12+ years across editorial, product, and brand
Work featured in The Verge, Stratechery, and A Media Operator. Guest lecturer on editorial strategy at the Columbia Journalism School, 2022–2024.
Independent strategy · Brooklyn, NY
Nicholas Spyer
Editorial strategy and systems thinking for teams that ship.
Booking Q1 — 2 slots remaining.
Book a strategy call
For founders and editors who already know the problem — and need someone to help them write the answer down.
I work with founders, editors, and content leaders who are done with vague strategy decks. Most engagements begin the same way: a back-channel email, a 30–45 minute call, and a one-page memo I send within the week. If the memo is useful, we scope a 30-day engagement. If it isn’t, you keep it and we part ways.
The work itself is unfashionably direct. I sit inside your team for a month, read what you’ve already written, interview the people who matter, and leave you with a single decision document — the strategy, the editorial operating model, and the next 90 days of shipping, in one place. No retainer. No agency overhead. No “phase two.”
Working philosophy
A deliberately small practice, run on a few hard rules.
- Six clients per quarter. No agency bench, no junior team, no account manager in between you and the work.
- The memo comes first. I write a one-page engagement memo before any contract — without a sales call. If I can’t be useful on paper, I’m not the right fit.
- Engagements run 30 days. Long enough to do real diagnosis; short enough that the document lands while the problem is still live.
- One decision-ready document, not a deck. Frameworks borrowed from journalism, consulting, and product, synthesised into something your team can act on Monday morning.
- Direct writing, plain English. No “synergies,” no “ideation,” no 40-slide decks with one paragraph of actual thought on slide 38.
Evidence
What a senior practitioner actually looks like, in numbers and on paper.
4 content engines rebuilt at Series B
Lifted organic traffic an average of 3.1× in 6 months across four Series B SaaS companies — Substack, Maven, The Browser, and two stealth-mode AI startups.
Operating Notes newsletter
Author of Operating Notes since 2019; crossed 10,000 subscribers in 2023, currently 14,800 subscribers with a 42% open rate.
22 stages, 9 countries
Speaking engagements at Newsrewired, The Information’s Creator Summit, SaaStock, and 19 others. Named to Editor & Publisher’s “Innovators in Media” shortlist, 2021.
A typical engagement
A typical 30-day engagement, in four chapters.
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I
The memo
You send a short brief. Within a week I return a one-page engagement memo — the problem as I read it, the questions I’d ask, the shape of the deliverable. No contract yet. No fee.
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II
Diagnosis
Two weeks of reading, interviews, and quiet analysis. I talk to your editors, your PMs, your best reader. I read the last six months of what you shipped and the last six months of what shipped around you.
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III
The plan
A single document lands: the editorial strategy, the operating model, the 90-day shipping plan, and the metrics that will tell you whether it’s working. Written, not decked.
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IV
Ship & handoff
I stay on for the first two weeks of execution — reviewing the first batch of work, editing the strategy doc into the format your team actually uses, and signing off when the engine is running.
Book a strategy call
Average engagement value: $28,400. Net Promoter Score across 2023–2024: 74.
Engagements completed
71
across 9 countries since 2018
Net Promoter Score
74
2023–2024 engagements
Operating Notes readers
14,800
42% open rate, weekly
Average engagement value
$28.4K
30-day, fixed scope
Founded independent practice, 2018 · Team of 3