The Year in Tax
Reflections on our first full year.
2024 was the first full year of TAX. It was a year full of experimenting and learning.
We planned to launch four issues this year. By March, it became evident that doing four issues would have really stretched our resources thin, and we decided to switch to a biannual schedule to ensure we can maintain quality.
We also made some outright mistakes. Not company-ending mistakes, no (thankfully). But plenty of learning experiences and growing pains. These included:
underestimating (and then later re-printing) demand for prints.
sampling issues with up our first merch.
one or two photoshoots that yielded less-than-ideal results.
Missing the target launch date for Issue 4.
I like to say that mistakes are learning experiences, and I learned a lot about what it takes to run the magazine.
We’ve also accomplished a lot this year. Paramount, we launched our biggest issue to date. Clocking in at nearly 200 pages and featuring beautifully produced photos and original writing, I believe Issue 4 “Grab Bag” was the best glimpse yet of what I hope Tax to be. I have never worked in magazines or editorial before, and we had a lot of hard early lessons to learn (our first three issues were done in Canva, after all). Issue 4 felt like a big success in creating high-quality content.
Here are some other highlights from 2024:
Jan: Launching Issue 3 featuring Alex Peter (Loloverruled).
Feb: Launching prints for the first time.
March: Getting into our first stores, doing our first in-person photoshoots in NYC.
April: Interviewing one of my favorite artists for Issue 5 of Tax.
August: Launching Issue 4 of Tax- nearly 200 pages of all original content, and over a dozen stories we produced with amazing collaborators.
September: Signing with our distributor to get Tax into more stores globally.
October: Bringing on our first part-time team member.
December: landing in stores across Europe.
Looking ahead to 2025
Future plans
We have two issues slated for 2025:
Issue 5 (S/S) ‘Continuum’ on April 15th
Issue 6 (F/W) in October
We’ve been hard at work on Issue 5, and I’m excited to begin planning for Issue 6 next month. We’re also planning to launch our digital site, Tax Takeout, in the coming weeks (think, bite-sized digital stories). We’ve got some other things planned too. Lastly, we’re working on our first merchandise, and trying hard to get that right and make it special.
Here are our core priorities for 2025:
Narrowing in on our product and brand positioning. What is an issue of Tax? What does it look like, and who buys it?
Growing our distribution through organic marketing and PR.
Expanding the Tax brand with physical merchandise (coming soon).
Onward and upward
In 2025, I am trying to be a better leader, a faster decision-maker, and a more effective communicator. My commitment is to keep trying, and showing up every day, and seeing what we can build together. I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Thank you for following along with our journey, and for all of your support this past year. It really does mean a lot to me.
Happy holidays from Tax. Talk soon.
-Noah
P.S. I love reading your feedback/comments on here- AMA!