Activate Slow Thinking

It’s been almost two months since we launched Hey Rebekah. As most of you know, we decided to send the newsletter from our fancy new domain. This meant we’d have to warm up IP addresses and establish our sender reputation on the interwebs.

This is a process that takes months.

We figured we’d use this time to run experiments, gather data, and develop a content catalog. Then we’d introduce Hey Rebekah to our community of over 300,000 digital marketers and self-employed knowledge workers.

We didn’t anticipate the curiosity of many community members who may have noticed subtle changes to our social profiles. Or when Ambreen made 47 back-to-back edits filling up everyone’s feed.

Our closed-loop test group has grown by over 50% with your referrals and organic sign-ups. We can’t thank you enough for your support.

We’ve also had an incredible amount of interest in our Partner Program. We’ve been reaching out to companies that make the tools we use, requesting a discount for our readers instead of an affiliate commission for us. Our efforts have been met with them all saying Yaaasssss!

It’s also been mind-blowing to receive interest from potential sponsors so early. We’ve had to put a pin in that interest because we’re not ready yet. The good news is, we will be.

The two most essential experiments we’re conducting right now are related to sending time and spray and pray vs. personalization. Because of system limitations, optimizing the newsletter’s send time is on hold.

Our data indicate that readers engage with Hey Rebekah the most when it arrives while sipping their morning coffee. So we’re figuring out a solution for 24 global time zones while ensuring we can get some sleep.

When we started writing, we were sure we’d need the ability to personalize content based on our readers’ preferences. Right now, that’s our highest priority before we open up the newsletter.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll be changing outfits backstage and getting organized to:

Don’t worry! We’ll still glow up your inboxes daily during the transition. The format will be a little different, so we can focus on getting ready for the big public reveal.

In the meantime, if you’ve got any great ideas we can steal like an artist or have any questions, don’t hesitate and slide into our inbox.

If you haven't heard of Daniel Kahneman, you're probably not spending enough time going slow. He’s a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and economist who wrote a book on the subject. Thinking, Fast and Slow, provides insights into how our brains work.

🤖 The gist by ChatGPT: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman is a book that explains how humans think and make decisions. Kahneman introduces two modes of thinking: intuitive, fast and automatic "System 1" thinking, and deliberate, slow and effortful "System 2" thinking. He explores how these modes of thinking influence our judgments, decisions, and behavior, and provides insights into how we can improve our thinking processes. The book emphasizes the importance of being aware of cognitive biases and errors, and of taking a deliberate, mindful approach to decision-making.

We named this section after spending time with Alex Lieberman of Morning Brew. He had the perfect way of identifying great ideas and winners.