Randy Cassingham's Blog

Once I had the business plan set, I spent the weekend researching stories, designing how a "plain text" e-mail newsletter should look, and wrote the first issue. I call it "This Just In", but the first issue doesn't go out by e-mail yet since I don't have the listserver set up yet.

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One of my good online friends had suggested Netcom as a good place for an online account, in part because access to their listserver software, "Majordomo", was included in the monthly cost, so I started work on getting an account, and then asking them to set up the mailing list for me.

Another step: seeing who I know who has e-mail. Since I worked at a pretty high-tech place and had a lot of friends and colleagues scattered around the U.S. and Canada, I soon realized I had a lot of e-mailable friends. The final initial list had 50 people on it. I was astounded -- not just that I had 50 friends, but 50 friends with e-mail!

A couple of weeks went by as I was getting all my ducks in a row, setting everything up. And each week, I wrote a new column, each time on Sunday. After all, I was working full time during the week, and I couldn't very well do such work from my JPL office on NASA computers! So Sunday it was. Once everything was set up, I sent an e-mail to the 50 friends announcing my new project, and including a sample issue. Even then, long before "spam", I was considerate of my friends' time and e-mail inboxes: I made it clear that if they weren't interested, let me know and I wouldn't bother them with non-work-related mail again. A couple of them did reply with such a request, and I deleted them immediately.

However, I told them, if you like what you see, I won't continue to send you issues unless you proactively request a subscription. Just follow the instructions at the bottom of the issue to subscribe. The instructions included the listserver's e-mail address, and the command they had to type in the message.

After sending out the first sample, the magic started immediately. First, my buddy that had suggested Netcom subscribed. Then several other addresses I recognized, including one from Canada. At the end of the week, for the first "official" issue, there were five -- yes, just five! -- subscribers. But that's not a bad start, I decided!

Once the first real issue came out, more people subscribed, mostly addresses I didn't recognize. The subscribers were doing exactly what I expected, what I invited them to do: forward a copy to friends, and encourage them to subscribe too. The first "really" foreign subscription then came in: from Singapore. I didn't know anyone there. The word of mouth worked: it was going "viral" (even though that term didn't exist online yet).

By the next issue there were 28 subscribers. The week after that, 81. Then 333, then 554, 786, 951, 1,274! Once that first issue came out there new subscriptions -- every day, without fail. And there has never been a day without new subscriptions. Ever.