The first calendar year for The Zero to One.

So this one’s a little different. It’s the end of the year and I have some exciting news to share.

I’m going all in.

By the way, if this is your first time here, this is not what it’s usually like, but will be a good way to catch up. My name is Sheldon and I write The Zero to One - giving you the growth tactics behind your favorite startups and giving you the actionable insights to replicate them.

If you didn’t catch it - here was the last edition (so you know what to expect): How Figma turned users into champions.

For today, welcome to episode 1 of the bts Zero to One edition. Here’s what you can expect today:

• How The Zero to One has grown and developed this year

• Highlights

• Lowlights

• What’s next for this newsletter and for us

2024: The year behind us

Let’s start at the end.

I quit my job last month. I’m going all in on The Zero to One and my B2B content marketing agency, Narrative Content Studio.

It’s a new feeling for me.

I’ve always run my own businesses.

But this time is different.

I always had something else going on at the same time.

A job. Uni. High school.

But now there’s no fallback. The boats have been burnt.

And I' couldn’t be more excited.

I’m less nervous than I thought I would be.

But I’m sure the nerves will come. For now, I’m just enjoying and making the most of the moment.

I want to do a proper deep dive at the year mark of the newsletter breaking down all the growth strategies and tactics I used. As well as the plans to come. But for now, how did we get here?

I started this newsletter in Feb this year.

For a few reasons:

• I was spending my free time doing all this research anyway (this way I could structure my learning).

• I wanted to increase my surface area for luck.

• I love startups, growth, and I love creating content.

Along the way, I’ve met some awesome founders, Austin Rief, Noah Kagan, Chris Cunningham, and even did some work with them:

I tried a bunch of different ways to grow and monetize The Zero to One:

• Getting over 1M views in a month on Reddit (before getting banned multiple times).

• Growing my LinkedIn following to over 4k followers.

• Getting brands like Notion, Hubspot, and Deel to sponsor the newsletter (shoutout beehiiv for handling all the admin of this for me).

• Helping founders as a GTM advisor.

• Helping founders with their LinkedIn content.

• Helping startups with their social media strategies.

And in the middle of it all moved cities with my girlfriend.

But arguably the best thing to happen to me this year was meeting my new cofounder, Sina.

He’s an awesome person and entrepreneur, having built YT Jobs to over 500k users, and helping creators and businesses like Mr Beast, Mark Rober, Shaan Puri, Ali Abdaal, Mark Manson, YC, People Magazine, and Warner Media hire top creative talent.

We got on well and I felt like for the first time, I’d met a potential cofounder who was as invested as me, and also had a bias for action.

So Sina and I launched Narrative Content Studio. A content marketing agency focused on generating demand for B2B tech companies - with our unfair advantage of access to creative talent through YT jobs.

PS. If you’re interested in building out your GTM content engine, let’s have a chat and we can build out a free strategy for you (and if you like it, we’re still doing some free work for friends and family clients that fit our demographic so that we can build out a service that Marketing Teams and Founders actually need).

But this year wasn’t all great. There were a lot of tough times too.

On a personal level, I had to do a lot of travelling for work which was hard on me and my relationship with my girlfriend, and also on my work and this newsletter

It was a relatively new city for me, and so finding my footing in terms of friends and routine was also a bit of a challenge.

On the business side, there are a few things that weren’t so great:

• I feel I could’ve grown this newsletter a bit more (currently ~730 subs). But although I don’t have that many readers, I have the right readers (yes, you). My subscribers are - founders (~30%), growth and sales (~30%), and product (~20%).

• Finding my positioning in the market for a service that fit this newsletter was challenging and ultimately took a bit too long.

• It was challenging to systemize a service for clients, and I took on too wide of a variety of clients and projects (this is probably an outcome of the above)

So what’s next for 2025

Well I’ll have a lot more time and mental focus for this newsletter and Narrative.

Meaning, hopefully, a one-directional growth chart. In terms of subscribers, revenue, and importantly, content quality.

I’m also going to be sharing a lot more behind-the-scenes looks into the business - if you’re interested give me a follow on LinkedIn.

And I also have a bunch of cool things lined up to grow the business that you can expect:

• A growth tactic database

• A content marketing tools directory

• A newsletter all about B2B content marketing - sign up here

So for the first time this year, it’s been your host, Sheldon.

Have a lovely first week of 2025 - let’s crush it!

Stay awesome and speak soon!

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