🙋♀️Why I left corporate world after my 30s and started a newsletter
What is Newsletter Circle and how did I decide to create it?
Hi All,
This is Ciler, the founder of Newsletter Circle.
Such an exciting journey has just begun!
Today's sharing will be all about introducing myself and Newsletter Circle (previously Digiboarding) to you.
Let's start.
WHY I LEFT MY HIGH-PAYING FULL-TIME JOB IN A BIG CORPORATION
I'm a 34 years-old and living in Istanbul.
My hometown is a small city on the northwest side of Turkey.
I came to this crazy metropolis when I was 18 to study Business Administration at Bogazici University, ranking 209th among 1.5 million candidates in the national university entrance exam.
So, it was a huge thing; my expectations and dreams were high.
I loved every single day I spent in college; it gave me solid and great friendships, an environment pushing me to improve myself intellectually, fantastic options for social activities, so much fun, and a great campus to spend time in.
But, to be honest, I didn't enjoy studying my major a lot.
It is because;
most of the professors were detached from the real business world
only talking about some old-school theoretical stuff that was far from;
catching the evolving needs and
the new ways of doing business thanks to technology.
But more importantly, it is not taught in college that living a meaningful life can be achieved by discovering your values and what you do should align with them.
Unfortunately, I was not aware of this simple truth back then.
I didn’t search for any meaning at work and didn’t think about what to create at the end.
I followed the trends, was trapped in the widely accepted definition of success and applied only to big corporate companies.
And just after graduation, I started to work at Philip Morris, the world's leading tobacco company.
For ten years, I took eight different roles in four departments in two countries.
I accumulated experience in portfolio strategy building, market research and analyzing consumer insights. Additionally, I developed solid business acumen as a result of working in such a big corporation.
I am grateful for my experience over these ten years.
However, corporate life was not the ideal choice for me due to a lot of reasons:
The tobacco industry is highly regulated, preventing online marketing activities from reaching consumers directly. Hence, as a market researcher & marketeer, I spent a colossal amount of time building strategies but could not see the actions’ impact.
I have never been a status seeker and always hated all corporate politics. It was difficult for me to play the game with its rules.
Most of the time, I worked for someone else’s ideas, although I believed that I was defending mine.
Moreover, as a natural outcome of being a part of such a huge corporate company, I spent long hours preparing presentations, sleepless nights for multiple revisions, alignment meetings and back & forth meaningless e-mailings with different stakeholders. In other words, I dedicated much of my time to these superficial tasks, as Cal Newport defined in his book Deep Work. To me, none of these seem to create any value or any meaningful impact.
I was not learning, not discovering, not creating, not improving, not creating an impact and not chasing my own values.
I was searching for something else.
It took me ten years to realize what I didn’t want and blow up the bubble that I hadn’t left for so long.
Finally, I left my job to reset my mind, improve myself in new areas and build a life I can live on my terms.
I decided to start my new chapter by exploring the possibilities in the online business area that can help me achieve these goals.
WHY I DECIDED TO LEARN ONLINE BUSINESS WORLD
Learning the online world was not my main objective but a tool instead. Because;
It is a great tool for building and creating with limited investment.
It is a great tool for building meaningful relationships with like-minded people.
It is a great tool for working independently on your own terms.
It is a great tool for transcending the limits of geography.
It is a great tool for growing together.
It is a great tool for learning while sharing and growing together with a community.
WHAT I HAVE BEEN UP TO SO FAR
Initially, I had no information about even the most basic concepts of the online world, such as audience building, content marketing, paid marketing, online business models or platforms and tools.
So I started by getting familiar with building a basis by studying resources on the internet like a student.
I read blogs, subscribed to newsletters, watched videos on Youtube, listened to podcasts and took online courses to learn the basics and widen my horizon.
Then, I gave online marketing consultancy for three months to a startup to turn theory into practice. This was very helpful for me to learn the basics of paid marketing, interpreting website performance metrics and online market research. However, I didn’t like the consultancy model a lot and started to search for something that I could create and own.
I developed an interest in Etsy as the creator economy is an increasing trend, and I value local makers, mainly women. I studied for six months on Etsy and run a shop for a jewelry maker. My initial idea was to find a way to help more women to earn dollars with their creations on Etsy. However, I couldn’t find a way to scale up this model and didn’t like the e-commerce world a lot. So I decided not to continue in that area too.
