think in that sense, you're very clearly a creator.

256
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This is also some- I mean, my most general definition, right, is just somebody who contributes to the corpus of the internet, which you certainly are doing.

257
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Um, so we'll call you a creator here today on, on [laughs] Creator Spotlight. Um, yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. [laughs] Yes, it does. No. That's, that's helpful.

258
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I think it definitely comes down to, like, an identity thing, where I'm like, I don't ha- You know, I have like 1,000 followers on Instagram. Like, I don't...

259
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You know, I'm not posting videos of myself, and so I, I didn't consider myself a creator in that sense or didn't feel like I was allowed to con- call myself a creator. Mm.

260
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'Cause someone would look at my Instagram and be like, "No." "No."

261
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[laughs] Um, but, you know, [laughs] obviously there's m- multiple platforms, and that's, I'm, I'm think I'm just outing myself of having, like, an outdated notion of what a creator is.

262
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And I, I like your, I like your definition, and I like really pointing out that, like, the risks and ownerships fall onto me. You know, if, if something- Mm... happens, I'm, I'm responsible. Um, and so yeah.

263
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That makes sense to me. So I'll say you're a creator. Sure. I'm a creator. Yeah. No. [laughs] Own it. Take it. Sure.

264
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[laughs] Um, I wanna talk a little bit about, um, your, I mean, your, your full-time job but also just your career history.

265
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So, uh, yeah, um, um, you don't have to get into specifics of your full-time job right now, but I know for one that you were a, a newsletter editor at, uh, from twen- spring 2021 to 2023 at a place called Ness.

266
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You're currently the head of content and community for Business Class. Um, this is what you've been doing for work for many years, you know, not just these jobs, but specifically the one, to call it, the newsletter one.

267
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Um, tell me about your experience with, with the newsletter as a medium, um, historically. Yeah. I've always been a huge fan of just the newsletter as a format. It, it, you know...

268
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I noticed when it started to become my main even source of news. Mm.

269
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You know, like, there's some really talented people curating news and newsletters and, you know, I was reading a newsletter more than I was, like, going to the homepage of a news site, and that's coming from someone who- [laughs]...

270
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is, was a journalist. So I thought that was really interesting. I, I've just always been a fan of how creative people can be in the newsletter space.

271
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And so, yeah, when I started as the newsletter editor at Ness, I was really just excited to experiment in this place. You know, I helped develop, develop it from scratch.

272
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You know, I was on the founding team there, and so it was cool to be, you know, to have ownership over that and to actually start creating my own, my newsletter for this company.

273
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And yeah, since then I've, I've had a newsletter in some, in some way, shape, or form, and I think it's just, it's grown from, you know, being this, like, alternative news source where people can, you know, subscribe to certain creators or certain newsletters and know that they're gonna get, uh, you know, links and takeaways and insights on certain topics, to obviously there's, you know, create- very creator driven, um, newsletters and platforms.

274
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And so it's been really cool to see all the ways people are using it and also the, you know, obviously these worker-led media organizations that are popping up across different newsletter platforms is really cool to see.

275
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So it's not just, you know, one kind of platform that your brand could have.

276
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It ca- it, it can be the brand itself, and I think that's been awesome to see and was definitely an inspiration as I was developing Laid Off as, like, this is the hear- You know, I don't have, like, a...

277
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Obviously, Substack's my website, but I don't have, like, a landing page. You know, I didn't create, I didn't, like, go into all of those technical details.

278
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I was like, I have my, my newsletter, and I think all of these platforms that are offering that opportunity to people is, is amazing. And yes, it's been cool.Mm-hmm.

279
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Um, one thing on the previous point that I just remembered I wanted to talk about is the, this idea of a laid-off-to-creator pipeline, uh, which, you know, w- I don't know if we can call it a pipeline just yet, but I think I counted when I was preparing for this, and I think at least half a dozen people who I have interviewed in the past, you know, 60, this is interview number 63 or so, um, so around 10% of those people were laid off and then started their creator project, whatever it may have been, newsletter, YouTube channel, whatever, um, directly after getting laid off and kind of as a result of getting laid off.

