How I Built A Simple MicroNiche Newsletter - the 1000th Issue Review

..watching the sheer shock and incomprehension of the biggest egos as you first call them out...and then stand your ground...is entirely priceless.

In an age of omnipresent media it's easy to believe that every media angle has been covered. In reality, the media world has barely begun its specialist journey. Here’s the tale of my niche startup...

Wherever they looked, investors couldn’t find sufficient insight.

It's been a decade since I first had the idea and various projects intervened before this one hit the top of my 'build' list. However, as a practitioner and sometime author I noticed a gap in the market. To the naked eye there was no discernible gap whatsoever... After all entire daily newspapers are devoted to finance while a myriad of websites claim to cover every vestige of markets. However exchanges were not receiving any regular daily specialist content in their own right - that struck me as an opportunity, particularly because I knew a bit in the space already...Wherever they looked, investors couldn’t find sufficient insight.

It isn’t laugh a minute but if you can simplify debate between multiple EU regulators and Central Banks through the metaphor of Tom & Jerry cartoons why not engage your readers creatively!

Moreover, the general financial media lacked a sufficiently detailed eye to appreciate the specifics and complexities of the exchange industry which again struck me as an opportunity, given that the exchange model finds itself deliciously positioned at the epicentre of e-commerce in our digital age. However even ‘general’ financial media broadly miss the entire expansion of exchanges point, preferring a myopic obsession with mega mergers at the top end - even when said mergers are doomed from inception!

Regularly advising investors in financial market structure, I was often asked "what should I read to stay up to date?" Wherever they looked, investors couldn’t find sufficient insight.

Thus research was undertaken, production rules formulated, and databases were created. What emerged as an ‘overnight beta’ was the result of 2 years of stealth mode preparation, creating the eponymous free daily "Exchange Invest" newsletter.

Officially born on May 15th 2013, Exchange Invest was originally aimed at specialist investors. (As exchanges et al are significant in size but not a genuine "sector" such as, say pharmaceuticals, I use the word "parish" to describe the field). The first (pleasant) surprise was how swiftly the publication gained traction with the operators of market structure themselves! Thus a delightful bridge has been built between 1000 investors in market structure and several thousand readers from all aspects of the creation, operation, regulation and indeed, usage, of markets the world over.

Stand up for what you believe in must be the most transgressed rule in specialist industry publishing!

As I celebrate the 1000 daily issue milestone of Exchange Invest today, what lessons can be learnt creating a 'superniche' newsletter startup?

1. Audience is key but it takes time for them to reach you - months for even the 'early adopters' and years for many of them to get used to reading regularly. You need considerable resources of energy, and the cash to survive for a long time before any income arises... I was lucky as I could fund Exchange Invest myself which gave me flexibility to deploy my expertise as I preferred. Besides, potential newsletter investors would have likely fled at the beta feedback! Of the original beta testers, none believed in the concept and most were broadly sceptical after a few issues. However, soon they came to appreciate the format a single venue with a one minute scroll time to read the commentary and see the news they needed which was otherwise fragmented across the web.
2. Good newsletters have personality - content curation is a key element but the big differentiator is in “value add.” Whenever you can add context insight or analysis, add it! Preferably, the pithier the better... In the current “EI” format, headlines pique the readers’ interest but they really enjoy and profit from reading analytical insights. If you can inject humour every so often, so much the better. Exchange Invest has a house style trying to avoid being just another stuffy journal on a relatively arcane subject. It isn’t laugh a minute but if you can simplify debate between multiple EU regulators and Central Banks through the metaphor of Tom & Jerry cartoons why not engage your readers creatively! (The one key rule of Exchange Invest pith is that it always comes from me and is presaged with my initials: “PLY:”)
3. Lead thought: Anybody can cobble together a few headlines. The really crunchy newsletters are those which actually take their readers on a journey which can also outline future trends and go against the crowd when the trend is at an inflection point. Thinking laterally may not please everybody (particularly in a rather linear sector like finance) but it will build respect in your niche. Likewise, try to think globally. Any newsletter overly focussed on one city, even a megacity like London or New York, is always in danger of becoming parochial in perspective. (How do I stay global from my base in Malta? - Well that's a whole separate story...).
4. Be flexible and don’t be afraid to admit being wrong - “when the facts change, I change my position” as that maxim attributed to Keynes goes…
5. Stand up for what you believe in: This must be the most transgressed rule in specialist industry publishing! Most ‘trade’ journals end up too terrified to disagree with the incumbents, particularly as they usually hold the key to sponsorship dollars. Might I have more income if I had not called out some major exchanges on their transgressions? Maybe, but would I have maintained my credibility if I had not described the utterly egregious “Merger of Equal Desperation” where the Deutsche Boerse tried to take over the London Stock Exchange from day one as a doomed folly? Maybe not!  I prefer waking up in the morning with my conscience clear that I will call out those who I perceive have got something wrong as opposed to just being an obeisant poodle of some vested interests.

...Besides, watching the sheer shock and incomprehension of the biggest egos as you first call them out...and then stand your ground...is entirely priceless.

In a little over 4 years Exchange Invest has become “the exchange of information” at the heart of a fascinating “microniche” in global commerce.

As a startup, I bootstrapped Exchange Invest from an idea nobody really thought feasible to a newsletter which the progressive thinkers of market structure in some 120 countries worldwide now tell me is an invaluable daily resource! There isn’t much secret sauce in the mix, it’s a judicious blend of technology, thinking interspersed with pithy analysis and held together with a backbone which seeks to uphold standards while always moving this epicentre of markets forward in the fintech world I was first outlining during the 1990’s.

In a little over 4 years, Exchange Invest has become “the exchange of information” at the heart of a fascinating “microniche” in global commerce. Where you can find a “microniche” coinciding with your knowledge, then you too may have a newsletter within you! It’s a fascinating journey which only further hones your domain expertise and builds a startup into a viable entity along the way…

1000 Issues is a modest but significant milestone and I wish to thank all my readers and particularly those who have contributed sponsorship and paid premium subscriptions over the years. Without you I would have been lacking not merely welcome funding but also a lot of rich dialogue and interaction!

Patrick L Young

PS Everybody is welcome to join the EI parish readership, it’s free and you can sign up for the daily email at ExchangeInvest.com.