My favorite newsletter these days is The Good List, a weekly roundup from New York Times journalist Melissa Kirsch, whose self-proclaimed beat is “how to lead a meaningful life.” I love the content itself, but more than that, I love the format. Each week, Melissa provides somewhere between six and eight punchy sections, typically things that she’s encountered in the past week that are making her life better in some way. On each item, she goes deep enough for her unique perspective to come through, but keeps it brief enough to feel like a manageable read. Each section has a link or two that you may want to click into, but the newsletter also feels like a complete artifact in and of itself. It’s more satisfying than the link-heavy newsletter format that’s been en vogue the past few years, because she’s actually adding her unique point of view to each section, even if the jumping off point isn’t fully “hers.” It’s the perfect example of human-centered curation done well. 

Inspired by Melissa, this week’s newsletter is going to be my own “Good List,” focused on some percolating thoughts that I’m not convinced warrant a full 800 words to themselves. 

Someone recently suggested adding a “Domino’s Pizza Tracker”-type feature to our product to let customers track the various stages and statuses of their SPVs. I’ve always been a fan of this feature, despite learning the hard way that it’s fake while trying to order a pizza at 2 AM after a night of drinking in college. The conversation spurred me to dive into the tracker’s history: it was introduced in 2009, when Domino’s, following a devastating taste test in which they tied for last place with Chuck-ee Cheese, hired a new CEO to revamp its brand. The new brand was built around transparency as a way to communicate to the public that they were investing heavily in getting better. They executed a campaign that included ads, a full-length documentary, and – you guessed it – the introduction of the pizza tracker on their website and in their app. It worked, and their sales and stock prices soared in the subsequent months and years. This is a great lesson in the value of simply doing what you say you’re going to do and bringing customers along for the ride. Whether or not Greg is actually the person assembling my pizza, I still get peace of mind from the notion that there is someone for me to hold accountable if it doesn’t get delivered. 

I’m so tired of seeing the same tired takes on the state of B2B marketing on LinkedIn, so I’ve started to look to other sources for inspiration. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest (a phenomenon that probably warrants a full article of its own), specifically looking at fashion brands.

Earlier this year, Jacquemus, a luxury women’s brand from France, released a campaign for one of its new bags, Le Valérie. Jacquemus has historically taken the tonal, restrained approach that we’ve come to expect from a luxury brand, but this campaign felt quite different. It was deeply human and even a little sloppy. It was a clear attempt to relate to the everyday busy woman without losing the clean, premium, aspirational feel that the brand is built on. They made a clear decision about who they wanted to speak to and how they wanted that person reflected back at her, and every choice in the campaign served that decision. This isn’t the first brand to intentionally introduce a bit of human slop into its marketing as a way to counter the rampant AI slop. I’m excited to see more versions of this in the near future.

The campaign is also an acknowledgment that people buy based on the beliefs they hold (or want to hold) about themselves, not just based on the product. This has always been true in fashion, and it's increasingly true elsewhere, including software. The barriers to building products keep dropping, and products keep converging. If someone can vibe-code their own CRM in a few weeks, the question of why a customer chooses Salesforce or HubSpot won't come down to features. It's going to come down to the story they want to tell about themselves. The Jacquemus campaign was a clean example of a brand understanding that and building the entire creative around it.

Spotify as a company confounds me. Of course, there is a lot to admire. They are one of the greatest case studies of building viral loops with their iconic Spotify Wrapped, which is top of mind this week since they launched the “Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year” campaign in honor of their 20th Anniversary. Similar to Wrapped, the campaign encourages users to share artifacts like their first-ever song played on Spotify or the exact date they joined the platform via Instagram or other social media accounts. Just south of 90% of Spotify’s revenue comes from subscriptions, so campaigns like this that leverage other, larger platforms for user growth make a lot of sense.

But there is still so much left to be desired from the platform, and I have to imagine that is hurting their retention numbers. Firstly, I don’t understand why they have never leaned into the social aspect of the app. I, like many people I know, love to learn about new music from my friends (of the real and internet variety). It’s why I used to love Soundcloud, and why I still spend a good amount of time on the platform. Soundcloud is far from perfect, but each time I log in, I’m greeted with a feed of sounds curated by people I’ve chosen to follow. Spotify, on the other hand, has no feed feature to speak of (unheard of in 2026!). 

Spotify’s recommendation algorithm is also atrocious. Algorithms should be used for discovery! I don’t want a playlist of songs or artists that I listen to regularly and that are already on playlists I have created for myself. Given the amount of data that Spotify has on my preferences, it seems ludicrous that they aren’t able to help me discover new music that I enjoy – and that they aren’t even aiding my discovery process by encouraging me to follow people who can curate new sounds for me. The disco ball campaign is cute, but it’s not enough to keep me from spending more and more time on Soundcloud or NTS.