My case for email

My case for email

BY Peter Buchanan-Smith

Best Made has always been a dialog. A series of conversations (in one form or another) between people (in one form or another) about the likes of craft, design, materials, work, adventure, books, music, food, and of course axes. When I left the company in 2019, those conversations abruptly ended for me as well as many others. I'm not going to lie, it left a very big hole in my life.

When I started the company in 2009, email was basically our only means of communication. There was no Instagram. Like clockwork, every Wednesday at noon, we sent out our newsletter. Quite often the email featured a new product release, but it could just as easily have detailed our latest adventure or an upcoming cast iron restoration class. The engagement of our little newsletter blew the socks off the industry standards.

Sending that weekly email was the highlight of my week. It was a chance to gather our thoughts, our excitement, and our news, and deliver it directly to people who cared (and would let us know if they didn't). This felt like meaningful progress.
We ended up building a following on social media, but try as we might, Best Made never felt quite at home there. And before I knew it the engagement on social media turned into something you had to pay for.

Today some of my favorite creators, musicians, writers, and thinkers come to me by way of email (some of which I even pay for). At its best, it's an uncomplicated dialogue that's not corrupted by an algorithm. And all this is why I am putting my chips down on Small Big Things.
Small Big Things is not a racehorse, it's what I'm calling this newsletter, and it's my direct dialog with you. On the one hand, it's me, the founder, reporting from the front lines of my company. But more than that it's a place for all of us, myself especially, to get excited and energized by the dialog that surrounds Best Made.