Numerous interviews of failed entreprenuers spell out a consistent theme :

1. Shutting down your creation feels like killing your baby.
2. They wish they had shut it down faster.

In all these months of not writing a simgle issue, I did not feel any special attachment to this newsletter beyond the first issue. I was like a father who ran away 3 days after his child's birth. I created it and the experience was magical, but I never took the time to watch it struggle and grow.

But as I finally make time to write this last issue, I can feel the pain those interviewees must have gone through. Except, for point 2. I do not wish I shut it down earlier. On the contrary I wish I had given it more time , effort and love. I'll save the regrets and venting for a future blog post. In the meanwhile if you're curious to find out what happens to this newsletter, scroll to the end of the mail. Here goes to the last issue and the lessons learnt :

I did a quick 30 minute brain dump to recollect the best advice I've recieved since the last issue. Nothing beats the quality of content curated over a long disciplined period but since these points prominently stood out, I'm certain that these have impacted me the most. I hope you too find something useful in here.

1 Parkinson's law : why we work best with deadlines.

This issue you're reading would not exist without my self imposed deadline. You could argue it could be published sometime in future, with better quality. That's what i kept thinking too.

6 months of blanks later, I realise a simple 90 minute deadline like I set today can get more work done than 6 months of dreaming. Parkinson's law states that a task expands to fill the time available to it.

Ignoring this law has caused me huge damages wrt professional as well as writing commitments.

Here's an explainer on this law from The Personal MBA : https://personalmba.com/parkinsons-law/​

The below video provides an example of how Elon Musk utilizes this law.

2 That's it ? yes and no

That's the only idea I'll leave you with this week.

Not because all newsletter advice tells you to keep issues small.

Not because I've noticed that ovesharing has caused me more harm than good (true for writing and may or may not be true for love).

But because it places emphasis on action. By starting and (not) maintaining this newsletter, the biggest lesson I've learnt is that the first few steps you act on provide far more quality than any thinking or planning. And if you've not taken anything out of this newsletter, I want you to take away this bias towards action and get started on your dreams.

With that, I'd like to share with you my next few steps towards rejuvinating this newsletter as I invite you to be a part of this new journey.:

1. I'm moving this newsletter on to a new platform : Revue. Its integration with twitter aligns with my growth strategy. I'll move over all existing subscriber emails (you can decline if you're no longer interested). Then I'll contact you all personally to seek feedback on this adventure upto this point.
2. (one of the reasons I'm leaving convertkit is it does not even have built in spell check. I'll leave any typos unedited in here. You know who to blame, other than my emotions).
3. Over the next 7 days I'll document the process of developing the niche focus for the newsletter and share it in a special edition #0 ( #0 is always for early backers like you who keep me going). I'll also (finally) explain why I started this newsletter and how I plan to grow with it.

Fortunately I never have to kill any babies but from killing mice (they seem to love our colony) I've learnt it's best to kill them quickly. The more you dealy, the messier it gets. typing out this issue felt the same way and I'll stop before it gets any messier for me. See you next week from a different address.