1 year of yPolitics

Hi!

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Thursday marked 1 year since yPolitics was launched; a lot since then has changed.

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We launched in Dec 2024 with around 20/30 students writing, mostly from 7 uni’s who’s politics societies I had dm’d or emailed. People signed up to write without even seeing the yPolitics website, just a landing page. Our first website didn’t look good, was really clunky, and left a lot to be desired (that’s Wix for you). But the ball was rolling.

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My logic behind yPolitics was always:

1. Student journalism could be so much better
2. Young people in politics feel like there’s something missing
3. There is space for a platform that can answer both these problems

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So we set out to build the political home for young people, a platform that:

1. Looked good and had a truly national reach
2. Innovated (i.e. providing new ways to consume news like our news matrix)
3. Operated well (no slow turnarounds like with uni newspapers)
4. Punched above it’s weight (i.e. launching a daily newsletter)
5. Actually gave young people the resources they wanted (i.e. job database)
6. Could make a real world difference (i.e. school outreach programme)
7. Brought the smartest young politics students together

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Now our team is over 100 people strong; something that is still crazy for me to think about. A whole lot of credit goes to our CPO Amelia for overseeing our growth so well.

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I owe a lot of thank you’s to everyone involved in the company and especially to our incredible team of Editors (Ffion, Rosie, Leon, Tom & Rhea) and our Newsletter Team (James, Lucy, Bethan, Issi, Ellen, Sam, Piedade, Jacob, Jan, Ollie & Julia). To Henri who has helped with our social media and Eloise & Kuba who are helping with events and our school outreach programme respectively. But also to all the people who have given me pointers and helped push yPolitics in the right direction. If you want to join our incredible team, find open roles here!

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So, thank you being a part of the yPolitics journey. Whether you’re a member, part of the team or you’ve just heard about us and are intrigued about what we’ve been up to in our first year, we truly appreciate your support.

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But of course, we are not done yet. The goal for 2026 will simply be to 10x everything. We’ve got some great momentum, and we’re going to keep things moving. On the agenda for the start of the new year is properly launching and growing our school outreach programme, expanding our events offering and finding new and innovative ways to tell the stories we have.

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When I started this all a year ago, I wasn’t sure whether there would be any demand for what I was building and whether I’d have to give up after a few months. I’m glad this wasn’t true. Progress hasn’t been linear, but I couldn’t be happier for where we are as a company, what we have achieved and the team we have built.

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Here’s to 2026, and building something special!

JQ