The 5 coolest things I saw in newsletters this year

Plus, my 5 most popular emails of 2024

Author

Brad Wolverton
December 23, 2024

👋🏻 Welcome to Newsletter Examples, where I highlight cool sh*t I’m seeing in newsletters that you can borrow for your newsletter.

This week, I’m sharing the 5 coolest newsletter features I saw this year, compliments of The Generalist, Tangle, The Newsette, Are You Okay? and The Kicks You Wear. Reading time: 3 minutes.

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🪙 The Generalist

Mario Gabriele writes about the strategies, tactics, and wisdom of exceptional investors and founders.

In his Letters to a Young Investor series, he exchanges emails with some of the biggest names in investing and business.

His January 2024 correspondence with Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI, illuminated insights on AI before most people were talking about the technology.

The resulting article—one of my favorite newsletter pieces of the year—was as much a reflection of Gabriele’s probing questions (the key to any good piece of writing) as Hoffman’s intellectual firepower.

🗺️ Tangle

In a political year like no other, Isaac Saul’s newsletter emerged as one of the best sources of news and commentary from across the political aisle.

While most people read Tangle for its long, reasoned takes on the day’s political news, I read it for its short, clever editorial cartoons from the left and right.

🗞️ The Newsette

In a world of Morning Brew lookalikes, The Newsette stands out for its magazine-quality design and distinctive mission: to empower, motivate, and inform women.

Their September 16 issue celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month was one of the best designed—and best thematic—issues I saw this year.

Even more impressive than the design was the integration of Hispanic heritage into every section of the newsletter ¡Vamos de compras! 🛍️ 

🏥 Are You Okay?

Doctors are notoriously aloof. Not Dr. Lucy McBride, a Washington, DC-based internist whose newsletter answers the tough questions your doctor doesn’t have time for.

She does 2 things I 💕:

1) She makes herself relatable (something you probably can’t say about your own doctor)👇️…

2) She writes one of the most insightful AMAs on the internet, tackling one reader question every week, with more for paying subscribers—a great way to convert your free audience into paid.

👟The Kicks You Wear

Mike D. Sykes, II writes about sneaker culture, sounding off on industry news and controversies and sharing the latest shoe releases for sneakerheads like myself.

But the best part of his newsletter is reader-generated: Every Thursday, he asks his followers to share pics of their favorite kicks, using the hashtag #TheKicksWeWear. Then he publishes the best ones in his Friday newsletter.

Some of his readers have made dozens of appearances in the newsletter. If I’m ever gonna make it in there, I need to up my sneaker game!

Hope you enjoyed this week’s examples—and hope y’all have an awesome holiday. I’ll see you in 2025!

☮️ -Brad

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