Helping businesses deliver impact by enhancing their visibility and reputation | Founder of arco.

I spent my early twenties collecting careers like stamps. Architecture degree, music production, entrepreneurship—each pivot made perfect sense at the time, but from the outside it looked like I couldn't commit to anything.

The truth was simpler: I had no idea who I was, so how could I know what to do?

I discovered this wasn't just my problem. Almost everyone I knew—smart, capable people with good degrees—felt completely lost about their careers. We'd been taught how to get jobs, but nobody taught us how to figure out what work would actually fulfil us.

That realisation changed everything. I saw that the real problem wasn't a lack of opportunities or skills. It was that most career advice starts at step 10 when people like us were still stuck at step 1: understanding ourselves.

Now I'm building tools and communities to fix this:

TrueNorth: An AI-powered career coach that starts with self-discovery, not job listings

MidWeek: London events bringing together people navigating career uncertainty

Still Wandering: A newsletter documenting the messy reality of finding meaningful work

I work with people in their 20s and 30s who know they want something more from work but can't articulate what that is. People who've tried following conventional career paths but felt like they were wearing someone else's clothes.

My approach is simple: you can't build a meaningful career until you understand what meaning means to you. Everything else—the skills, the networking, the applications—comes after that.

If you're tired of career advice that assumes you already know what you want, let's talk.

Alex McCann

The CEO of Anthropic just predicted a "white-collar bloodbath."

50% of entry-level white-collar jobs eliminated within five years. Unemployment potentially hitting 10-20%.

And the data backs it up.

UK tech companies cut graduate roles by 46% last year. They're expecting another 53% drop by 2026. I've spoken to people who've sent 300 applications and heard back from maybe five.

What gets me is the disconnect.

The people creating this technology are openly warning about what's coming. They're the ones sounding the alarm. Meanwhile, most of the advice young people receive still assumes the old system works. Get good grades. Build your network. Tailor your CV.

That advice was already struggling. Now it feels like teaching someone to be a brilliant switchboard operator in 1995.

I don't pretend to know exactly what replaces the current system. The honest answer is that nobody does, including the people building the technology that's reshaping it.

But I'm fairly confident about one thing: the gap between what's happening and what people are being told is getting dangerous.

When the CEO of Anthropic is more worried about entry-level job destruction than most of the infrastructure designed to help people find work, something has gone wrong.

Alex  McCann

Founder of Truenorth | Re-thinking Traditional Career Advice and helping people find meaningful work | Writer at Still Wandering Newsletter

He built a 20,000-person community. It didn't make him feel any less alone.

Two years ago, Charlie Rogers and AJ . told me to read 🌀 David Spinks's book. He co-founded CMX, built one of the largest networks for community builders in the world, had a successful acquisition.

Childhood isolation had made him hypersensitive to connection. He was brilliant at reading rooms, exceptional at bringing people together. The pain-into-purpose playbook.

But when I asked if that purpose had healed the original wound, he said no. If anything, it distracted him from healing it.

He spent fifteen years building something successful while struggling with anxiety and negative self-talk the entire time.

He calls it dirty fuel versus clean fuel.

Dirty fuel is when you're working to fill a hole, driven by fear or shame or the need to prove you're enough. Clean fuel is when you're already whole, driven by curiosity and connection and the work itself. Both look identical from the outside, both produce real results, but one burns you out.

Finding meaning in your suffering is different from healing from it. You can build an entire career on the former without ever doing the latter.

Full interview on my Substack. Link in comments.

The CEO of LinkedIn just called five-year career plans "a little bit foolish."

His words: "when you know technology and the labor market and everything is moving beneath you," mapping out the next five years makes no sense. You're planning for a world that won't exist by the time you get there.

I think he's probably right.

But here's what's interesting.

The school system rewards planning. University admissions reward planning. Job interviews ask where you see yourself in five years, and there's a correct type of answer. The entire infrastructure of career advice is built around the assumption that you can plot a trajectory and follow it.

Now the CEO of the platform that hosts most professional networking is saying the premise is broken.

So what replaces it?

"Be adaptable" is true but useless. "Build transferable skills" assumes you know which skills won't be automated next year. "Follow your curiosity" works if you have the financial cushion to experiment, which most people don't.

The uncomfortable truth might be that we're in a transition period where the old frameworks have stopped working but the new ones haven't solidified yet.

Which is a difficult thing to tell someone who needs to make decisions about their career right now.

By 2026, one in five companies will have eliminated half their management layers.

Middle managers made up a third of all layoffs in 2023. Companies are advertising 42% fewer management positions than they were two years ago.

