Thank You <3: Half Year Thoughts, Wishes, & Lessons
What we have done
We've been working to provide a consistent source of focused news on two critical issues affecting Millennials and younger generations: family support and housing.
We've been summarizing academic research on housing and family policy, creating a central hub where you can access the main points of these studies. We believe that making the papers more accessible is crucial for keeping people up-to-date
What we want to do
We want to start interviewing researchers about their papers and hosting these interviews on platforms like Apple, Spotify, and Substack. We'll also publish the transcripts on Substack for those who prefer to read along or catch up later.
We would also like to host AMAs with the researchers.
We're also working on publishing meta-articles that delve into common themes found in research papers or emerging trends we see
We're cautiously exploring including articles and papers on related topics, such as unemployment benefits, environmental efforts like Las Vegas's impressive water management, and public health initiatives like Operation Warpspeed.
Lessons Learned
We've realized that relying on established platforms like Substack is the most pragmatic approach. Despite our initial efforts to create our own websites and documentation apps and our volunteers' great work, the friction involved proved to be a significant hindrance. Substack minimizes this friction for our members, allowing us to focus on producing high-quality content.
Social media has emerged as a powerful tool for reaching our audience. Most of our members discover us through shares on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Blue Sky, and LinkedIn. We've learned that harnessing the power of personal recommendations and shareability is far more effective than depending on search engines, which can be unpredictable and often require compromising content quality for SEO purposes.
Finally, we've found that maintaining specialized and focused sites is essential. Our readers appreciate that population.fyi is dedicated to research, while population.news provides targeted news updates.
We're deeply grateful for our progress thus far, and we attribute much of it to your continued support. Thank you for being a part of our community and your unwavering commitment to our cause.