280
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And we talked a little bit at the beginning of this about how you didn't do that. You know, you were like, "I need to get a job," and then a year later you started this. Um, but I think

281
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part of that, again, we're talking about the ownership and the risk, is one appeal of being a creator is you can't... y- y- you can only lay yourself off really, right?

282
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As long as you've built, like, the content capital across multiple platforms that allows you to keep doing... that you have a platform a- across platform. Um, [lips smack]

283
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but, uh, yeah, I guess the question is, is this something you've noticed maybe among your community, the, the [chuckles] laid-off-to-creator pipeline? Yeah.

284
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Yeah, definitely this pivot-to-creator pipeline narrative, it, it does center around this reclamation of agency, even whether it happens in the immediate aftermath of a layoff or just to someone who's experienced a layoff.

285
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I think losing a job prompts people to reevaluate their relationship to work, and a lot, you know, turn to creative and independent projects, and sometimes I think that's out of necessity.

286
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You know, if you're ca- if you're still looking for a job and you're not getting any leads, you have to really think about what alternative sources of income might exist for you, and maybe that's, like, an opportunity to finally start your own thing and see where it can go.

287
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Or it's something maybe you've always wanted to do, but now that you've been laid off and you have this time, and also now you, you don't maybe trust the systems in place to, to have stability, you, you wanna do your own thing.

288
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So it makes sense to me that a lot of people who've experienced laid- layoffs are becoming entrepreneurs and becoming, um, creators.

289
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And yeah, uh, but I do think I wanna, like, add the nuance of, yes, sometimes it is because you've always had this idea, now you finally have the opportunity to do it and the motivation, but it is sometimes completely out of necessity because you can't find a job and you have the skill set and maybe, you know, it's cool to see all these people doing it 'cause now they have the inspiration, the model to try and make it work themselves and, you know, maybe it's a side hustle turned company.

290
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Um, but yeah, I think there's kind of the both, both ends of that are, um, an important way to look at it, uh, because yeah, it might just be because you have to pay the bills and you're not getting hired and so what, what do your skill sets apply to?

291
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Can I create my own thing? Um- You have to keep the muscles active. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

292
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But, and for me, you know, I, I think if I could've started my own thing in the immediate aftermath of my layoff, like maybe I could have, but I- Mm-hmm... you know, I think I got a couple week severance.

293
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You know, there just wasn't the, you know, there wa- [chuckles] I, there wasn't the runway to do that or to even think of, consider it as an option.

294
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And so, you know, I think that also is, you know, a factor when people are laid off.

295
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You know, to certain industries, certain companies might give you, you know, six months to a year, which I'm like, "Phew, that's like a dream." You know, I'm like, "Oh, someone's just paying...

296
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You know, I get a year, uh, salary to, you know, figure out my next step or something." That's basically a sabbatical. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, wow, what a dre-" You know, I'm like calling a layoff a dream.

297
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I'm like, "That's amazing." Um, but then, you know, there's some people who get no severance or a couple weeks and so how...

298
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You know, if you haven't banked, been banking something, how do you start your own thing and, and pay the bills with that? So I think it just depends on individual circumstance.

299
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But in short, I do think layoffs lead to a really entrepreneurial, um, spirit and have you rethinking just in the long term what you want out of work and if you want- Mm-hmm...

300
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a boss, if you, you know, and especially [chuckles] if you are traumatized by that experience, like g- even going into another job, do you still feel, are you constantly gonna be worried about that happening again because at the end of the day, you know, work is not your family and, you know, you can get laid off again.

301
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So there is definitely an appeal to having, yeah, ownership over that and control- Mm-hmm... over your own fate. Yeah.

302
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Um, can you give me one or two, uh, specific interviews that you're especially proud of, maybe because they're representative of some industry or the person immediately got hi- any reason.

303
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I'm sure there's, you know, dozens of reasons, but one or two that you're particularly proud of. Yeah. Oh gosh, that's so hard. Um, I mean, the, definitely the federal workers was something I was really proud of.

