It's January. Please Don't Publish Anything Yet.
You're going to ignore this.
We know because we used to. You've got competitors publishing. You’ve got that content calendar that looks thin and your CEO or board asking what the Q1 plan is. Then there’s that voice in the back of your head saying that silence in January means falling behind.
So you're going to push something out this week. Something to prove there's momentum and to fill the gap.
We get it. That feeling of falling behind is loud right now.
You feel like you're falling behind
That urgent need to publish something—anything—in the first weeks of January? It's not strategic clarity. It's psychology.
Researchers at Wharton call it the Fresh Start Effect. Temporal landmarks like the new year create a mental separation between our past selves and our future potential, which triggers a motivational surge to act on goals.
It's why gym memberships spike. Why habit-tracking apps flood the download charts. Why your content calendar suddenly feels like an emergency.
The data is almost comically predictable. Activity spikes by as much as 50% on January 1st, then the first dip appears by the third week of the month. And it’s crazy when you learn that 80-90% of New Year's resolutions fail by the second week of February.
The pattern holds across industries: a surge of ambitious action, followed by a quiet return to the status quo.
Content teams aren't immune. The same psychology that has people signing up for gym memberships they'll abandon by Valentine's Day is pushing you to publish something (anything) to prove there's momentum.
Go look at what went live in your industry last January. We'll wait.
It's forgettable, right? Trend roundups. "What we learned in 2024" posts. Thought leadership that reads like it was written by someone with 45 minutes between planning meetings.
We think that's not a race worth winning. It’s a race to the middle.
Of course, this also means the Fresh Start Effect generates motivation for action, not motivation for the right action. It opens a window. It doesn't tell you what to do once you're through it.
So before you push that draft live this week, ask yourself: is this a real strategic move, or is this your brain responding to a calendar?
And if the answer is "a bit of both", if you genuinely believe publishing now will help you hit your Q1 numbers, we have some uncomfortable news about how content timing actually works.
But there’s this funny concept called the content-to-pipeline lag
You're not paid to publish. You're paid to generate pipeline. And no, those are not the same thing.
Content-to-pipeline lag is the delay between when you publish something and when it actually influences revenue. Someone reads your blog post in January. Maybe they come back in March and they book a demo in April. Then the deal closes in June.
What you’ll find is that, the January post doesn't show up or reflect influence at all in the Q1 numbers but shows up two quarters later.
At most B2B companies, this lag is 3-6 months. Sometimes longer depending on your sales cycle.
Which means the panic-publishing you're doing right now? It doesn't solve the thing you're panicking about. Q1 pipeline was most likely shaped by what you did last summer (not always but most likely).
So what is this week's rushed post for?
It's to make the calendar look full. It's to have something to report in the marketing sync. It's to feel like you're keeping pace with competitors who are also just trying to fill their calendars.
January gives you something no other month does
At early stage, you don't have brand equity cushioning mediocre content. Every piece is forming the market's impression of you. A "fine" blog post trains your audience to skim
past your name.
We think January is the one month where the pressure is fake, but the opportunity is very real. Everyone's heads-down in planning. Your buyers are surviving Q1 kickoffs, board prep, and the content treadmill has briefly paused.
Which means you have space to do the work that makes February through December worthwhile:
- Kill the zombies.
That draft from October you keep reopening and closing? It's not almost done. It's dead. The reason you can't finish it is because the idea wasn't strong enough. Let it go. You'll feel lighter than you expect.
- Talk to three customers this week.
And no, don’t talk about your product just yet. Talk about their Q1. What's on their roadmap? What are they worried about? What did they promise their board? That conversation will give you more content ammunition than a month of desk research.
- Find the thing everyone in your industry says, but nobody's tested.
Every market has received wisdom that gets repeated until it sounds true. "Buyers want self-serve." "Nobody reads long-form anymore." "You need to be on TikTok." Pick one and pressure-test it. That's a piece worth writing.
- Figure out your one real bet for the quarter.
One argument you're going to make better than anyone else. Everything else is filler.
The teams that build moats
The startups that build real content moats don't do it by publishing more. They do it by being the only ones willing to go deep on something specific.
Gong didn't win by covering every sales topic. They picked revenue intelligence and made it theirs. Drift didn't try to out-content HubSpot on inbound marketing. They invented conversational marketing and owned the conversation.
You probably can't own a category (and why the h*ll not?). But you can own an argument. A point of view. A specific way of seeing a problem that your buyers have.
Finding that takes more than 45 minutes between planning meetings. It takes the kind of focused work that January (when everyone else is scrambling to look busy) allows.
What we're asking
We're not asking you to "slow down and be strategic." That's consultant-speak. You have a number to hit and a team to justify.
We're asking you to be honest about whether the thing you're about to publish is going to help you hit that number or whether you're publishing it because silence feels scarier than mediocrity.
If it's the latter, don't publish it. Use this week to build the foundation that makes the rest of the quarter and beyond work.
Your competitors are all racing to post something forgettable this week. Let them.
Or, you know, ignore all this and publish that draft that's been sitting in your folder since October. Your call.
