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💡 The Big Idea: What I Learned Last Week from the Internet’s Most Successful Newsletter Creators

Last week, I attended the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin, TX.

It was hosted by Matt McGarry, and featured a great mix of creators I look up to (Jay Clouse, Chenell Basilio, Nathan Barry) and super-successful newsletter business founders like Sam Parr (The Hustle) and Alex Lieberman (Morning Brew).

It was equal parts inspiration and information. It was like drinking from the firehose for about 48 hours, but as I reflected on the experience on my way home, I realized there were a couple big themes and takeaways.

So in this newsletter, I want to share six things that can help you level up your creativity.

They all use PKM.

They probably wouldn’t call it that, but ALL the creators I met had a way to find things that were useful and a system for writing about them regularly. Some were solo operators and some had huge teams, but they followed basic sensemaking principles to create something of value consistently.

What they all had in common was that they knew how their creative systems operated and they optimized for the quality of the output.

The truth is, hustling can only compensate so much for a busted system.

The lesson: those who spend some time thinking about their PKM systems are the ones who will be better positioned to get real, practical productivity and creativity gains. So if you really want to do great work, you need to understand how the pieces of your PKM system fit together.

They all use AI…

Most of the presenters talked about how they’re using AI tools in some way, shape, or form. Almost all of them were using it to help them do content research, like identifying trends on a certain platform or discovering the questions people asked most frequently. There was even one whole session devoted just to AI tools by Steph Smith of Internet Pipers who showed how to use various AI tools to make it easier to figure out what kind of content to make.

The bottom line: AI is becoming incredibly useful.

Personally, I find AI most useful as a brainstorming partner. It’s great as a creative jamming partner, but after the conference I’m also very interested in using it as a research assistant for identifying major themes or topics from services like Reddit or Instagram.

…But they don’t use it to write.

A common theme among the presenters was that they didn’t want AI doing any of the actual writing. Several specifically mentioned that while they were bullish on using AI tools in their business, but they were resolute in their commitment to writing the newsletter by hand.

There’s just no substitute for a finely crafted newsletter. (At least, not yet.)

And while I’m curious about AI tools, I want to make you a promise right now:

The Practical PKM* newsletter will NEVER be written by AI.

Personally I don’t think it’s a great fit for my brand anyway. While AI is great at summarizing things, it can’t tell you what the best option is or the right decision to make in a given situation.

So to use it to talk about workflows that can help you live a life in alignment with your vision and values would be a little bit ridiculous.

They Beg for Feedback.

“Beg” is a strong work, but speaker Tim Huselkamp literally made that exact point: you need to hear what people think.

For a long time, I’ve just tried to make good stuff and hope that the right people find it. But coming back from the conference, I realize I need to solicit feedback from my readers and customers more regularly.

At an intellectual level, I know this already. Feedback is what makes whatever you create better. The more feedback loops you can squeeze in, the better the end product will be.

But asking someone what they think about something you’ve made is still hard.

So, here we go… 😉

If you have any feedback for me about the newsletter (what you like/don’t like, what you wish was different, etc.), please just reply to this email and tell me.

I’ll work on some more formal ways to make it easier to provide feedback in the future, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

They Experiment.

Most of the people I met there with big audiences tried a lot of things before they figured what worked for them. They moved quick, they tried things, and they pivoted if/when it didn’t work.

This is one of the things I struggle with.

I prefer to plan things out. But this naturally tends to extend timelines and makes it harder to change directions.

I heard a few presenters mention that they were focused on “building community,” and that has my wheels turning. I’d love to figure out a way to not only deliver a quality newsletter every week but also connect other people who are curious about PKM where we can all learn together.

I don’t have anything to announce just yet, but I do want to try a few things. Especially things that I haven’t seen other people do (at least in the PKM space).

They’re Focused on Growth.

One of the newsletters represented at the conference had over 1 MILLION subscribers!

That’s a mind-boggling number for someone who is still trying to crack 8,000.

But I heard a few times from the main stage that the thing that led to rapid growth was a commitment to delivering maximum value to their customers/readers.

The common theme was to make your newsletter as awesome as possible.

So that’s what I intend to do.

Part of that is understanding specifically what your audience is struggling with, so I have a favor to ask:

Could you reply to this email with your biggest PKM-related challenge?

It could be something specific about Obsidian, or something more conceptual. But I’d love to hear what questions you have about PKM and where you seem to get stuck.

How to Level Up YOUR Creative Systems

I’ve shared quite a bit here about what I got out of the conference and what I’m doing in response to the lessons I learned, but I think we can all benefit from this.

Here’s how you can apply these lessons yourself to upgrade your creative PKM process.

1. Really understand your PKM system. Figure out what job each app you use is doing, how information flows between the different parts of your PKM system, and where things tend to get stuck.
2. Audit your use of AI. Look at the points where things tend to get stuck in your PKM system and see if an AI tool might be able to help you reduce the friction.
3. Do the hard part yourself. Creating can be difficult, but you can’t outsource quality writing/creating to AI. Buckle down and do what only you can do - even if it’s hard.
4. Get feedback. Feedback loops are the way you improve. The quantity produces the quality. Keep creating, and keep asking how it could be improved.
5. Get uncomfortable. Don’t let yourself get stuck in a rut. Experiment with new ways to create. Just don’t get too distracted by the new shiny. Measure the results, and double-down on what works.
6. Keep going and keep growing. It doesn’t matter how you start. What matters is how you finish. Keep striving to get just a little bit better every single day.

😎 Something Cool: Obsidian is Now Free for Commercial Use!

While Obsidian has always been free for personal use, commercial use required a paid license.

At least until last week, when the Obsidian announced it was making its commercial license optional:

Obsidian @obsdmd Obsidian is now free for work. Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. If Obsidian benefits your organization, you can still purchase Commercial licenses to support development. Nothing else is changing. No… https://x.com/i/web/status/1892586092882276352 8:44 AM • Feb 20, 2025 1687 Retweets 12299 Likes Read 234 replies

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This effectively makes Obsidian free for ALL users. Even for corporate users at the over 10,000 companies that use Obsidian 🤯

Personally, I think it’s pretty cool that Obsidian can afford to drop the commercial pricing and still remain 100% user-supported. I’ve long thought the combination of Publish, Sync, and Catalyst supporters was a brilliant mix for supporting an indie app with a small team.

😎 Something Else Cool: My Sketchnotes from the Newsletter Marketing Summit

Every time I attend a conference, I take sketchnotes of the speaker sessions. This conference was no different:

It’s not comprehensive notes of everything that was discussed, but it’s the big things that stood out to me.

If you’re interested in downloading my sketchnotes from the Newsletter Marketing Summit, click here.

📚 Book Notes: The Catalyst by Jonah Berger

I just finished The Catalyst by Jonah Berger, which happens to be the next book we’re going to cover for Bookworm. This is a fascinating book about removing the roadblocks to real behavior change. I love the framing of this book, where instead of asking, “How could I change someone’s mind?” we should ask, “Why haven’t they changed already?” (and, “What’s stopping them?”)

I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to talk to Cory about it. Shoutout to Mark for the recommendation 😉 BTW, if you want to recommend a book for Bookworm, we now have an official way to do it!

If you want to download my mind map book notes, click here.

— Mike