How a wealth manager built his brand through writing
Cape May's Jan Voss on LinkedIn algorithms, sharing what you know, and punching above his weight against Goldman and JPMorgan
This is Eleanot.es, a newsletter about people who use writing to build things. If you haven’t yet subscribed, join me.
One of my long-term “investment theses” is what I call writing-first practitioners: individuals who use consistent public writing to sharpen their thinking, build networks, and attract opportunity.
AI makes content creation trivially easy (have you looked at your LinkedIn feed recently?). But the discipline and original thinking required to write well will only increase this archetype’s competitive edge. It’s hard to fake.
Wealth manager Jan Voss started posting his takes on LinkedIn in 2023 and grew from a few thousand to 20,000 followers. Now he runs Cape May, a wealth management firm for single family offices in Germany, and his newsletter is core to how he builds his brand and wins clients.
We talked about what it takes to make writing work for your business—and how words and insights can help you punch above the Goldman Sachs and JPMorgans of the world.
Takeaways from our conversation:
You don’t have to invent a framework to own it. Jan’s most impactful pieces have been about an investing framework he didn’t create, but by writing about it consistently, he’s become synonymous with it.
Transparency can be a powerful competitive tool. By sharing knowledge openly, you give potential clients a ruler to measure their existing advisors against. You might just come out ahead.
You don't need to write a magnum opus. Share a Bloomberg article with your take. As long as it's your opinion and view, people will listen.
Build on rented land, then move. Start on LinkedIn or X to build an audience, then migrate them to a platform you control and where your posts have staying power.
Q: How did you start writing?
I’ve always read a lot, but my first attempts at writing were in 2021-2022 when I started posting articles on LinkedIn that I found interesting.
Then in 2023, I made the move from being a head of family office into self-employment. I knew that when I was trying to reach and work with clients, I would need materials. I could prepare materials in advance and let them sit in a drawer, or scramble to prepare everything ad hoc before meetings—neither felt efficient. Good ideas need time to ripen.
So I figured—why not just write about what our clients find interesting, what I find interesting, and share it with the public on LinkedIn? Luckily in 2023, the LinkedIn algorithm still really liked that. I saw explosive growth in my follower numbers—from 1,500-2,000 followers to almost 20,000. People wanted to hear what I had to say.
But the LinkedIn algorithm, like any social media algorithm, changes. 2023 was a very good year, 2024 was a very bad year. I started to realize I was hitting limits there.
The issue is that social media is so fast-paced and there’s so much content, so stuff that I wrote more than two weeks ago is essentially gone forever. Even my most loyal readers don’t see everything I post on LinkedIn. So I needed a place where I could start writing long-form content, where these posts have staying power.
“Even my most loyal readers don’t see everything I post on LinkedIn. So I needed a place where I could start writing long-form content, where these posts have staying power.”
That’s when, in the beginning of 2024, I decided to turn this into a newsletter, and it’s slowly evolved ever since.
Q: How many subscribers do you have? Or are numbers even your focus?
Right now I’m at about 2,200, which compared to other newsletters may feel small. But this is a niche publication, since we focus on affluent investors with net worths in the millions, and when I look into the subscriber list, some of the most famous, well-known investors and individuals in Berlin and elsewhere are on there.
I think the underlying metrics—how much AUM [assets under management] is reading this newsletter, or how many people are taking the time to read this newsletter again and again—have a bit more depth than just the subscriber figure.
Q: How has long-form writing and the writing you did on LinkedIn helped you push your thinking forward as an investor and wealth manager?
One thing that’s been very interesting is—and this is probably some sort of selection bias—the people we work with really like this idea that they can take the time and sit down and read one of these posts to understand something better.
I call it “Finance 201” as opposed to “Finance 101.” There are a lot of sources out there about “how should I buy my first ETF?” But when you evolve past that—“How do I optimize my ETF portfolio? Should I invest into private equity? How do I build the perfect venture capital portfolio?”—there are very few resources. And the banks and GPs that have this knowledge are not very willing to share it publicly unless you work with them.
Being willing to share this knowledge has resonated well. We don’t want to be gatekeepers to the secrets of investing.
“Being willing to share this knowledge has resonated well. We don’t want to be gatekeepers to the secrets of investing.”
There are probably some people out there who take these recommendations and don’t reach out to us because it’s enough for them. But a much larger group reaches out saying, “I’m not going to put this into action myself. Can you help me?”
Q: I felt this kind of gatekeeping behavior in venture capital as well, when actually the benefits you get from transparency can be far more beneficial for your brand.
It also provides people with a benchmark: How do I work with a wealth manager? When should you not work with a wealth manager? People use our insights as the ruler with which they measure their existing relationships. And very often, we come out well in this comparison against many of the banks.
