It's been a minute.

I know, I know. I owe you an apology. Just hear me out. 

For the last two years, many of you have been loyal readers of my newsletter, Crashing Up. Sticking true to the name, the newsletter took many forms, from more thoughtful tech deep dives to weekly curated links and videos. I launched a short-lived podcast and played around with a brief name change (Net Profit).

As I experimented, it continued to grow. Until it didn't. 

Come May 2022, I went dark with no explanation. For those who've reached out over the last nine months to check if I was alive, I appreciate you 🤝In the rest of this post, I'll explain what happened, catch you up on what I've been up to, and outline what you can expect from me and my writing going forward. 

Story Time

Content is only as good as its distribution. Ideally, you should be spending just as much time on promotion as creation, and unfortunately, with a pretty demanding full-time job, I didn't have that time. Between cutting my output to only one link-based curated newsletter per week and putting nearly zero time into promoting my work, Crashing Up's growth plateaued pretty damn hard. 

 Writing the newsletter began to feel like a chore. Something to check off the never-ending to-do list. After writing for nearly three months without any subscriber growth, I revisited the classic Einstein 'insanity' quote. 

It was time for a change.

And holy shit, did change come. 

Here's a brief timeline for you. 

October 2021: I started toying with the idea of freelance writing. I shared my thought with a few friends and wasted countless hours reading blogs about "freelancing best practices" instead of taking action. I was still writing Crashing Up (now called Net Profit). 

November 2021: I landed my first freelance gig writing a travel newsletter (shoutout to Rob Karp if you're reading this)

January 2022: By now, I've landed two more gigs. Still putting out Crashing Up, but my nights are slowly filled with client work rather than personal writing. Simultaneously I'm feeling restless in my role at Bombas and don't see a path for growth.

February 2022: Freelancing is going pretty well. I've made around $10k since November (some of this is counting recurring revenue over the coming months). What if I dedicated my full effort to this? Could I make a full-time living? 

March 2022: Landed a couple more small gigs, total income since November is around $15k. Start seriously exploring leaving my stable, relatively high-paying job to give this a shot. By the end of the month, I'd given notice. No turning back now. 

April 2022: On Monday, April 4th, I write a tweet announcing my plans. It blows up and my DMs are filled with potential gigs with legit companies like Shopify and Triple Whale. I leave Bombas that Friday and charge full-steam ahead into freelance life. I end the month with $8k in revenue. 

May 2022: More clients, more income, and a clusterfuck of problems that I had zero idea how to deal with. I'm happier and more overwhelmed than I've ever been.

As a side project addict, I also launched Digital Fashion Daily, the first dedicated content site covering digital fashion. So, taking all this work into account, I skipped a week of writing the newsletter. And another. And another. I continued to kick the can down the road until I stopped publishing altogether. 

Present: Things have gone better than I ever could've expected. I've transitioned from a solo freelancer into running Third Wall Creative, a search-focused content marketing and copywriting agency. By the end of 2022, I had worked with over 20 clients in countries like Australia, London, Tel Aviv, and Malaysia and am making more than enough money to live. I'm currently hiring my first full-time writer. 

This leads me to my next big change...

Toward the end of this most recent summer, I started to feel stuck in the city. Yes, I had the freedom I always dreamed of now. But I wasn't using it. Instead, I spent 12 hours a day in my studio apartment writing, barely remembering to eat. Sometimes I wouldn't go outside for days at a time. Not gonna lie, it was pretty depressing. But hey, duty calls.

Around the same time, I came across Young Money, a finance newsletter by the wildly talented, Jack Raines. 

Long story short, Jack made a bunch of money during 'SPAC-mania' in 2021. He then proceeded to cash out his chips (not before losing $150,000 in a day), quit his desk-monkey finance job, and hit the road with nothing but a backpack. He chronicles These adventures in a separate travel blog called Backpackin.'

Over the course of the next few months, I wrestled with the idea of leaving New York to travel the world and work remotely. The more I read Jack's blog, the more serious I became about the idea.

In one of Jack's posts, he shares an excerpt from the book Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. (I later went on to read the full book, it's fucking incredible.) 

Damn, that hit me hard. By October, my flight was booked: A one-way ticket to Prague. 

And that's where I'm at now.

I'm in Prague, hunched over in the bed of my 8-person hostel dorm, typing like a madman as scoliosis slowly creeps in. Tomorrow, I head to Tel Aviv for at least a month.

What's next? No clue. 

You may be wondering...

How long are you traveling for? 

Not sure, but I can't see it being more than a year. Could even be less than six months. But again, a year ago I could have never predicted where I am now, so who knows? Is this new life scary? 

Uhhh yeah, no shit.

I'm a single, soon-to-be 26-year-old running a business and traveling the world without a home base. If that's not Crashing Up, I don't know what is. But every time I feel a bit unsure of myself, I reference this image from Tim Urban. As someone who gets bored easily, the highs of novel experiences and unknown opportunities keep me going. 

What to expect from Crashing Up

Taking a page out of Jack's playbook, I'll be using this newsletter to document my travels, along with some other thoughts about life, business, and psychology. No consistent cadence. I'll be writing when inspiration strikes, but I promise I'll be active. I know this isn't what you initially signed up for, so stick around if you'd like, or feel free to unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. 

If you're craving tech-focused weekly writing from me, you can subscribe to Digital Fashion Weekly, my newsletter covering all things in the world of, you guessed it, digital fashion. 

Otherwise, I'll see you in a few days for my Prague recap 🫡

Thank you as always for your attention, 

Randy