I deleted 1,734 subscribers – #117

A little over one year ago this newsletter had about 2,500 subscribers. By May, I’d cut it to 960 on purpose.

It took about eight months. Every week I'd pull the people who hadn't opened anything in the past 90 days and delete them. Watching a number you spent a year growing go backwards, by your own hand, is a peculiar way to spend a Sunday evening.

Most of those 2,500 had arrived from a single promotion. They came fast, they never opened, and the open rate slid under 40 percent. Six out of ten people were ignoring me.

The ones who stayed are the reason this still works. Roughly 70 percent of you open this now, which I still don't quite believe.

We're back over 1,200 now, and the difference this time is that people reply. Real emails. Someone telling me a chair is ugly, someone telling me they bought the lamp and now their partner is annoyed. None of that happened at 2,500.

A thousand readers who actually want this beat five thousand who don't. It's a better newsletter and a much better Sunday.

A few weeks ago, Alexander at tinyfound asked how this newsletter grew, so I gave him the whole story: the deleting, the €8-a-day Meta ads, the classifieds experiment, and everything that failed. Most newsletter advice leaves out the open rate. Mine doesn’t.

Which design newsletter should I be reading? Just send me the name.

Five things from Europe, below.

If you’re new around here: Every week, I share 5 of the nicest products from Europe I’ve discovered in the past 7 days.

I scout, you explore.

With love 🌞
Jakob

P.S.: Missed the last edition? The OB-4 magic radio from Teenage Engineering was the most-clicked product. (Which either proves your taste OR proves I should buy more of the things I recommend OR test more of the things before I feature them here…🤔 Anyway, the Augment moped came second.)

P.P.S.: If you’ve found something from Europe that belongs here, send it my way.

Matt Dixon has worked in games since 1988, including Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Potter titles. His Transmissions series turns away from licensed worlds and toward melancholic robots in quiet landscapes. Memories is printed on Hahnemühle German Etching paper and signed in pencil. My daughter reads this newsletter, and I suspect she’ll love them.

Made in Lombardy by XAM and designed by controdesign_studio, the Asha Baldaquin reduces a four-poster bed to a line drawing in painted steel tube. It comes in ten finishes; the red is my pick, with dark green close behind. The product notes say the canopy “has no structural but aesthetic function, a little oscillation is not a defect.” An Italian manufacturer telling you the wobble is intentional may be the most honest sentence in furniture this year.

Over two years, this newsletter has featured its share of eclectic cups. The Mono Grid from FERRANI by Edem is where they could go: a 42 × 53-centimeter grid made in Germany from brushed stainless steel, ready to stand on a counter or hang on the wall. If you’d rather have wood, I featured a similar Copenhagen shelf in this edition.

Restaurants have replaced candles with tiny LED lamps. I get it: no wax, no fire, three brightness settings. I still prefer the real thing. No charging cable has ever made dinner more romantic. Skultuna has been making the case for candles since 1607. Founded by decree of King Karl IX, the Swedish brassmaker is older than New York and still works in the same village. Louise Liljencrantz designed Carlo, named after architect Carlo Scarpa, with a square base and soft curves in polished brass.

If you do want artificial light with dinner, &Tradition has the counterpoint. Numbra TY3 is the Copenhagen brand’s newest addition and Japanese designer Teruhiro Yanagihara’s debut for its collective. Made from lacquered oak and aluminum, it is self-contained, has a three-step dimmer, and moves easily from table to terrace. I also like the ceiling lights from the Numbra edition.