The Curiosity Chronicle

The newsletter began as an unplanned monthly reading email to ten people. Bloom hand-typed about ten family and friends' addresses into Mailchimp and sent a monthly 'what I've been reading' email for more than five years, with no strategy. People kept asking him to add their friends, and it reached about 2,000 readers, including CEOs, by 2020.

He calls it "a true passion thing like labor of love" and compares it to Howard Marks hand-mailing his memos for about a decade with almost no readers.

How I Write▶ 2:35

Hiring a newsletter operator and using lead magnets multiplied subscriber growth. After Bloom hired a newsletter operator in late 2022, growth went from 5,000-10,000 subscribers a month to 50,000 a month by January 2023, mostly through lead magnets.

The newsletter runs at break even, with sponsor money reinvested into growth.

How I Write

Bloom waits a week before checking open rates so numbers don't steer the writing. He does not look at newsletter open rates until a week after sending, or at a post's engagement for 24 hours, and says this improved both his happiness and the quality of his work.

He argues 10,000 truly connected readers beat 100,000 gained through growth-hacky posts, and plans live events to bring readers into rooms with big thinkers.

How I Write▶ 1:07:33