In parallel, I wanted to experience the content creation part and I became the host of a podcast & youtube series for 12 episodes where I interview successful women entrepreneurs who export their services & products via online channels. I met incredibly inspiring people thanks to this series Here are the links for Turkish speakers :
WHAT I EXPERIENCED DURING THESE ATTEMPTS
First of all, I studied and learned a lot about online business.
Thanks to the free resources on the internet, I feel like I did my master’s degree independently during this period.
Secondly, all these attempts helped me to understand what and how I want to work better. Here are the key discoveries:
I need to focus on one single project and say to no all other possibilities
Finding “the project” takes time and requires many trials so I need to stay open to making iterations and enjoy the process of what I do to make it sustainable.
I need to feel that I create something
I like working solo without being accountable to anyone.
Although I like working solo, sharing what I know with people and building relationships over a common interest area motivates me a lot
Thirdly, if you are working as a solopreneur, it is a considerable challenge to keep yourself disciplined and motivated.
There is no “one size fits all” method for sure, but here is my method:
working on my productivity by continuously reading, applying different methods and trying online tools to finding my ideal way.
learning not to worry about the ultimate objective by dividing it into weekly & monthly tasks and objectives.
not worrying about money by focusing on doing my best. Money, if it comes, should be one of the results, not the decider of my journey. If things don’t go as planned, I can find a way to survive anyway.
not compromising my well-being. This is the main priority in my life. I don’t make any sacrifices due to the work I did back then. I started jogging, finished Istanbul Marathon (15 km), started pilates, took long walks, and focused more on healthy eating and sleeping.
From the psychological perspective, there were many ups and downs. Sometimes, I felt imposter syndrome from time to time didn’t showcase what I was up to on social media.
Despite these, I received four job offers, including a co-founder position, a community building & content manager role, a consultancy for Etsy offer, and a growth expert role. That was not even what I was chasing but;
It is simply proof that it is possible to build know-how from scratch in any area and more doors are opening than you would think. All you need to do is to start somewhere.
WHY I DECIDED TO CREATE A NEWSLETTER AT THE END
Considering the above explorations, I ended up with a newsletter idea named Digiboarding, where I share what I learned about the online business world, such as business models, key concepts, tools, platforms and all useful resources I owe my self-improvement. My aim was to help anyone who was a few steps behind me.
I chose to create a newsletter as my medium of content creation because;
e-mail list, e-mail list, e-mail list! This is so crucial and I don’t know how to make it clear enough. Building an e-mail list is the best investment that you can make when it comes to online business. It sets you free from algorithms of search engines or content platforms, ensures regular delivery of your content to inboxes, and opens the way for a direct relationship with your audience and marketing your products directly.
Running a newsletter enables you to build an audience with true fans. When you write about a specific niche, you will gather people who are interested in this topic. Otherwise, why do they give their e-mail to you to read your writings?
As a cherry on the cake, writing a newsletter combines the things I like the most; reading, researching and writing.
Let’s zoom into the main motivators for me to talk about the online business world in a newsletter in the first place:
1. REALIZATION OF NO NEED FOR EXPERTISE TO HELP PEOPLE AND THE POWER OF LEARNING WHILE SHARING
Let’s be honest.
It is not easy to leave a full-time job to build know-how in new areas from scratch.
It can seem scary to initiate a project as a solopreneur if you have spent years in corporate life.
Firstly, this requires a drastic change in your mindset. There is no room for perfectionism and you need to embrace a new way of doing business including agility to try new things, getting used to experimenting, pivoting or giving up non-performing ideas, hustling when needed and building a personal brand etc.
Secondly, you need to start from ground zero in terms of know-how if you switch to a totally new area like me. I met people working in tech startups laughing subtly at me when they realized I don't use Slack at work or don't know what SEO stands for.
There was a time when I thought I was the only one struggling.
Then, things started to change.
After a while, my friends and network on LinkedIn started to consult me about some basic questions like; how to use Canva, which platform is the best to create a newsletter, how to grow an Etsy shop, and whom to follow in content marketing, the best tools for keyword research, etc.
