🌱 Before the new year rush

During a recent coaching session, I was talking with someone who wants to build his personal brand. He has real expertise in his field, hard-won experience that would translate into genuinely valuable content.

But he wasn’t posting anything. He felt stuck.

We talked through his ideas, the audience he wanted to reach, what made his perspective different. The raw material was all there. Strong opinions. Interesting angles. Real stories to tell.

We finally found the true blocker. “I guess I haven’t posted yet because I really want to get it right from the get-go.”

And there it was. The thing that keeps so many smart, capable people from ever starting.

By the end of our conversation, the conclusion felt almost anticlimactic: he just needs to start writing.

If you’ve been sitting on an initiative you want to launch—whether it’s a content series for your company, new messaging on your homepage, a personal brand, or something else entirely—this weird quiet stretch between the holidays might be the perfect moment to just… begin. Not because it’s a fresh start or a new year. But because right now, nobody’s really paying attention.

And that’s exactly what makes it ideal.

No, you’re not “launching.”

We tend to treat everything like “a launch.” The first LinkedIn post. The first newsletter edition. The first Instagram Reel.

But most of these aren’t launches at all.

A real launch is a specific campaign where you’ve been building external anticipation with your audience. You’ve teased what’s coming. You’ve created momentum that you can then capitalize on. That’s a launch.

What we usually have instead is internal anticipation. We’ve been psyching ourselves up to do the thing for so long that, ironically, it’s now harder to take the first step. That pent-up pressure makes posting feel like a big reveal when really it’s just… Day 1 of a long process.

A soft launch alleviates that tension. It’s starting before you feel ready, before anyone’s waiting, before there’s any pressure to perform. It’s treating Day 1 like what it actually is: Day 1. Not a grand reveal.

Ready enough beats perfectly ready

I worked with a company a while back where we wanted to create a video interview series with industry experts. We could have spent weeks building out a full roadmap—how many interviews, the narrative arc across episodes, contingency plans if someone canceled.

Instead, we picked a simple tech setup, defined our speaker criteria, and sent out a few invitations. I don’t think we even had a proper interview script for the first three (which was a bit rough on me as an interviewer, but hey, I’m still standing).

That was it. We figured out the rest on the go.

We quickly ended up with fifteen interviews that became a resource library and months of repurposed content.

We didn’t have the whole plan. We had just enough to start—and that was plenty.

Now, I know you may need a bit more structure to satisfy your company’s internal review process. But you get my point. Don’t overcomplicate things unless you REALLY need to.

The ideal time for a soft launch

January feels like another “launch” moment. New year, new initiatives, big plans. It’s easy to tell yourself you’ll start fresh in 2026 with a proper strategy.

But that’s just more internal anticipation building up.

The stretch before the new year we’re currently in? It feels like fewer people will be paying attention, and that’s great. There’s less pressure. Less scrutiny.

(In truth, no one is ever paying as much attention to us as we think they are—there’s a whole psychological bias called the Spotlight Effect dedicated to this. But that’s a topic for another day.)

The point is: this is a low-stakes moment to take that first step without the weight of a “real” launch hanging over you (though it was never a “real” launch to begin with).

You’re not launching. You’re just beginning.

***

If you’ve been making something too big in your head, this is your moment!

Do the thing. Not with a 50-page strategy deck. Not with a content calendar mapped out through Q2. Just with the first step.

The rest will follow. It always does.

Just starting matters,

🫶 Thank you!

I’m in a bit of an introspective mood today and I couldn’t do this last newsletter of the year without saying thank you. Out of all the marketing people online, you chose to dedicate some attention to what I have to say. I don’t take it for granted!

If you’d like to share what value this newsletter brings to you or what I could improve, I’d love to hear it! Just hit reply or use the form:

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👌 Handpicked stories for you

Here are some interesting things I stumbled upon this week while reading, writing, researching, and being a generally curious marketing person on the internet:

💼 Three for work

How to conduct an AI search audit | A detailed step-by-step guide for measuring your visibility in AI search, including tools to use and stats to focus on.

The Founder-Led Growth Loop: How To Amplify And Measure Executive Voice For Real ROI | Here’s a deep dive that shows you how to connect your organic thought leadership content plan with paid initiatives, strengthening both in the process.

How to Get AI to Recommend Your Brand | While Andy Crestodina’s approach to AI audits is less rigorous than the process in the first link, I think it’s a good way to dive into this field and get started. It’s especially useful if you don’t already have much traffic, which is the reality for many small brands.

👀 Two for fun

This reminder to do the thing | Very much in line with this week’s main newsletter theme, here’s a great reminder of what “doing the thing” actually is.

This archive of modern illustration | If you enjoy mid-century art styles, this is a treasure trove of great designs you can admire.