304
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I, you know, I interviewed four or five different federal workers, and that was definitely the n- most newsy aspect of it, and also something in an industry that people typically considered pretty stable.

305
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You know, these are careerists, people that go into this not just, not for the money, but because they care and because they wanna do it for their whole life, and obviously there is, you know, a lot of components to that.

306
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So yeah, I really, I, I was really proud and also just it was important to me to, to show what was happening on that, um, from a lot of different...

307
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You know, the reporter in me was obviously very, um, you know, excited to, to talk to these people who were willing to share what was happening to them on the inside, uh, during this, like, historic moment, but also really spotlighting that this is not just happening to, like, tech and media folks.

308
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You know, this is, can happen to anyone.

309
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And so yeah, I would say the, the federal interviews, I did like a homepage ta- You know, I, I think I interviewed five people and did like a homepage takeover for a week where I just, just had the federal workers and it [chuckles]

310
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felt like I was like, oh, I'm like running a newspaper. Um, but it was just like a cool moment where I was able to also

311
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kind of show this, like, cultural moment, this political moment, this historic moment through the lens of layoffs, and I...

312
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That's always been important to me, not just, you know, to, to also show it to people who aren't just looking to understand layoffs, but also to understand, like, where we're atLike so, like as a society, and so yeah, those were...

313
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That was really cool, and I, I think I'll always look back and be really proud that I was able to talk to those people. Yeah.

314
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I, I was wondering if that's what you were gonna say, but I didn't wanna ask a leading question because I thought that was, there was no- nobody was better situated than you really to, to tell that story at that time.

315
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It's kind of this, uh, I mean, yeah, it was vital, vital reporting I would say. Um, just a couple more questions. So you just crossed 10,000 subscribers I think this week as we record.

316
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This will be out early June, but mid-May. Um, project is about 10 months old. Has that, did that all happen at once, or have there been spikes? Where did all these people come from? Yeah.

317
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I would say the biggest spike was just right when I launched, um, and I think timing and what was, you know, culturally happening was important for that.

318
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Uh, right when I launched I had within two months a couple thousand readers, which was awesome. Um, and since then it's been pretty steady, like steady growth.

319
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I, I definitely see people constantly coming in, especially, you know, if there's like a company that has ma- mass layoffs or if someone like, you know, discovers the platform and shares it with their friends, like there's definitely different touchpoints of how people are finding me.

320
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Obviously, the New York Times article was, was a big one, um, that definitely like got me over that 10K hump, which is really exciting. I saw on the picture it was like a direct 500 jump or, or more. Yeah, yeah. I know.

321
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I- my little skateboard graphs that you can see [laughs] on LinkedIn.

322
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Um, yeah, that was definitely a huge spike was, was pre- you know, press obviously is, is important and, you know, part of why I feel the need to come out and talk about what I'm working on because I, I do want people to learn about it, but it's cool to hear from people who, like someone read it in the paper, you know, and then like Googled it and found it and, you know, had just experienced her first layoff in her 60s, had never talked to anyone about it yet.

323
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Like messages like that when I think about growth are, are what's most important to me. You know, these people who are lonely or isolated and, you know, find me reading the paper or just like tangentially word of mouth.

324
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So yeah, I think it's happening across different, in d- in a lot of different ways, and you know, I, I obviously prompt people to respond to me when I send the welcome email because I do wanna know like how'd you find me, um, where are you at in your journey, and it is cool to see that there's not just like this one obvious place that people are finding me.

325
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It's definitely, you know, a friend mentioned it to them because they were laid off and they're like, "You should check this out."

326
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And, you know, maybe it was an article online or maybe, you know, it was me [laughs] posting on LinkedIn, so it's cool kind of to see all these different spaces that people are discovering in.

327
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Well, hopefully you get a Creator Spotlight pump when this comes out. [laughs] Yeah. I'll post it on LinkedIn. There we go. Melanie's looking for it. So. Um, okay, last thing.

