Rapid scale comes from narrow mastery
The juggling act of building a media business, one product at a time.
Over the last two years I’ve realized that building a business involves an alternating pattern of narrowing and widening focus.
When we launched Opening Bell Daily in April 2024, the company was built around a single product, the flagship newsletter I write five days a week.
I poured my energy into every variable underpinning that one thing.
The writing and design, interviewing sources, building readership, sponsorships, promotional content.
I had ideas for new projects along the way, but I’m glad I stuck to the discipline of keeping the main thing, the main thing. Relentless prioritization is the only way to make something good enough to expand into a second “main thing.”
After nearly a year of iterating on that first product, it was time to build a second — our paid membership for stock picks, Best Ideas Club, which launched in February 2025.
While related to the flagship newsletter, Best Ideas Club has demanded new skills and differentiated marketing and growth strategies.
What felt like diversification was actually leverage. The skills gleaned from the first product minimized friction in the second.
Getting this up and running took less time than anticipated. It’s become a hit with readers and I love working on it.
Two lessons here:
Work capacity increases over time
Mastery of one product accelerates mastery of the next
So with both the flagship newsletter and Best Ideas Club operating smoothly, I decided we had the bandwidth to launch a third product roughly eight months after the second — Full Signal, our new show.
The third episode went live this morning. We’ll be publishing about three episodes a week.
To get the show off the ground, my team and I have had a lot of late nights and early mornings, not unlike those early weeks in 2024 launching the flagship newsletter.
That should moderate as we get into a rhythm of booking guests, prepping interviews, and rehearsing on camera.
In sum, that’s five newsletters, one research report, and three shows each week — plus the social content, marketing and business that tie it all together.
From the outside, it may sound like an overloaded plate.
But in reality, it’s my new baseline of focus, one that’s widened so slowly and incrementally that it feels like a regular workload.
Because the ramp-up has been gradual, I’ve been able to acclimate to a new sense of “normal” at every stage.
The work I’m doing today may have flattened me six months ago, but that’s the point of sustainable growth.
Each stage of focus becomes the foundation for the next. Everything compounds.
What’s impossible today becomes routine tomorrow.
Phil Rosen,
Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, Opening Bell Daily
Be sure to subscribe to Full Signal on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
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