Time for a Pause

What is this? Two non-news compilation posts from TLDR biotech in the space of a few weeks? What the blazes is happening?

(You also may have noticed we didn’t publish the regular newsletter at all this week.)

Let me explain - this one was a hard one to write. Also I’ve rewritten this gosh-darn thing like 5 times so hopefully this is the real deal.

For a bit of additional context, you can read the retrospective I wrote a few weeks ago on 1 year of TLDR Biotech.

But if you want the TLDR (too long, didn’t read - as is tradition around here), these are the quick hits:

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

• We’ve amassed over 2000 subscribers and delivered over 250k+ emails in total.

• We’ve compiled and categorized 7.5k+ pieces of news into our database.

• TLDR Biotech was inspired by The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly LinkedIn posts I had done back as early as mid-2023.

There’s also more details on my journey thus far and a few personal touches - if that’s of interest, check out the retrospective linked above.

Now onto the brutal, honest truth, which I didn’t realize (or wanted to realize) last week: I’m not doing well, and neither is TLDR Biotech.

So the below is basically an overview of what’s not working with TLDR Biotech, and my hopes of rectifying that. I’m not taking Old Yeller out back just yet (spoiler alert), as I’m still deeply appreciative to all of our subscribers and the audience we’ve built here and on LinkedIn, but things are going to change drastically around here. Still focused on biotech and pharma, but our editorial focus is going to shift.

I hope you’ll read to the end and stick around for what might be next 😀 

As it stands, TLDR Biotech has three main problems:

• it’s unsustainable (as a business)

• it’s replaceable (by AI - then again what isn’t)

• it’s boring and repetitive (for me)

Problem 1: Unsustainable

It’s unsustainable because TLDR Biotech isn’t making enough money for the hours and time I’m putting in, and the growth isn’t fast enough to reach our goals.

Some context here: in speaking with Joachim Eeckhout (an S-Tier life science marketer, check him out!) the other day, he mentioned something very interesting about 1440 Media’s growth strategy and business validation process. 1440 is a bonafide newsletter success story - they’re currently sitting at over 4 million subscribers to their daily newsletter, and you’ve probably seen their ads all over the internet:

When they first started the newsletter, Tim Huelskamp (1440’s co-founder and CEO) and his co-founders set specific metrics to determine if they should continue with the project.

He stated in this interview: "We said, Hey guys, if we don't have a 40% open rate in a 5% weekly organic growth rate, so people like it and then forward it like [sic], we shouldn't spend time on this project."

He further explained that they had established these benchmarks because he had previously been "burned" on another project that took a year of his life, and he didn't want to repeat that experience if the newsletter wasn't showing strong signs of product-market fit.

Sound familiar?

For comparison, it’s taken me just over a year to get to 2050 subscribers, which comes out to a ≈ 1.85% weekly growth rate - well below 5%.

Now to be fair, 1440 Media publishes a pretty general newsletter, not focused on a niche area like biotech/pharma - we can’t necessarily expect similar staggering growth numbers. For comparison, the top dog OG in the biotech publishing space John Carroll’s golden goose of Endpoint News is sitting pretty at 230k subscribers according to this LinkedIn headline. Assuming this number is up-to-date and it’s for total subscribers (not just paying), this would be our theoretical distribution upper-limit for a niche biotech/pharma industry newsletter like TLDR Biotech.

(John is currently duking it out with Merkel Cell Carcinoma - sending big cancer fighting energy his way. And also a gun.)

So let’s say I want to get to even a modest number of 10k subscribers - at our current growth rate, that would take another 1.67 years - not that bad right?

This is all well and good if not for the amount of advertising revenue I’ve made since launching this newsletter - $6000 USD, for probably something like 1000 hours of work over 240 newsletters. And this is revenue, not profit. Yes, my 2024 tax return was painful. Absolutely unsustainable as a full-time gig.

Problem 2: Replaceable

Sorry to say this and wake up if you don’t realize it yet - AI is coming for everyone and everyone’s jobs (are you an AI? am I? AN AI AM I?)

Maybe not in the immediate future, but eventually. And some products/companies are more automatable than others.

(If you really don’t want to freak yourself out, totally don’t read AI 2027 - gif below unrelated).