The theory is that AI can handle the coordination, the reporting, the communication that middle managers used to do. Flatter organisations, faster decisions, lower costs.

I've been thinking about what gets lost when you remove those layers.

Mentorship becomes a luxury. The people who translate strategy into action disappear. Someone has to notice when things aren't working and flag it before it becomes a disaster. Someone has to develop the next generation.

Deloitte found that fewer than 4 in 10 managers feel equipped for the people side of their jobs. Now there will be fewer of them, responsible for more people, with less time for the human elements that technology can't replicate.

There's a version of this that works out fine. Flatter organisations with better tools, more autonomy for individual contributors, less bureaucratic friction.

But I suspect what we'll mostly get is the cost savings without the investment in making the new structure work.

Fewer managers. Same expectations. Everyone stretched thin. Nobody with time to develop the people coming up behind them.

The generation best equipped to work with AI can't get hired.

Gen Z workers have the highest AI readiness of any generation: 22% score high on AI quotient measures, compared to 6% for Baby Boomers.

This makes intuitive sense. They grew up with the technology. They're more comfortable experimenting with it, more willing to integrate it into how they work.

And yet companies are systematically eliminating the entry-level positions that would let them into the workforce.

I keep coming back to how backwards this is.

The people most equipped to figure out how AI integrates into work are being locked out of work entirely. Meanwhile, the people least comfortable with the technology are the ones making decisions about how to deploy it.

Only 23% of organisations offered any AI training last year. Employees are mostly teaching themselves. The companies loudly declaring themselves "AI-forward" aren't investing in helping people learn how to use the technology. They're using AI as a justification for headcount reduction.

There's a version of this transition that could have gone differently. Where companies invested in training, brought in younger workers specifically for their comfort with the technology, built institutional knowledge about what works and what doesn't.

Instead we got the version where AI is primarily a cost-cutting story.

Eliminate junior roles. Expect remaining staff to figure it out on their own. Declare victory.

I don't know what happens when an entire generation is told their skills are needed but they're not allowed through the door.

55% of companies regret laying off workers for AI.

That number stopped me when I first saw it.

The pattern is this: companies fire people based on what AI might be able to do in the future. Then they discover the AI isn't ready yet. Then, rather than admit the mistake, they quietly rehire offshore at significantly lower salaries.

The prediction is that half of all AI-attributed layoffs will follow this exact pattern.

Here's what I think is happening.

AI will fundamentally change how companies operate. The type of work people do. The skills that matter. That part is real.

But we haven't figured out how to get there yet.

What this data reveals is that many companies are rushing the transition, making layoff decisions based on capabilities that don't exist, and then scrambling to cover the gap. They're optimising for the press release rather than the actual transformation.

The companies that get this right will be the ones that lay foundations first. That invest in understanding what AI can and can't do before restructuring around it. That treat the transition as a multi-year process rather than a single dramatic announcement.

2026 might be the year that separates the companies managing this transition intelligently from the ones who rushed it and are now quietly cleaning up the mess.

I write newsletters for a living • I also share my thoughts on self-improvement, creativity & philosophy • 5+ years in marketing

I work as the behind-the-scenes operator for founder-led brands who want their newsletter to be their sharpest asset. That means capturing your voice, turning your ideas into weekly narratives, and building a consistent rhythm that compounds trust, demand, and sales over time.

I’m proud to have worked with 40+ clients across accountancy firms, marketing agencies, design studios, FinTech, Sunday Times bestselling authors, vertical SaaS, and leaders in the UK creator economy.

If you’re already doing ~£150k+/month and want a long-term email operator who can run the channel end-to-end (strategy, writing, cadence, and execution), you’re in the right place.

If you’re earlier than that, you’ll likely get a better ROI once your offer and demand are a little more proven - and I’ll happily point you to the right next step.

-

If you want to learn how I recently helped a B2B agency generate 7-figures in pipeline revenue, DM me the word "INFO".

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

6 milestone outcomes my clients achieved in 2025:

- Generated $1.17M in pipeline rev
- Launched a Podcast & paid Substack
- Grew to 1K subs in <30 days
- Hit a £70K course launch 
- Hosted 2 in-person events

And added ~20K new email subscribers across the board. 

Some of these results were a direct result of their newsletters, others were downstream effects.

But my clients all came to the same conclusion:

If you want these results, you have to be consistently nurturing your email list (at an extremely high quality). 

You need to make it easy for the right people to remember you exist, and to become part of your ideal clients weekly routine. 

