Strategic Newsletter Builds Relationships

Shaan tells a story about how he built influence at Twitch by creating an internal newsletter for senior leadership.

"When I got to Twitch, there was a team like Bezos has called the S-team. Twitch had its version called T-team - about 15 of the top people in the company. I got put on T-team, but in the first meeting, it was busy and I barely got to say hi.

So I created a newsletter for all of the T-team members. Anytime I'd meet somebody interesting in the company, I'd say 'By the way, I write this thing every week, it only goes out to a select number of people. I'm going to add you to the list.'

I copied James Clear's newsletter format - I did 1-2-3: one photo from my camera roll, two thoughts about the company, and three interesting links. I'd send it every Sunday.

I framed it by saying 'When I was a startup founder, I used to send updates to investors and board advisers every Sunday. Old habits die hard. You guys are my new mentors at this company, so I wanted to include you.'

It took me about 45 minutes to write each week, but the impact was huge. It got forwarded around - even the VP at Amazon Prime would email me saying 'I love these Sunday things, I wish we got to work together.' That's the whole goal - you want to build a brand internally, and an internal newsletter is an easy hack to do this."