The format for TLDR Biotech was very, very automatable. Heck, my infinitely more intelligent partner Genie was building an automation for it - not as simple as a couple prompts in Cursor, but it’s absolutely nuts what you can do by combining AI with some debugging knowledge, a clear vision of what you want, and carpal-tunnel proof wrists to slam out prompt after prompt. Vibe coding is here and it’s the future, whether we like it or not.

There are others that do this news compiling thing better, have more tags, more comprehensive coverage, the whole 9 yards. Sure they might not be as personable as me (why else are you still reading this, don’t you think I’m funny? Oh you’ve stopped reading? Ok that’s fine…), but they’ll get the job done when it comes to comprehensive upkeeps with the industry.

We already know the big big players like GlobalData and Clarivate, but here’s a few others you can check out if you’re not interested in setting huge wheelbarrows of money on fire (though honestly idk they might charge just as much, you go ask them):

• Gosset: an army of AI agents compiling a metric sh*tload of pharma and biotech data. Bow to your robot overloads.

• Bio-Research.AI: More AI data compiling for biotech and pharma. Great group out of South Korea putting this together, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve met them IRL and they’ve sponsored TLDR Biotech before.

• Sleuth: More AI, more data, big focus on competitive intel. Seeing a pattern here?

• Maven Bio: How many more ways can I say “AI” and “biotech/pharma data points”? Also another competitive intel play.

• BioPharmaIQ: Dom and his pops look to be doing a bang-up job when it comes to more biotech and pharma intel. They also have a nifty catalyst tracker. Heartwarming origin story here.

• ZymeWire: Great for sales in biotech/life sciences but also as a news stream, though not as curated as what you were getting with TLDR Biotech. Last I checked, their UI is state-of-the-art for 1997 - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?

All of this to say that though TLDR Biotech was going the angle of being comprehensive - but it’s too much data all of the time. And I wasn’t savvy enough to put together a fancy AI agent swarm or software wizbang to put it all together more seamlessly.

Leading to TLDR Biotech’s last problem…

Problem 3: Boring and Repetitive (for me)

You might have liked skimming through 20-40 headlines every day in our daily newsletter, but putting it together was time consuming and frankly became soul-crushing.

Worst of all, it didn’t feel like I was actually writing. I wasn’t learning as much as I wanted. It’s so much information, all the time, the most you can do is skim it. No depth and little opportunity for intellectual growth and learning beyond seeing the same drug names, company names, themed news stories (eg. the deluge of tariff stories and NHS overhauls of late), or drug targets over and over.

All this coupled with less-than-stellar growth (Problem 1 above), and the prospect of working on the newsletter was becoming less and less appealing.

But it wasn’t until a brutal wake-up call (personal life thing that I may get into at another time) that I realized TLDR Biotech as it stands, and what it represented in my life, wasn’t working at all.

So what’s next? Honestly, I don’t know - and that might be the best part.

TLDR Biotech Version 2: Too Long Too Furious?

First of all, if you’re made it this far, big kudos to you. Go take a breather, grab a gatorade or an orange mocha frappucino or something. You deserve it.

Putting this specific newsletter together, like this edition you’re reading right now, was such a joy - it’s great to actually be writing for once instead of compiling.

But ultimately, I’m very unsure about the next steps for TLDR Biotech. I had the idea for more in-depth pieces (and changed a bunch of collateral on our website to reflect that), but I realized I’m jumping into the same old pattern - moving onto the next idea without taking time to decompress.

For now, here’s what’s going to happen:

• I’m going to focus on developing a few other offerings in content marketing and newsletter writing (potentially as part of a soon-to-be-announced partnership) - those will role out in due course.

• I’m also now open to consulting in sales and marketing across life sciences and biotech - leveraging my experience across instrumentation and CDMO service sales, coaching would-be sales reps in life science/biotech, and building up my LinkedIn and newsletter audience. Reach out to me directly if there’s something I can help you with.

• I will still occasionally write on LinkedIn, but as I work through figuring out next steps, I might not be as active on there.

Even though there some some concrete asks and steps up there, I’m digging well into the zone of uncertainty. It’s feels like it’s the only way forward.

I hope you’ll join me, for whatever this ends up being.

Onward and upward!