Welcome fellow techno-cynics! Trend Mill is a sometimes insightful, always sassy newsletter that looks at the latest trends in business and tech with a critical/skeptical eye.
But who the hell am I?
When offering me advice for succeeding on Substack, someone recently told me, "Don't be seen as <random internet worker>."
Fair point.
If you're going to get me in your inbox every week, you should know a little bit more about me. So, let's clear that up. I'm Stephen Moore. I'm a writer (duh) and editor. Yes, it's very conventional stuff so far. But I didn't take the conventional route to get here.
I might seem put together, but my CV was a mess for most of my adult life. I graduated from university with a degree in Product Design that I’ve never used. I've been an on-again, off-again hospitality worker longer than I'd like to admit. Hotels, restaurants, kitchens, bars, theaters – you name it, I've worked it. I eventually plucked up the courage to start my own business that was somewhat related to my degree – a small, two-person bespoke shopfitting company called Roots Furniture – which did okay for several years. Then, the pandemic hit and shut down the entire industry we worked within (bars and restaurants).
It left my life at a crossroads.
At that point, I was a hobbyist-writer, writing on Medium to berate how unrealistic the consensus and advice around startups was. My take? It was pretty shitty for the most part. So when I found myself quarantined in my home, unable to travel to work, access our workshop, or work with clients, I was already teetering on the edge of making a change. I took the plunge. I walked away from the business to pursue becoming a full-time writer.
As words became more of my day-to-day life, I quickly realized being a hobbyist-writer is another way of saying "being broke as shit."
So, I started searching for opportunities to earn and build my reputation. I caught my first lucky break when somebody I admired on Medium reached out to me with a job opportunity. Before I knew it, I was Editor-In-Chief of the Post-Grad Survival Guide, a pub helping post-grads navigate the throws of life. After a few years of that, I ended up working at Medium itself, a real proud moment for me, alongside some actual journalists who did so much to help me progress. As an Editor and Creator Consultant, I ran the in-house publications focused on work, business and tech. It was at this moment I fell in love with the idea of writing about these subjects. After almost a year, Medium decided to blow that up and laid off the entire editorial team, closing the publications after that. It was my first sort-of-redundancy in the cutthroat world of writing. I'll admit I've had a couple more since. These days, I hold two roles: Editorial Lead at the Entrepreneur's Handbook and at a London-based Marketing Agency called MADX.
It's been a bit of a roller coaster. Since I started hobbyist-level writing in late 2016, I've,
built an audience of over 60,000 on Medium,
earned thousands of $$$ from my words,
edited the books of thought leaders,
ghostwritten articles for CEOs,
edited for publications and agencies.
But throughout the ride, I've honed my craft. I've done the hard yards to get my work to the level it is today. I'm not a tech or business insider, and don't try to be. If anything, I'm an outsider. I don't have sources. I don't have a connection to people in the industry. I'm certainly not a mouthpiece for anyone. What I am is someone filled with passion for sharing words. I have strong opinions, and an ever-growing sense of dread as to what the future holds.
What is Trend Mill?
That brings us to this newsletter, Trend Mill, which began as an actual paid (!) column I had for Medium's business publication Marker (shout out to my then-editor, Jean-Luc Bouchard, who came up with the catchy column name. It’s a play on a treadmill, which, you know, keeps on going round, much like business and tech trends.) I only got a few entries into the project before it ended with Medium's editorial pivot, leaving my dreams in tatters.
For a while, it sat dormant. Now, it has been resurrected on this platform, and it's here to stay. Trend Mill is a sometimes insightful, always sassy newsletter that looks at the latest trends in business and tech with a critical eye. And, as the feature image suggests, one by one, we'll watch them come and go. It features a healthy dose of dunking on Big Tech, the Metaverse, NFTs, crypto, A.I. and whatever the "next big thing" is.
As we hurtle towards a dystopian Metaverse hellscape future without thought for the consequences, led by megalomaniac tech overlords who care about nothing but their ego, power and share price — why not subscribe and share in the fun (read: misery) with me.