328
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You have the, the one-year anniversary of this project is coming up in, in like two months. Um, do you have any plans for it? Anything you're gonna do or just future-facing plans generally? Oh my gosh.

329
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As you said that I was like, "Oh, is it?" What, like it's May. Um, so that's like- Well, it's th- I think three months, right? So. Yeah, or I guess when this is out. Yeah. It'll be two months. Um- Yeah... no.

330
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[laughs] I guess no. [laughs] Um, I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead. I definitely wanna do something to acknowledge the year mark, but you know, as, as a creator, as a one-person team,

331
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I am, you know, besides like some fun projects I have in the works- Yeah... it's very much like day to day, week to week.

332
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And I think that's actually been why it's so successful is I'm not trying to guess what people want to like read about in a few months from now or what the appetite is for, so

333
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I will definitely do something, and I'll probably decide what that will be like a week or two before it happens.

334
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And I think that's like part of the magic of being a creator and, and listening to your community is I don't want to assume what would be exciting for people to like commemorate this moment. And yeah.

335
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I'll, I'll definitely think about it now that you've mentioned it, what I'm gonna do.

336
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Well, if, if I may, like the way you were talking about it earlier about like you being the facilitator and not wanting to be the face, it's almost like, like that kind of question and thinking is maybe antithetical to the, the con- the concept and purpose of this, where it's almost too entrepreneurial for something that is primarily this mutual aid organization, um, which then when I think about that, like maybe, maybe the most fitting thing is just like some slightly angled trend report, you know?

337
00:53:02.888 --> 00:53:16.978
And like a, like kind of just this longer form piece from you maybe with some con- other contributors, um, but just like what's the state of, of [laughs] layoffs in summer 2025, that kind of thing. I don't know. Yeah.

338
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Doesn't have to be that grand.

339
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No, I, no, I, I love that, and I def- yeah, I definitely think looking at the trends, like having a moment to reflect is I think important, and not on my journey, but obviously on the journey of the platform and where, how I've seen layoffs change in the year that I've been doing this.

340
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Um, yeah, it'll be fun. Maybe I'll do a mer- maybe I'll do more thongs [laughs] for like the one-year- There you go... anniversary. Um, I'm mostly kidding. But yeah. Mm-hmm. Just to, I don't know.

341
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Laid Off branded banker box to carry out your belongings in. Yeah. I've actually was just talking to someone about like beach towels. Mm. You know, Laid Off beach towels. Just something f- I don't know.

342
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At the end of the day, like I, it's, I know it feels weirdly contradictory to say like, "Have...

343
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Come hang out at Laid Off and have fun," but I just, I do want people to, you know, you know, obviously find that sense of belonging and be able to vent.

344
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But with the branding, with the, with the vibe going into it, I do want people to feel good when they're here, and so yeah. Mm-hmm. Maybe a party. I don't know.

345
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Just wanna like, I just wanna have fun, and you can have fun, you know, at the lowest point at, uh, of your career. Yeah.

346
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I think there's still an opportunity to like find this community and maybe meet someone and like start a company together. I don't know. That'd be cool if like their co-founders met in the Laid Off Discord.

347
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That's like, that's the dream. That'd be cool. Maybe, uh, if any brands are listening, you know, maybe sponsor an open bar party. That, that seems appropriate for this kind of thing. Beer on me, yeah.

348
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Yeah, [laughs] exactly. Anyways. The beer on me one-year anniversary. [laughs] I love that. [laughs] We'll, uh, we'll wrap it up here.

349
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Um, I, I definitely recommend anybody listening to go and check out Laid Off if you have not already subscribed somehow over the course of, of, you know, p- previously to this interview, uh, but especially listening to this.

350
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But Melanie, thank you for coming on. No, thank you. You're really good at, you know, interviewing people. That's [laughs] I know that's your job, but you ask really good questions. I try. Thank you.

351
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I'm like really impressed. This was a lot of fun. Thank you. Awesome. Uh, listener, I will see you next week. Have a good one.

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