Learn how to bootstrap your tech brand in less than 12 min per week, for free.
Every week, get one insight on brand strategy, one actionable technique to design-it-yourself and one curated list of aesthetic excellence. Use this 3-in-1 combo to build a product image that accelerates early adoption and funding.
You'll read each EV letter in 2 minutes or less.
They are free. Get them delivered to your inbox:
What will you get
after subscribing to EV?
[ 01 ]
strategic setup
on Mondays
Find the RIGHT direction, avoid common mistakes and make better plans for a long and successful game:
▉ visual identity
▉ 435 words
▉ early branding
▉ 390 words
▉ visual languages
▉ 327 words
[ 02 ]
how-to tactics
on Wednesdays
Design-it-yourself by following step-by-step process breakdowns, dos-&-don't and field-tested tactics like:
▉ early branding
▉ 298 words
▉ visual languages
▉ 279 words
▉ early branding
▉ 248 words
[ 03 ]
curated lists
on Fridays
Develop a designer-grade aesthetic taste, get inspired and use the hand-picked resources:
▉ early branding
▉ 486 words
▉ visual languages
▉ 864 words
▉ visual languages
▉ 310 words
Created for
developers-turned-founders
by Ira Nezhynska
Need a test drive?
Browse the archive
▇▇ FAQs
Who is the audience?
Developers-turned-founders, who have never been curious about the go-to-market side of tech, but their lives took a turn, and now they want their previously experimental products to be used and loved by many. These are the people I’ve been serving since 2018. These are my people.
Who else will find EV helpful?
Who else will find EV helpful?
- Product managers who seek product growth with limited marketing funds while wearing a marketing hat, just because 'we are a small team'.
- Product designers, who, as a design team of one, also do visual branding for their projects.
- Builders of decentralized tech who are generally curious about how aesthetics influence people.
What is your business model?
I started EV not because of a business model, but because of the ”die empty” idea, which comes from the “Die Empty” book by Todd Henry.
Last year, I had a reason to consider stopping all my commercial design work to empty myself in the form of a book.
Good news: it turned out I don’t need to. Not now. And yet, that situation made me move my long-buried plan to write a book from 'backlog' to 'in-progress'.
As I started planning, years of working in early tech overtook how I approached the dream.
If a book is a product, you’d better do a Proof-of-Concept first.
What can be a PoC for a book? A newsletter!
And here we are.
What can be a PoC for a book? A newsletter!
And here we are.
I’m also working on another dream — a brand school for builders. Not for designers, but for first-time-founders. You can read about it here.
So, no, there is no business idea behind Embrace Variety. EV is a POC for a book and the future curriculum.
Is it a newsletter?
Embrace Variety is both a newsletter and a website. Mainly, it's a website.
It's not what newsletters are typically known for. You will never receive news or other promo material as the main topic of the email. See it as an open publication that arrives in your inbox because you subscribed. Like fresh-baked bread delivered to your door every morning! (No-news-letter sounds just right.)
You’ll receive emails from me three times per week:
Mondays — strategy advice to set up for a long-term game.
Wednesdays — step-by-step how-tos and field-tested tactics.
Fridays — inspiration lists or design-it-yourself resources.
Subscription is optional. However, when you subscribe, you’ll get access to the worksheets and templates, while as a non-subscriber, you can read only public posts.
Three emails per week are too much. Can you make it weekly?
No.
But I tried.
But I tried.
A month after Embrace Variety launched, a few readers told me that three issues per week were too much. Because I’m writing for your success, not for my ambition, I took a 4-week pause to rework the EV format into a weekly newsletter.
After redesigning, replanning and researching, I came to the conclusion: EV will remain at the three emails per week frequency.
Why? For only one reason — it is better for your business.
Why? Think about it: EV has three parts — Strategy, Tactics and Inspirations.
Giving you strategy advice without tactics is like telling you how to shoot billion-dollar panoramas of the savannah at night without sharing the camera presets and the list of the required lenses and filters with you. Wednesdays are our tooling and practice days.
Giving you strategy advice and tactics without exposing you to the greatest works of others will limit your realm of quality work. How do people become great writers? They read iconic books. Fridays are our taste-elevation days, when we “go to the gallery or museum”. Together. And I’m your curator.
But how far can you go with tactics and inspiration only, without strategy? Pretty far! Most startups do it for the first months. And then, they fail. Because they overlooked the main value of strategy — to give you the right direction and save you from mistakes.
You need all three parts to be successful when branding your project. But when all three parts are merged into one, they form a giant 2000-word article. Imagine you received this giant article. You scroll it. It’s 2000 words long. It overwhelms you. So, you decide to leave it for later. And then, you never read it.
So, I came up with a better solution.
There are two subscription tiers in EV: The EV on Strategy and the Ultimate EV.
By default, you subscribe to the Ultimate EV. If you prefer to receive only Monday emails on strategy, let me know by replying to any email from me. And I’ll manually update your email address to the weekly frequency.
I have a specific question. Can you answer it?
Sure! If you'd like me to unpack something specific for your project or industry, just email me at iryna@nezhynska.com or submit your question anonymously here. Then, keep an eye on the EV website or subscribe now to receive an answer in your inbox.
I subscribed but I’m not receiving anything from you.
Two possible issues here:
- If you use Google Workspace and don't see emails coming, check your Promotions folder. Drag the email that brought you here to the Primary Tab and drop it there. That's it.
- You did not confirm your subscription at all. The confirmation link expires quickly, so subscribe again and keep an eye on the confirmation email from Ghost.
If nothing above is your case, email me at iryna@nezhynska.com
Will you sell me your services if I subscribe?
No.
As an early reader, you will never receive any flash-sale style communication from me. You will also notice that I don’t use giant footers to promote my services.
The only no-content messages you’ll get from me occasionally are the various tokens of appreciation for being an EV reader. For example: discounted seats for workshops, free templates, demo invitation, etc.
What help do you provide? Is it free?
Everything you read in Embrace Variety is free.
The released on Metalabel e-zine is free too.
In-person Brand Lab workshops are free for event attendees when they are a part of the conference programming. For example, workshops at Devcons, Protocol Berg, DWeb Camps, ZuConnect and other events were included in the ticket price.
I’m moving Brand Lab workshops online this year. Online Brand Labs will be paid. But I’ll be recruiting two test cohorts who will attend workshops for free. Email me if you are interested. Subscribers will hear about the test cohorts first.
I earn a living by doing hands-on brand design work — branding, rebranding and overall creative direction. To check what impact brand aesthetics can make on your business and estimate possible budget options, schedule a 45-minute discovery call with me.
See you on the other side!
