Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Milton Jordan.
Hi Katie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My day job is in economic development. I run SimpleEDO.ai, where I teach economic development organizations across the country how to leverage AI for maximum impact in their communities — practical workflows, not theory. I work with the professionals whose job it is to help regions grow, attract business, and build resilience.
But here’s the thing about economic development: you can study it all day, or you can live it. The Townie started as my “lab” — a real-world project where I could put my own principles into practice right here in the Texas Hill Country.
I noticed that the small towns I love — Mason, Brady, Menard, Junction, Llano, Fredericksburg — were full of life. Festivals, new businesses opening, neighbors doing remarkable things. But nobody was telling those stories in a way that felt modern or alive. The local papers were thinning out. Social media was noisy and scattered. There was no single place where you could sit down on a Thursday morning and just… know what was happening in your community.
So I built one.
The Townie is a free weekly newsletter that goes out every Thursday at 6 AM. We cover events, business spotlights, community features, agriculture intel, weather, an advice column called “Dear Hazel Mae & Fern,” weekly horoscopes — the whole porch. Our tagline is “Curated life, close to home,” and that’s exactly what we deliver. No politics. No crime. No drama. Just the good stuff — the hidden gems, the local legends, the best damn pie in the county.
What makes The Townie different is that it’s AI-native from day one. I use AI as a production partner — it helps me research, draft, format, and scale content that would normally take a full newsroom. But the curation is all human. The voice is mine. The stories are real. The philosophy is simple: human curation, AI execution. Rural doesn’t mean behind — it means under-told. And everything I learn building The Townie feeds directly back into what I teach EDOs at SimpleEDO — what works, what doesn’t, what AI can actually do for a small community when you pair it with someone who cares.
We’re at about 250 subscribers now with a 56% open rate, which is more than double the industry average. Almost half our readers say they’d “brag about us at the coffee shop,” which in a small town is the highest compliment you can get. We also launched a premium tier called The Townie Business Circle — $10 a month for local business owners who want deeper insights, networking, and quarterly in-person wine & idea nights.
The bigger vision is what I call “Townie in a Box” — licensing this model to other rural communities across the country. AI does the heavy lifting; a local founder provides the soul. If we can prove it works in Mason County, Texas, it can work anywhere small towns are being overlooked. That’s economic development in action — not a report on a shelf, but a porch light that’s actually on.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Building anything in rural America comes with a specific set of challenges that people in cities don’t think about.
First, there’s the trust gap. Small towns are tight-knit, and that’s beautiful — but it also means people are cautious about new voices. You can’t just show up with a newsletter and expect folks to care. You have to earn it edition by edition, week after week. You have to prove you’re not going to sensationalize their community, exploit their stories, or disappear in three months. That trust is slow-earned and easily lost. It’s sacred, and I treat it that way.
Second, infrastructure is different out here. There’s no co-working space down the street. No media meetups. No venture capital pipeline. You build with what you’ve got — a strong internet connection, a deep well of community knowledge, and the willingness to wear every hat: writer, editor, designer, marketer, publisher, customer service.
Third, convincing people that a newsletter about small towns matters. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some version of “but who’s your audience?” — as if 46 million Americans living in rural communities don’t count. The assumption is that media only works at scale, in metros, with massive audiences. The Townie is proof that depth beats width. A 56% open rate in a county of 4,000 people tells a different story about what “audience” means.
And then there’s the content challenge. When you cover a small region, you don’t have an infinite pool of stories. I had to build a tiered content system — full business spotlights, quick social mentions, seasonal revisits, thematic roundups — so we could feature 200+ businesses a year without burning through the roster or repeating ourselves.
None of this has been smooth, but all of it has been worth it. The struggles are the story. They’re what make The Townie real.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I wear two hats, and they feed each other.
My primary work is at SimpleEDO.ai, where I help economic development professionals across the country build practical AI workflows — the kind that actually move the needle in their communities. I teach EDOs how to use AI not as a buzzword but as a daily tool: for research, outreach, grant writing, business retention, prospect development. It’s hands-on, results-driven work, and I love it.
The Townie is where that work comes to life on the ground. It publishes every Thursday morning — a full-format newsletter with ten sections that rotate to keep things fresh. We open with a Letter from the Editor, move into business insights with rural metaphors, community news we call “Fresh off the Porch,” regional intel covering weather, agriculture, grants, and market snapshots, a featured story that alternates between essays, business spotlights, neighbor profiles, and hidden gems, our advice column with Hazel Mae and Fern (two very different voices — one folksy Texas grandmother, one quiet poet of the natural world), a social media roundup, themed horoscopes, and a pet of the week when one’s available from our local shelter.
The whole thing is designed to be readable in about five to seven minutes — curated, not cluttered. We use what I call the Potluck Test: if a topic would start an argument at a neighborhood potluck, we don’t touch it. That’s how we stay a place of common ground.
On the business side, we run The Townie Business Circle — a premium monthly newsletter for Main Street operators with practical frameworks, hiring strategies, marketing ideas, and quarterly in-person wine & idea nights. It’s $10 a month or $99 a year, and it’s built on the same principle: neighborly, actionable, no jargon.
The two ventures create a flywheel. Everything I build at The Townie becomes a case study for what I teach at SimpleEDO. And everything I learn from EDOs across the country makes The Townie sharper. What I’m most proud of is that together, they prove something I believe deeply: rural communities don’t need to wait for someone to save them. They just need better tools and someone willing to show up.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Three things I wish someone had told me:
Start before you’re ready, but stay longer than you want to. Everyone talks about launching. Nobody talks about week 14, when the novelty has worn off and you’re grinding out an edition at midnight wondering if anyone’s reading. They are. Keep showing up. Consistency builds trust, and trust is the only currency that compounds in a small town.
Depth beats width every single time. You don’t need a massive audience to build something meaningful. A 56% open rate with 250 people who genuinely care is worth more than 10,000 passive followers. Serve your people deeply. The growth follows the trust.
Use the tools available to you — especially AI — but never let the tool become the voice. I’m fully AI-native in my production workflow. AI helps me research, draft, and scale in ways I never could alone. But the curation is mine. The editorial judgment is mine. The voice is mine. AI is the printing press, not the journalist. If your readers can tell a robot wrote it, you’ve lost the thing that makes a local newsletter irreplaceable: soul.
Pricing:
- The Townie Weekly Edition: Free — published every Thursday at 6 AM CDT
- The Townie Business Circle (premium): $10/month or $99/year — monthly business insights, mentorship access, and quarterly in-person networking events
- Subscribe at: thetownie.ai
Contact Info:
- Website: The Townie: thetownie.ai // SimpleEDO (AI for Economic Development): SimpleEDO.ai
- Instagram: @thetownie.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiemiltonjordan/
