From The Quarter to Bookmark

This time last year I was starting to figure out my move back to Michigan from Yale. This year I'm making a different kind of move: from The Quarter to Bookmark.

Bookmark is a newsletter that keeps small business owners up to speed on the news, ideas, and tools they need to grow online.

I'll start with a US edition every Tuesday and a Michigan edition every Thursday.

I've been building this quietly for the last month or so, though I've known it might happen for a while now.

Here's what I've been up to and why I'm making the change.

Why The Quarter Is Going On Ice

I've been creating content for The Quarter for about a year and a half now. I've learned a ton and had a lot of fun doing it talking to founders who've gone from $0 to $250k and watching those stories land with people trying to get there themselves.

There are a few structural issues with The Quarter as a business though.

First, the business model was always going to be a grind.

Founders in the $0 to $250k range are usually building with the tightest budgets, especially when the business is what pays the bills. That's not a knock on them at all. It just makes it hard to build something sustainable that leans on those same founders to fund it.

Second, scaling it would mean making content I'm not excited about.

I've been creating content for The Quarter since 2024 and I think it's genuinely good. But to build a business with content as the engine I'd need to hit a level of scale this format can't really reach as it is.

Getting there would mean making a much broader kind of content. And being honest with you, that's not content I'm excited about or that feels meaningful to me. I could do it, I just don't want to, and honestly I can't hide it on my face when I'm not into something so you'd all know anyway lol.

Third, the Revenue Retreats need scale I don't have yet.

They were a blast to run and the founders who came got real value out of them. The feedback has been great.

The retreats work. They just need more scale to sell consistently and that comes back to the same root issue with this model.

To be clear, none of this means I'm leaving earlier founders behind. I still care a lot about helping people in that $0 to $250k range. It's just going to look different inside Bookmark and that can still include things like retreats down the road.

Why Bookmark And Why Now

How I got to Bookmark has been a bit of a journey.

I made the move back to Michigan last October. Even at Yale I'd started shifting where I wanted to put my energy and leaning toward small businesses over startups and investors.

Making the shift to Bamboo, the coworking and event space I lead community for in Grand Rapids, is what cemented it. Being around these businesses every day is what made me want to build something for them.

Here's why Bookmark and why now.

One, it fits where I've already shifted.

I still work with early stage companies but nowhere near as much as I did at Yale. Way more of my time now goes to small businesses that are doing well and doing real work for their communities somewhere in the $250k to $3 million range if I had to guess.

I've loved that shift. These are the people and businesses I already care about and already spend my days with, so building something for them just makes sense.

Two, it fills a bigger need.

Small businesses need more support than ever. I was listening to Jon Stewart's podcast this past week with Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed. Goolsbee said "the stock market isn't the economy" and I wanted to stand up and clap.

We've lost sight of something in the US. So much of what we rely on is a small business. The best coffee shop in town. The family business that's been fixing this town's cars for thirty years. The marketing agency a dozen other businesses rely on.

We assume they'll always be there.

For a lot of them, figuring out how to grow online isn't optional anymore. It's how they stay around for the next decade.

And it doesn't have to mean becoming an influencer. There are hundreds of ways to grow online that don't need the owner to be the star of the show.

The tricky part is there's always some new platform, some new tool, some new shift in how you reach people. Those news pieces are published and shared but never with the small business owner in mind. Always for a startup or a Fortune 500 company instead.

You'll hear about how AI is changing everything or that a platform just flipped its rules, and every take is about what it means for the big players. Almost nobody stops to explain what it means for the person running a shop or a small brand.

That's the gap I keep seeing and it's the one Bookmark is built to fill.

Three, the numbers make more sense here.

This is the piece The Quarter was always missing. These businesses have real budgets and so do the sponsors who want to reach them and help them grow. That combination matters more than it sounds. A sustainable model is the only way I get to keep showing up and doing this work instead of burning out on something that can't support itself.

Jim Collins put it better than I can in Built to Last: "Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life."

That's how I think about Bookmark. The money isn't the point. It's what keeps the whole thing alive so it can do the actual work.

And because it can support itself, it can be more than a newsletter. It starts as a news roundup with the resources and tools small businesses actually need to grow. Over time it can become a real platform with things like retreats down the road.

The goal is simple: give small business owners a place that helps them stay sharp, grow more, and keep doing the work their communities count on.

That's what we're going to do with Bookmark.

How To Support Bookmark

If you've read this far and you're into it, there are a few ways you can help:

1. Sign up. Grab the US edition and the Michigan edition too if you're in Michigan.
2. Engage with it. Read it when it hits your inbox, tell me what's working and what isn't, and pass it along to anyone you think it'll help.
3. Invite me to your event. I want to partner with event hosts and show up in person. Both to be a resource for the small business owners in the room and to introduce them to Bookmark. I can table if that works and I just want to be there to help.