Hi there 👋
I had the pleasure of meeting up with some Oyster people in person last week, and on the flights to and from New York, I caught up on my reading. I’ve shared reading lists and media diets before on this newsletter, but I tried to make this latest batch a bit fresher than the old stuff. And as always, if there’s anything you love reading, it’d be great to hear from you!
Kevan
(ᵔᴥᵔ)
Thank you for being part of this newsletter. Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world and my time at Oyster, Buffer, and more.
Say hi anytime at hello@kevanlee.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Reading list
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx
For a time, whenever I would feel overwhelmed, a favorite millennial refrain would come to mind: We have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce.
The maxim was meant to either be a joke (most likely) or to serve as added motivation to GSD — get stuff done — because what do you have to complain about if Beyonce can do all that she does in the same amount of time.
I say all that because I often feel like I don’t have enough time to do all the reading that I want to do. So while the list I’m about to share is mostly things I have found a way to read, please don’t get the impression that I am maximally reading all that I could — or should — be reading. I’m no Beyonce.
Each section includes websites, newsletters, and books that I have read or wish to read since the start of 2022.
If you have any great recommendations to add, I’d love to hear them!
New books (new-to-me)
I keep track of all the books I read here in Tumblr (yes, I am an ardent believer in Tumblr, still). So far this year I’ve read about 30 books. Among them, these are my favorites.
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. Oliver wrote another one of my favorites The Antidote. His latest book is about how to live with our finite amount of time (life = 4,000 weeks on average).
The Sea We Swim In by Frank Rose. Frank is a business professor at Columbia, and this book has a ton of neat insight into narrative structure and storytelling in brand marketing, pop culture, and media. It’s a very useful read for any brand-minded folks out there.
The Cult of We by Maureen Farrell and Eliot Brown. This is the story of WeWork and the rise and fall of their CEO Adam Neumann. I listened to the book as an audio book. Then I watched the Hulu documentary. Then I saw the Apple TV miniseries. The rabbit hole went deep. (Ironically, I did all this while Oyster was fundraising, which is a huge part of WeWork’s story, especially their funding by SoftBank, which ratcheted the pressure and wildness to 11. A company we closely follow at Oyster, Remote, got funded by Softbank while I was reading.)
The Fall of Koli by M.R. Carey. This is one of my favorite science fiction books I’ve read this year and is Part 3 of a trilogy.
Plus, these are some of the books on my wishlist that I hope to read in the coming months:
New newsletters (new-to-me)
I’ve written about some of my favorite newsletters before, so feel free to go here for even more recommendations:
It’s easy to get lost in a sea of newsletters, so I recently figured out a small life hack where I put all my newsletters in Feedly, then I connect Feedly to Zapier and ask Zapier to email me anytime that Feedly’s AI recognizes a trending newsletter issue.
Here are some of the newsletters that have recently come across my radar:
Rachel Karten’s Link In Bio: A social media newsletter featuring the people who actually press post.
Kushaan Shah’s Marketing Mind Meld: Unpacking marketing and human behavior one strange question at a time 🤓
Masooma Memon’s Content Workshop: Weekly emails unearthing the stuff that ridiculously good content is made of ✨
Aja Singer’s For the Love: A newsletter for people who love branding, DTC trends, and mission-driven companies aiming to make the world a better place.
Ana Andjelic’s Sociology of Business: A global analysis of how changing values change business.
@ibscribe’s Run the Business: Build. Ship! Repeat?
Tom Tunguz - https://tomtunguz.com/
You can also see the Substack newsletters that I subscribe to here on my Substack profile or in the Substack app.
New websites (new-to-me)
I updated my regular reading list when I left Buffer, switching out a number of the social media websites I used to keep tabs on. Still several old standards remain, and I’ve added a couple new ones. Here are the ten I read and visit most frequently, usually via Feedly.
Brand Strategy: Brand New
PLG: OpenView Ventures, ProductLed.com
Growth Marketing: Reforge, Demand Curve newsletter, Growth Hackers blog
Marketing news: Digiday
Startups: First Round Review, AVC
Inspiration: Swiss Miss
New YouTube videos (new-to-me)
These last ones have very little to do with work except that they keep me positive and make me feel happy.
Misc.
Why building a “cool” company matters
Inside the multifaceted day-to-day of a social media manager
Research paper on “Headless brands”
We introduce the concept of headless brands to explain the community-driven brand dynamics of projects which have no centralized managerial body. We describe some elements of a headless brand's lifecycle, from formation to adoption, and suggest strategies to maintain a brand's coherence.
About this newsletter …
Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I currently lead the marketing team at Oyster (we’re hiring!). I previously built brands at Buffer, Vox, and Polly. Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. Not yet subscribed? No worries. You can check out the archive, or sign up below:
Thank you for being here! 🙇♂️
I’m lucky to count folks from great brands like these (and many more) as part of this newsletter community.