One Year of TLDR Biotech

If you can’t already tell from the title, the lack of the usual formatting, and that this is coming out on a Sunday - this post is a bit different from what we usually publish ‘round here (that being biotech and pharma focused news compilations).

Instead, this newsletter will be a bit of a reflection of our first year of TLDR Biotech - how we started, how it’s going, and some thoughts about the future. It’ll be personal and I’ll be throwing in a few photos in a shameless attempt to liven things up with my ugly mug.

If that’s not your jam, no hard feelings - we’re back to our usual schtick tomorrow.

But if you’re interested in a bit of a more of a personal angle, then continue reading below👇

Let’s start with a few numbers:

The first TLDR Biotech came out April 30th, 2024 - since then, we’ve published over 240 times.

Save for a couple of posts saying I’m out sick (my immune system isn’t my greatest asset), that’s a lot of biotech and pharma news.

Across these, we’ve compiled and categorized close to over 7.5k pieces of news into our database (shameless plug here). Again, that’s a lot of news.

Looking back on that first edition, things have certainly changed. Slightly different formatting now, and a lot more verbose in headlines. But the editorial standards and strive for excellence are still there.

As with any entrepreneurial endeavour, it hasn’t been a smooth ride, and the origins of TLDR Biotech are just as fraught.

Back to early April 2024, my headspace around when I started this newsletter wasn’t ideal.

I had quit my last full-time role (business development at a cell & gene therapy CDMO) a full 7 months earlier, and had hastily launched my first business endeavour upon handing in my notice - a career coaching service that would help scientists make the jump from bench to sales, aptly called Science 2 Sales.

As with most first attempts, it didn’t go well. For numerous factors that aren’t super relevant here, it didn’t end up scaling as fast as I wanted it to, and I decided to shut it down in April of 2024.

So what now? Time to give this entrepreneurship thing another go:

As much fun as career coaching had been, I missed keeping up with the biotech and pharma space. And reflecting back on the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly LinkedIn posts I had done back as early as mid-2023, I felt like the format had potential.

I also knew that newsletters were the next hit thing, and that certain newsletters could scale to become their own self sustaining businesses. Could that be what I create?

Mashing these two ideas together, and thinking up a cheeky name to round it all out - TLDR Biotech was born.

Did I have a concrete plan? Not really. But I knew a problem when I saw one:

When I was working in sales, I remember subscribing to every single news source under the sun to keep up with the biotech, pharma, and life sciences space. Lots of time in the mornings checking the news and cleaning up the inbox.

And those previous Linkedin news comps (the Good, Bad, and Ugly posts) I had put together resonated because they (a) weren’t taking themselves too seriously and (b) put together the news into a digestible format.

So why not build something that consolidates all that news into a single email, with a bit of wit and not too much fluff?

That was the impetus for TLDR Biotech - and we’ve been running that plan ever since.

Fast forward to now, after sending out a couple hundred newsletters and attending a couple conferences (Cell and gene therapy industry report from 2024’s Meeting on the Mesa), TLDR Biotech is sitting at just under 2000 subscribers and a whole whack of emails sent out:

It hasn’t been easy by any stretch, and we still have a long way to go when it comes to building audience and substantial revenue. Though nearly two thousand subscribers is a decent amount for a direct email newsletter in a niche genre, there’s still a lot more sky to cover!

And as challenging as this process as been, it’s been an amazing journey of self-discovery - when there isn’t a steady paycheque or the prestige of a job to rely on for your self-worth or identity, you gotta face a lot of things.

So what’s next? Good question.

We have lots of ideas in the pipe for making TLDR Biotech, this newsletter, and our data service (shameless plug #2) the best they can be. There’s one thing we’re keen on exploring though:

From growing TLDR Biotech to nearly 2k subscribers and sending out 200k+ emails while maintaining solid open rates, we've learned a thing or two about what works in the newsletter space. The big insight? While most companies are wrestling with social algorithms that only show content to 5-15% of followers, newsletters deliver straight to 100% of subscribers' inboxes.

We're seeing many biotech and pharma companies with amazing expertise but limited bandwidth to consistently communicate it. That's where we might come in - handling the strategy, content development, and technical setup to make maintaining a quality newsletter manageable.

This is still very much in the development phase as we figure out if there's real demand, but if your company has been thinking about better ways to build direct audience relationships, or you know someone who might be interested, I'd love to chat and see if we could help.

Don't worry though - our daily digest of biotech and pharma news remains our absolute core focus and passion 😀 

Now seems fit time as any to cap this all off:

To everyone that’s joined thus far and supported TLDR Biotech, either by opening the newsletters every day (or even once a week, I appreciate you too!), telling your friends/colleagues about it, or by donating a couple bucks a month as a premium subscriber - thank you. I wouldn’t be here without your support.

Here’s to another year of building the plane while we fly it.