Dear readers,

Hope you’ve had an excellent start to 2023.

At the fag end of 2022, my co-founder Venkat Ananth wrote about what we have in store for you in 2023. We are about to begin; but before that, a word on what we have set out to do.

A few of you who have been with us for a long time might know that we started The Signal in 2020 during the pandemic. It was experimental in nature; the idea was to see whether there would be takers for a curated, insight-rich, yet fun business and tech newsletter. We tried many things, kept a few, and discarded many others. We built ad-hoc tools to support our needs then.

To be honest, we were a rather scrappy operation, although we made sure there was not even a hint of it in the product that hit your inboxes. Our logo was a simple variation of an emoji. It was relatable and fun; and yet, it didn’t accurately capture who we are, what we do, and where we were headed.

The purpose of our products is to cut out the noise and relay only what is absolutely essential and relevant to give our readers a quick head-start every day. We began with our flagship newsletter, The Signal, and later launched The Intersection and, then, The Playbook.

New identity, new platform

Today, we are unveiling our new identity. It signifies our purpose, intent, and ambition. It combines the colours of the day—from dawn to dusk—and the ripples of a wave shaped like the rising sun. As I said, The Signal’s purpose is to prepare you for the day. We hope you like it, and I’d love to know what your thoughts are.

We will also be gradually moving from Substack to a new publishing platform, beehiiv. It will give us access to tools and functionalities that’ll help us grow and reach more readers. We have spent a lot of time on making the newsletter design better, yet not very different from what you’ve been receiving until now.

The move will start tomorrow (9th January 2023) and will likely be completed over the next week or so.

We will continue to publish our products on the Substack app for those readers who would prefer to read them there. That is until—as Venkat had mentioned in his year-end memo—we launch our own app.

One more thing before I go. There’s a good chance the newsletter might end up in your promotions tab (on Gmail) or spam because of the shift to the new publishing platform. Please drag it back to your inboxes so you do not miss it.

I hope you enjoy our identity and experience. I’m all ears for your feedback. You can write to me here.

Wishing you a wonderful year ahead.

Regards,
Rajneil Kamath
Co-founder, The Signal