Q: What themes or individual pieces have really resonated—things that people reference time and time again?
It’s definitely the Aspirational Investor Framework.
To preface a little: Today, when you go to a bank for help managing your wealth, they ask, “How are you feeling today— Conservative, moderate, aggressive? Do you want private equity or not?” And they give you a model portfolio. That’s a good approach—we do this too. But if you’re not a pension fund or insurance company, it’s hard to think about how this translates to you, the human behind the portfolio.
When I started out, I didn’t just want to focus on these very stiff asset allocation models. I wanted to find something more approachable. And I found the Aspirational Investor Framework, which is not my invention—although funnily enough, some people think so—but was invented by the former chief investment officer of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.
He was focused on “goals-based investing”—not just “How much do you want to invest in hedge funds?” but “What are you trying to achieve with all of your investments? How much of a safety buffer do you need? How much money do you need for retirement?” And he then translated this into a portfolio for clients.
I’ve written about this many times on LinkedIn and in the newsletter, and somehow this has been my most lasting impact on this German wealth scene. I meet clients who hadn’t met me before but who have read about the framework and implemented it.
There’s a group of entrepreneurs here, all with high double-digit net worths who meet up once a quarter to show each other their portfolios and discuss what’s going well, what’s not. Because of my writing, they’ve also made it one of their steps to outline their portfolios according to this Aspirational Investor Framework.
It’s starting to propagate itself without my involvement—people tell their friends about it.
Q: That’s when you know a story or a narrative is powerful—when other people tell other people about it. What’s your writing process? How much time do you spend per week on the newsletter?
It depends on the week. Writing the newsletter, getting it polished, and turning it into a longer LinkedIn post—probably takes a maximum of four hours on a good week.
But a friend pointed out to me: “Maybe the process takes you four hours, but you’re probably spending half of your time reading articles anyway, or listening to podcasts at the gym.” That’s probably true. It’s a bit hard to measure.
Q: Do you use AI in your writing at all?
Very little so far, but I am trying to use it more. I don’t want to get to the point where I use it to write newsletters. People want to read human thought. They want to know what we think and how we’ve applied things in practice.
But I want to use it to refine the process—maybe using it as a writing coach, checking if I’m missing anything, helping me think about how I can use this content elsewhere, such as reusing it as a white paper. That’s one of my to-dos for this year.
Q: Many people ask me how to get started writing. What would you recommend?
I often see people get started, spend a week writing the perfect LinkedIn post, get like three likes, and give up. But writing is tough in the beginning, and it takes time to build an audience. Just like with anything in life—whether it’s going to the gym or getting into a new hobby—you just need to commit to it for a certain amount of time and stick with it.
“I often see people get started, spend a week writing the perfect LinkedIn post, get like three likes, and give up. But writing is tough in the beginning, and it takes time to build an audience.”
One thing I’ve learned is that it has to be the right balance of quantity and quality. You don’t need to write massive blog posts. In the end, people value your original thought. It can be as simple as sharing an article on LinkedIn with your take. This is what I was doing back in 2023—taking Bloomberg articles and sharing my spin. Do I agree with it? Why do I think this one transaction might set precedent for something else? That really helped me build a brand.
Get started on any of these platforms—whether it’s LinkedIn or X—and start building a following there. Once you have an audience, try to bring them onto another platform where people are more captive to you, whether it’s Beehiiv, Substack, or any of these other tools.
Q: It’s so cool to see how far you’ve come in not a very long period of time!
Three years to overnight success, right? It really has helped with brand building and thought leadership. It’s cool when I walk into a conference and somebody says to me, “I love your newsletter,” and I have no idea who that person is.
I’m always surprised when people reach out to us saying, “I don’t need what Goldman or JPMorgan are saying, I like what you have to say.” We’re punching above our weight. Now we need to make sure that we can satisfy the expectations we’ve set by putting ourselves out on the internet.
📚 Jan’s reading list:
Finance and investment
Matt Levine (Money Stuff)—“The absolute star. He’s made a living out of taking very complex financial matters and turning them into something people enjoy reading daily.”
Road to Carry (penewsletter.com)—A private equity newsletter that finds the sweet spot between entertainment and business. “His last issue was about how a PE fund did a roll-up in bail bonds in the US—a business model I didn’t even know existed.”
Sven Lorenz (Undervalued Shares)—“An icon in the value investing community.”
Writing
Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One—One of Jan’s two go-to recommendations for anyone asking how to get started with writing.
The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention—His second recommendation for aspiring writers. On finding an audience, building a process, and what to focus on.
Know a writing-first practitioner I should talk to? Do you consider yourself one? Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Brilliant. You always have such an insightful perspectiv on how real value is created. It truly makes me wonder about the long-term impact of this writing discipline.