📨 Why I’m Starting a Newsletter

001 - A little about me and my newsletter...

Hey there! 👋🏻

Welcome to my first ever newsletter issue. Are they called issues? Posts? Articles? Let’s go with issues.

As you may have seen from the title, this issue will dive into why I’ve decided to start a newsletter and what this newsletter will be.

But before we get into all that, allow me to take a step back and introduce myself.

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About Me

A portrait of me and my new desk setup. (Ignore the cable management, it needs some work)

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Austin Poon and I’m a product designer. I’m from Hong Kong but I spent much of my life growing up in Shanghai where I studied at an international school.

After high school, I moved to New York where I received my Bachelor’s in New Media and Digital Design at Fordham University and (most recently) my Master’s in Communication Design at Parsons School of Design.

Last month, I moved across the country to the Bay Area for my first full-time job as a product designer at Meta (which still feels weird to say, but more on that in a future issue).

How’s that for a quick introduction? I’m sure you’ll learn more about me and my interests in the coming issues!

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Starting a Newsletter 📨

So why am I starting a newsletter? Creating some form of an online publication (a blog, newsletter, podcast, etc.) has been on my mind for a while now, but I had never gotten around to doing it until now. Well, what changed?

“How to Start an Email Newsletter that Changes your Life” by Ali Abdaal

Last night, Ali Abdaal’s video “How to Start an Email Newsletter that Changes your Life” popped up in my YouTube subscriptions. In the video, he discusses why you should start a newsletter, what you can write about and how you can get started. It was the right amount of encouragement I needed to start writing this first issue!

I recommend watching the full video and checking out some of his other content. I’ve been following Ali for a while now and I enjoy his content about life and productivity as well as his podcast Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal.

Becoming a better storyteller

Apart from Ali’s video, the main reason I wanted to start writing a newsletter is to become a better storyteller. For my fellow designers reading this, I’m sure you’re all aware that storytelling is an important part of being a product designer.

To be able to present or explain design decisions effectively is something that I continually strive to improve. I hope that by starting this newsletter, I can practice sharing my ideas and articulating my thoughts. Maybe someday in the future, I can look back and see the improvement that I’ve made.

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What this newsletter will be about… 💭

The beauty of this format is that this newsletter can be about anything. For starters, I plan to use this space to share my musings, learnings, and experiences as a product designer. I’m also planning to share the things that resonate most with me. Whether it’s an online article, a Twitter thread, an upcoming product, or anything in between.

In other words, I get to write about whatever is on my mind. While I don’t currently have a set schedule for publishing new issues, I’m setting a personal goal for an issue a month (at the very least). Feel free to share your suggestions for upcoming issues or feedback on how I can improve this newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Austin