What’s next at Ariyh

Hey! Today we will do things a bit differently.

Last week we reached 200(!!) research papers covered on Ariyh 🥳 (still wrapping my head around that).

So instead of an insight, I wanted to share what has been happening behind the scenes. How we got here, and where we are going.

Note: if you are hungry for an insight. I recommend checking out one of these 3 previous ones that I believe are underrated:

• Far is prestigious, near is mainstream

• The power of personal

• The science of product selfies

Ok, here we go!

🌱 The origins

For years I’d been frustrated by how far behind marketers were from the latest science.

When we wanted to improve, we would rely on biased opinions of ‘experts’ or sketchy ‘case studies’. Of course, that rarely worked. Might as well flip a coin.

This was absurd. Why rely on that when we had some of the most brilliant minds on Earth constantly testing and discovering new ideas. Thousands of them every year.

Academic research. Science. Peer-reviewed, rigorous research on a completely different level of quality from anything else out there (not perfect, of course, nothing is).

I had been dreaming about doing something about this absurdity for years.

That moment finally came when I moved to Barcelona in February 2020. I’d been traveling for a few months after leaving Google. But just as I was settling into my new city, the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

So there I was, in lockdown with plenty of free time and pretty broke. It was my chance to do something about my dream.

And that’s when Ariyh was born: Academic Research In Your Hands.

⏩ Zoom forward to today

Here we are now! Over 3 years of going through thousands and thousands of research papers (and yes, I still love them!). More than 24,000 of you read Ariyh every week (I can’t thank you enough). And now we’ve covered 200 insights!

This past year has probably been the most satisfying to date. But before we go into that, let’s take a glance at where I was 1 year ago.

I arrived on the eve of December 2022 holidays feeling completely overwhelmed and - probably - on the verge of burnout.

I was spending so much time on Ariyh, but it wasn’t moving as fast as I wanted it to. I felt like I was stuck in a hamster wheel. Working on the next week’s insight was taking up most of my energy, and I had nothing left for trying new things to grow Ariyh, or building more products.

For example, I had planned to launch 4 or 5 playbooks, but I had ‘only’ managed to launch the Playbook of Pricing & Promotions. And I felt terrible because of that.

I knew something had to change. Out of everything I could do, I identified 3 priorities:

1. Give myself space to build new Ariyh products

2. Find some financing to accelerate Ariyh’s growth

3. Don’t stress myself out, take care of my mental health

And I’m glad I started working on them in January 2023.

🏆 The three big achievements of 2023

1) Ariyh is now a team

The achievement I feel proudest of this year is to have brought together a fantastic team. 

And there are already 8 of us! Spread out from Chicago to Melbourne, and many cities in between.

Caveat: for the moment, everyone is a freelancer or doing this on the side of their main job (except me, obviously; and yes, a team page is overdue for those who want to be public-facing).

Each person brings their strengths to the table and makes us better. PhD researchers dig through research better than I did, marketing writers come up with better examples than I could, and others set Ariyh up for growth, profitability, and success in ways I possibly couldn’t have.

Objective 1 achieved: Give myself space to build new Ariyh products. We are now all set to launch many new things in 2024.

2) Ariyh now has financial firepower

As I’m writing this, I’m on a train returning from Madrid where I just signed a loan with the Spanish government’s entrepreneurship innovation fund.

While the amount is relatively small, that is by design. Ariyh is a bootstrapped business and this is the first experiment with external financing. I want to understand if it’s really what we need.

Ariyh is also in the process of being certified as a startup according to Spain’s new 2023 startup law. That means lower taxes, and makes it much easier for foreign investors to invest.

Objective 2 achieved: Find some financing to accelerate Ariyh’s growth. We now have a ‘war chest’ to grow faster in 2024.

3) I feel more grounded

Yes, building a business always feels like a rollercoaster. But it’s become a smoother rollercoaster. That's important because this is a marathon, not a sprint.

I’ve managed to give myself more space to relax, workout more, and put less pressure on myself. If I work some long days then I try to take Friday off to compensate. Weekends are almost always free.

And I’m taking most of December off to travel and relax (which is also why you’re getting this sort of end-of-year recap so early 😁)

Objective 3 achieved*: Don’t stress myself out, take care of my mental health. *Probably more of a work in progress, but I think it always will be.

📈 What’s coming in 2024

Some big things are coming. I’m not kidding when I say we’re just getting started.

Ariyh Pro

What I’ve dreamt of building since day 1, it’s almost here! 

I’m currently trialing different MVPs (as we’ve seen, this is an efficient way to find product-market fit) with small select groups of you. The learnings from this trial will help me understand what exactly should or should not be part of Ariyh Pro. 

No matter the exact features, Ariyh Pro will make it even easier for you to apply the latest science to boost your results. Expect it sometime in Q1 2024.

New website

Partially overlapping with Ariyh Pro, I am working with some fantastic designers and developers to build Ariyh’s new website. I think you’ll love it.

More playbooks

This year we launched the Ecommerce playbook, and we started work on the SaaS playbook. Next up, I would like to work on an Ad creative optimization playbook, along with an update to the Pricing & Promotions playbook (if you buy it now you’ll get the updated version free).

And more

Probably much more, but I still need to iron out the full plan for 2024… 😁 If you have feedback or ideas I always love to hear them!

👇 Meanwhile, here’s how I can help you now

While we’re here, here’s a reminder of how I can help you, in case you didn’t know:

• Playbooks of

  • Ecommerce optimization

  • Pricing & Promotions

• Advertise in Ariyh. Get your product in front of 24,000+ marketers and business owners

🔥 Still here? Here’s some other cool stuff that happened this year!

• I found out that 84% of you already applied insights in practice (57%) or were planning to (27%).

• More and more scientists know Ariyh. At academic conferences, being covered in Ariyh is now a badge of honor for ‘proof of impact’ of the research.

• Experimented with LinkedIn and saw 50% growth over the summer. You can follow me here if you don’t already.

• Launched Ariyh on Instagram and Facebook - give Ariyh a follow!

And last but not least. Thank you so much for being here today and making this possible!

Let’s make this world more evidence-based, and cut the BS.

Yours,

Thomas