You'll have a far easier time reaching these people when they're ready to buy this way, as opposed to when they're scrolling through 100s of overstimulating posts at once. 

I cannot stress this enough. 

-

I’m ending 2025 grateful to have crossed 2 years of running this business. 

Still surreal that it started as a simple idea:

“Maybe I can add one client a month to my 9-5 salary”

Funny how it all works! 

P.S. 

Thank you Thomas for the post inspo 🤝

Newsletter Management Partner for Founder-led Brands | Founder @ Motif

Alicia Teltz has a well earned reputation for running brilliant webinars and events...

...but before working together she didn’t have a way to turn those webinar attendees into newsletter subs (and eventually nurture and convert them into her paid community).

But today, after a 4-week DWY sprint together, she now has a 14-day conversion focused welcome flow, a beehiiv account set up and ready to go, and a killer lead magnet. 

The last part of our process together, which is still in progress, is a newsletter opt-in page (with a quiz funnel and thank you page built in). 

This is what Alicia had to say: 

“Harrison slipped into my DMs at exactly the right time when I was thinking about launching a newsletter. I had an initial chat with him and instantly felt he knows his sh*t 🤓. As frazzled as my mind is, he guided me through the whole process and made it super simple for me to understand what needs to be done and the effects it will yield. Can’t recommend him highly enough and currently planning to bring him on as an expert in my community to educate my members about the benefits of starting a newsletter.”

Excited for Alicia to continue crushing it with webinars (you might even see me chatting on one coming up 👀), especially now that her funnel has a clear path to growing MRR!

-

If this process sounds like something you’d like to hear more about, DM me here on LinkedIn and we can talk it over.

Cheap tools I use in my one-person business to save time & make money:

Perspective:
builds clean, conversion-focused opt-in pages for client funnels

beehiiv: 
runs client newsletters, automations, and list growth in one place

Calendly: 
makes it frictionless to book calls

Zapier: 
connects client funnels, forms, and email tools behind the scenes

Fireflies.ai: 
captures and summarises client calls so nothing gets missed

Claude: 
thinking partner for writing and strategy

And that is all I pay for. 

I have no team or contractors, although I’ve tried this previously. 

For now, and likely this full year, I’m enjoying keeping it lean. 

Anything not in my stack that I’m missing out on?

82% of newsletters aren't using any automation beyond a basic welcome email.

I had to read that a few times.

beehiiv dropped their State of Newsletters 2026 report. 28 billion emails analysed. And that stat genuinely shocked me.

It means 82% of newsletter operators are actively leaving money, attention, and trust on the table. 

Every single week.

The window right after someone subscribes is the most valuable attention you will ever have from that person. They just raised their hand. They're curious. They're leaning in. They will never be more receptive to you than they are in that moment.

And 82% of people send one email. Maybe two. Thanks for subscribing, here's your thing, see you whenever.

Then nothing.

Silence until the first broadcast lands. By which point half of them have forgotten who you are and why they signed up in the first place.

I genuinely don't understand it. 

It means the bar is on the floor.

It means if you set up proper welcome infrastructure, you're immediately in the top 18% of newsletter operators. 

Most people are so focused on growing their list that they completely ignore what happens after someone joins it. They're pouring water into a bucket with holes in the bottom and wondering why it never fills up.

The opportunity here is absurd.

If you have a newsletter and you're not running a proper welcome sequence, you're competing with one hand tied behind your back against people who also have one hand tied behind their back.

Fix it and you're suddenly in a different race entirely.

P.S. 

If you missed it, I put out a post that shows you exactly:

how I structure high-converting welcome flows

what each phase is responsible for

why aggressive onboarding outperforms “polite” email every single time

Link in the comments to check it out.

I make my living writing and managing newsletters for 6–7 figure brands. 

A common thing I pick up on when I audit lists (even very good ones):

They spend all their energy getting the subscriber…
…then do almost nothing with the highest-intent window they’ll ever have.

The first 14 days after someone opts in decide:

- whether they trust you
- whether they remember you
- whether they ever buy from you

Most waste this window with:

 “Thanks for subscribing”
 “Here’s the free thing”
 “Talk soon”

I regret to inform that this is boring and forgettable 😥 

This carousel breaks down:

how I structure high-converting welcome flows

what each phase is responsible for

why aggressive onboarding outperforms “polite” email every single time

If your list isn’t converting the way you’d like it to, this is usually why.

👇

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The Battle

Alex McCann

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

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taplio

The Battle

Alex McCann

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Alex McCann's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreHarrison McIntyre-Miller's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAlex McCann's LinkedIn Performance