Most of these people are in their 30s from diverse business backgrounds. They have a certain level of work experience in their fields. There are white collars, start-up employees, lawyers and fresh founders among them.
This showed me that there are lots of people who have an interest in learning the online business world and these are not only students.
They were hesitant to ask these questions to experts but comfortable talking with me because I was just a few steps before them on this journey.
I realized that I could help people around me, and I should share what I know and what I continue learning with a broader audience.
Because, for people interested in the online world, there is a need to make onboarding to the digital world smoother by talking about even basics with no shame!
This is an obvious win-win situation.
I can continue learning while sharing and find the motivation to challenge myself.
2. IMPORTANCE OF HIGH-QUALITY CURATION
The Internet knows everything. All the information is out there. There are a lot of resources on any given topic.
However, an excessive amount of resources creates a paradox of choice and it becomes more challenging to choose good sources.
Hence, high-quality curation became as crucial as creating high-quality content from scratch.
I dedicated the last year to reading, researching and learning everything from the Internet while executing. I spend huge time finding the correct resources and experts.
I can help you to save time. Why keep them for me?
3. INCREASING INTEREST IN ONLINE BUSINESS
OK, I had some personal experience, but I needed to validate Digiboarding idea with some data as an ex-market researcher.
And the data showed me that there might be an overall increase in the need to learn online business dynamics.
INTEREST IN FREELANCE WORK AND SIDE HUSTLES
Firstly, due to pandemics and the economic downturn, there is an increase in interest in freelancing.
According to Freelance Forward Economist Report conducted by Upwork, more professionals are considering freelance work in the future: 56% of non-freelancers say they are likely to freelance in the future
Additionally, the increase in the trends for "passive income" and "side hustle" search terms in Google Trends is another proof of changing dynamics.
THE ERA OF LEARNING FROM THE INTERNET
Secondly, people are more open to learning things online than at any time.
For example, 70% of participants learned coding on their own via online channels, according to the May '22 Developer Survey conducted by Stack Overflow.
WHY I DECIDED TO NICHE DOWN AND RELAUNCH MY NEWSLETTER AS “NEWSLETTER CIRCLE”
Above, you witnessed my thinking process while creating a newsletter (previously named as Digiboarding) about the online business world.
I released 17 issues in 3 months and discovered a bunch of things again:
First time in my life, I wrote articles and I enjoyed the creation part a lot. However, I realized that content creation takes so much time and without a proper system, there is no time left for distributing your content, which is the most critical thing.
Despite all the insights, research and data that I explained in the above section, “online business” is too broad to talk about. I had some difficulties in explaining what exactly I wrote about when someone asked. It also made marketing and distribution difficult.
In addition to writing informative articles, I also tried an async written interview format for my newsletter. Within this context, I interviewed two solopreneurs who left the corporate world like me and helping their journeys to be heard was a great feeling.
Regardless of the topic I wrote about, I studied how to start and grow a newsletter. In time, I accumulated know-how about newsletter business for solo creators and realized that I like writing about this area the most.
All in all, I decided to niche down and focus on the newsletter area. Digiboarding out, “NEWSLETTER CIRCLE” in!
In Newsletter Circle, you will read informative articles and interviews with newsletter creators from diverse levels and learn about how to start, grow and monetize a newsletter. It is a newsletter about newsletters.
My aim is to show that building an audience via writing your own newsletter leads to great opportunities.
There are amazing newsletter creators out there and I want their stories to be heard to inspire anyone who wants to start a newsletter.
I want to pass on the know-how I have been accumulating about newsletters to aspiring solo creators.
I am excited like crazy about the idea of gathering like-minded people around this project.
I want Newsletter Circle to turn into a community of newsletter creators who support and engage with each other and grow together.
All these started with small steps that I finally decided to take.
Changing a career you don’t enjoy will eventually change your life.
Conscious exploration of what you want to spend your time on will bring unpredictable discoveries about who you are.
I again saw that once you hit the road, there are endless possibilities.
As a newsletter creator myself, I will also continue sharing my learnings, useful tips & tricks to grow and monetize my publication.
Now you all are invited to Newsletter Circle. Join me in the rest of the journey and let’s grow together.
I hope that it will be a fruitful journey for you too.
Hope to see you around!
Loved the newsletter and very excited to receive the next ones!