I Just Want to Make You Glow

Morning friends,

It’s been a while! Better Spins went on a bit of a hiatus at the end of 2019, call it a mental health decision with so many big things going on in the Snyder house.

First, I pulled off the most ambitious Brettgammon ever with 24 contestants, 18 mini games, and one pretty badass Shelter drop during Opening Ceremonies.

On the work front, Knucklepuck ended 2019 as its best year ever. We kept everyone at full capacity in November and December while still accommodating all holiday PTO for people to actually unplug.

Having just presented my 2020 Strategic Plan, I couldn’t be more excited for what KP has in store with the team we have and the momentum we’re carrying from last year.

But the most special part of year-end in the Snyder house was the arrival of Ms. Elizabeth Marie on December 18th.

Ellie has been an angel, sleeping 3-4hr stretches out the gate and up to 5, 6, or even 7 (!) on a good night after only 2 weeks. Her big brother and fur siblings adore her.
She’s eating well and her head circumference is in the 98th percentile, just like Colin.

That only makes it more impressive that @annevsnyder got the job done in exactly 7 pushes. 💪

So what’s next in 2020? I am making a renewed commitment to Better Spins this year and I would like to share some goals I’ve set for myself:

1. Launch BetterSpins.co. Stretch goal: get BetterSpins.com to sell me their domain.

2. Drive 10,000 website visits from all sources. I expect social media and the newsletter to be the initial drivers but with a solid taxonomy there’s SEO opportunity here for genre cataloging and emerging artists.

3. Publish 40 newsletters. I learned last year that it’s important to cut myself some slack if I miss a week but at the same time consistency is the key to a good product.

4. 200 subscribers. We’re sitting at an even 50 right now.

5. Launch 1 promotional campaign. If Corey can drive hundreds of thousands of visitors from stickers, I’m sure I can get some buzz going with something like my custom Happy Forest buttons.

6. Develop Playlist Archive. I have over 300 playlists curated over the past 8+ years and organized by theme. If I can’t find a way to extract value from that, what am I even doing here?

I’ll be tracking these goals over the course of the year and will provide a quarterly update here in the newsletter. I’m a big believer in Accountability and I know if I owe you all an update in 3 months, I can’t come back empty-handed.

I hope you all find renewed motivation in 2020. I’ve always advocated for having a passion project, the sense of fulfillment when you accomplish something just for you is an incredible energy that translates to so many other parts of life.

Here’s the first Better Spins playlist of 2020, which includes everything I tagged since our last newsletter back in October. 66 tracks of dance music and indie pop, house and hip hop, even a few Thomas Rhett slipped in for @shanbirks.

We’ll get back to the traditional format next week. For now, I hope the random smattering of my eclectic tastes help you navigate this return to real life now with the holidays officially in the books.

To Bigger and Better in 2020!

~BS