I started noticing this odd trailer in a front yard in my neighbourhood.

Each morning I’d pass it as I drove my kids to school. Each morning something new appeared.

First it was the trailer. Then a picnic table. Some chairs. An ‘Open’ sign.

Then a larger sign: “Brew Fellas”

It was a coffee shop — fully licensed, serving fresh coffee in a front yard. Like an adult version of a lemonade stand. Except caffeinated.

“Cool, I’m gonna check it out!”

One morning I parked on the side of the road and grabbed a coffee served to me by Ian. Ian’s a retiree who decided to build a mobile coffee shop with his daughter. Like a food truck, but for coffee.

Problem was, his daughter bailed on him while they were mid-build. Ian went ahead with the mobile coffee shop anyway. Now he’s parked on his daughter’s yard, serving coffee and doughnuts.

As I chatted with him, he said something that struck me:

“I built myself a prison.”

For this coffee venture to be successful, Ian has to be there. Every day. He has to show up consistently and serve coffee. He doesn’t have enough foot traffic to afford to pay someone to do it for him.

So now Ian’s trapped in his self-made prison.

Don’t Build Yourself A Prison

When it comes to building your newsletter (or any creative project) — don’t be like Ian.

Meaning, don’t build a prison in the form of a daily newsletter or blog you can’t sustain. Or a huge community that wears you out after a month. Why? Because you’re way more likely to quit before you hit your inflection point. Before your project’s been given a chance to succeed.

Here’s my bit of advice: start SLOWER than your motivation.

Not so slow that you lose interest, but if you’re pumped to start a daily newsletter, don’t build that daily prison right off the bat.

Instead, start with a twice-a-week newsletter and see how that feels. You can always scale it up.

And sure, you can always scale down the frequency of a newsletter. But that’s usually a bad sign: you’re losing momentum and energy — or you don’t have the capacity to sustain it.

So build a sustainable consistency.

Because it’s way more fun to ramp things up because of increased energy, momentum and interest rather than scale things down due to burnout and disinterest.

Ian’s Fate

Which brings me back to Ian’s coffee stand.

I hoped for the best for Ian, but it was inevitable: the mobile coffee shop hasn’t been open for the past month. No open sign. No fresh coffee or doughnuts. No revenue.

No Ian.

He managed to escape his self-made prison, but surely not the way he had envisioned.

→ Start + Grow + Monetize a newsletter with Growth Currency⚡
→ Follow me on Twitter
→ Start building your newsletter with ConvertKit (affiliate)

‍