One week done...

Hi everyone,

Mikhail here! We're one week into this great experiment at the Jacob Wolf & Mikhail Klimentov Patreon! (We're going to need to figure out a shorter way to refer to ourselves. Suggestions are greatly appreciated.)

The past five days have been stressful. I am an obsessive analytics-checker, so I've been tracking our stats, keeping an eye out for how the stuff we've published has been doing, etc. Still, it's exciting to start something new, and now Jacob and I are focused on publishing more stories for you — and growing!

The next few days will be a test of just how well I can focus on my work, though... I just got into Baldur's Gate 3. My girlfriend and I created a pink half-elf named Bubblegum. We'll just have to wait and see.

Here's what we kicked out the door this week:

MONDAY: We launched this Patreon — with a splashy video and a Digiday interview! You're going to hear this a lot from us, but we really appreciate your support!

We also posted a bonus episode of Visionaries with the two of us, plus the team supporting us: Prem, Cecilia and Samie. We talked about our aspirations on this project and why we're excited about the opportunity to build a community-supported media venture.

Finally — busy day, we know! — we launched a new collaboration with Ateyo for a premium team-up Zip-Up featuring The Jacob Wolf Report, ReaderGrev and Visionaries logos on it. There's only 50 of them available, so act fast!

TUESDAY: Jacob wrote about the influencer model, and the ways in which personal connection may be a compelling model for journalists going forward. "Being a 'news robot,'" Jacob wrote, "isn’t good enough anymore."

Read that here: I Used to Hate Influencers. They May be Doing Journalists a Favor.

THURSDAY: I published an essay about TikTok creators who shy away from the "critic" label. I had some thoughts about the failures of that point of view, and the reasons criticism still matters. "When a critic sits at their desk," I wrote, "poetry is what I believe they dream of achieving."

Read that here: Nobody's a Critic!

FRIDAY: This week’s (second) episode of Visionaries featured Jeff Gardiner, a developer who worked on Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Skyrim and project led Fallout 76. He’s now the founder and CEO of Something Wicked Games, who are making a new RPG called Wyrdsong.

“[Steven Spielberg] talked about how every project has a crisis of faith, right, where the people on the project are all like, I don’t know what we’re making, but this is not what I thought it was gonna be,” Gardiner said. That was also true, he said, of games. “And honestly, that crisis of faith can last until two weeks before you ship.”

Listen Here: 'Fallout' and 'Skyrim' Dev Jeff Gardiner on Entrepreneurship and Mental Health 

Thanks (again) for your support!

- Mikhail