The Framework Of This Newsletter Going Forward

How I'm deciding on what to write about

We just passed the one year mark of me writing this newsletter and I’m really happy with how things are going. I could probably do a better job at marketing this on the internet, but I believe that the readers are the best marketers. I’m relying on you to share this if you think it’s good and it lets me know when I’m going in the right direction.

Moving forward, I’m still keeping my monthly Friday news themes of:

1. Oil and Gas

2. Green Chemistry and Circular Economy

3. Specialty Chemicals: Coatings, Adhesives, Sealants, Composites, Elastomers

4. Financial Transactions: M&A, Spinoffs, IPOs, Layoffs, Plant Closures

Sometimes things align and I will get some sort of theme in these emails, but don’t count on it. For my bigger takes on the industry check out my quarterly emails for where I think things are moving overall. 3rd quarter of 2021 gets reported out at the end of this month for most companies.

I intended Tuesdays to be a chance for me to dig into longer form content that focused on a specific topic. There are two themes that I’ve sort of stumbled upon that seem to resonate right now with the audience. Every month on a Tuesday I’ll attempt to write about:

1. Polymer chemistry careers themes

2. Chemical product development: how it’s done, the challenges, and the future

There are still two more Tuesdays left, which I wanted to reserve for me writing original investigative stories where I interview actual sources. Right now I’m working on a long form piece on compostable polymers and packaging and another on Solugen.

One area I’m trying to spend more time on is investigating companies, specifically start-ups in the chemical space, and understanding their viability. If anyone is interested in me looking at specific company let me know.

The newsletter has grown about 6x since January 1, 2021 and I’m hoping for another 6x by this time in 2022.

To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed-and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage. - Haruki Murakami

Someone published this quote recently and it was too good not to steal. The framework above gives me some boundaries, which is good for me and helps eliminate the blank page issues of, “What am I gonna write about?” Now I just need to get my flywheel to spin at the speed I want.

Oil and Gas news comes out Friday.

Tony