Colin Wright

Content Strategist · Editorial Leader · Writer, Editor & Product Builder
Milwaukee, WI, USA · 310-866-2228 · colin@colin.io · linkedin.com/in/colinismyname

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Summary

Content strategist, editor, and publisher who has built and run content operations for 20 years, and made a living from the audiences they earned. Takes a business goal through planning, production, and measurement with very little oversight, having done every job in that chain himself. Now ready to put that range to work inside a team, on problems bigger than one publisher can take on alone.

Core capabilities

  • Content strategy · Editorial leadership · Copywriting & editing · Technical storytelling
  • Brand voice & messaging · Research & fact-checking · Content operations · Audience growth
  • Product content · Team leadership · AI-assisted workflows

Experience

Content Strategist, Editor & Publisher, Understandary June 2009–Present
  • Built and run a reader- and listener-funded media business, owning strategy, research, writing, editing, design, production, distribution, analytics, monetization, and support.
  • Publishing operation: Manage 12 scheduled sends each week plus monthly releases, about 675–700 editions, essays, podcasts, and curated products a year, with more than 5,000 published editions and episodes overall.
  • Editorial products: Produced 617 Let’s Know Things episodes, sustaining about 10,000 monthly downloads and 10,200 YouTube subscribers; grew the weekday One Sentence News briefing from zero to about 8,000 subscribers with a 67% open rate and no paid advertising.
  • Owned media: Publish Brain Lenses, Aspiring Generalist, Colin Wright’s Newsletter, Content Layer, and Exile Lifestyle; the latter reaches about 24,000 unique visitors per month and 1.5 million annual pageviews.
  • Truly Simple Tools: Launched 18 iOS and macOS apps in 16 months, generating 5,400+ first-time downloads across 111 countries with no advertising; about one in 18 downloads converts to a paid unlock. View project · Writing samples
  • MKE Meetups: Built a weekly newsletter and searchable event site to 1,400+ subscribers without paid acquisition, averaging 55% opens and 11% clicks while curating 2,000–3,000 annual listings from 100+ sources. View project · Writing samples
  • Client work: Content strategy, messaging, and web content for a small roster of clients, including a multi-year retained engagement.
  • Books and speaking: Wrote, designed, produced, and narrated 34 books and audiobooks; delivered 100+ talks and workshops in about 24 countries, including four TEDx events, with audiences as large as 2,000. View editorial work
Co-Founder & Creative Lead, Asymmetrical Press May 2012–May 2020
  • Co-led an independent publishing company and distributed operation of about 30 people, setting brand and editorial direction and stepping into production, event, and management work as needed.
  • Published 40 titles by 10 authors, coordinating writers, editors, designers, and formatters across as many as three overlapping releases.
  • Co-produced the multi-city Wordtasting Tour, combining author events, book promotion, speaking, and music across several dozen stops.
Brand Consultant & Creative Director, Colin Is My Name May 2008–May 2014
  • Built a referral-driven consultancy serving about 50 clients across technology, renewable energy, media, publishing, education, hospitality, professional services, and consumer products, with engagements of $10,000–$100,000.
  • Worked directly with founders and executives on discovery, positioning, voice, messaging, websites, identity systems, style guides, and launch materials; assembled and managed specialist collaborators when projects required them.
Founder, Creative Director & Art Director, Earlier Founder & Creative Director Roles 2006–2011
  • Began as the one-person creative department at a boutique production and design studio; founded Ebookling, Stim Magazine, and Zine-o-File; and held creative and art director roles for early-stage startups, a UN-aligned technology nonprofit, and an early carbon-neutral digital fashion magazine.

Selected research & recognition

  • What Counts as a Change Order? Self-directed ten-page research brief analyzing 130,782 federal contract actions across 11 fiscal years; built reproducible analysis, manually classified 200 records, created a 104-claim verification ledger, mapped a 30-asset content program, and produced five representative derivatives. View project
  • Selected recognition: Featured by NPR, The Boston Globe, Forbes, Paste, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Die Welt, Swedish Television, Radio New Zealand, The Next Web, and three documentary films.

Education

BFA, Graphic Design & Illustration, Missouri State University 2003–2007
Coursework in Philosophy, Santa Monica College 2008–2009

Tools

  • Publishing & analytics: WordPress, Substack, Ghost, Webflow, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, App Store Connect, YouTube and podcast analytics, Ahrefs, Semrush
  • Workflow & production: Notion, Airtable, Trello, Asana, Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Descript, Canva, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace
  • Product, data & AI: Xcode, Swift, SwiftUI, GitHub, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Codex, NotebookLM