How to Build and Grow a Newsletter as a Business Model

[Joker_P5R]

The obstacle in your way that is stopping you move forward is... you.

Your thoughts and the way you think are your limiting factor at the moment.

I know...
Thanks for listening me and replying to my "overthinking delirium"...

I lack a lot of self-esteem and I’m always afraid of being wrong and I end up doing nothing.

I'm really passionate about two main topics. But not being into the industry (not being psychologist nor a financial advisor) it doesn't let me sleep peacefully, making me feel an impostor...

 

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[Cameraman]

It is full of posts with technical information, more useful for those who work in the sector than for those who need to use the service.

And that's exactly the point. You need to serve the people who use the service (or who would like to but feel scared/confused) with a newsletter. Where there's a problem there's a profit opportunity. The big companies make things too technical for small businesses or individuals who can't employ an expert.

 

[Joker_P5R]

And that's exactly the point. You need to serve the people who use the service (or who would like to but feel scared/confused) with a newsletter. Where there's a problem there's a profit opportunity. The big companies make things too technical for small businesses or individuals who can employ an expert.

Hi @Cameraman

The point is that people feel scared to make mistakes.

And, since every information can be interpreted differently, time by time, for example by italian custom, it's risky to share absolutes infos.

Small companies do not want to have responsibilities of their own choices.
So they delegate to shipping companies / freight forwarders, to do all the work.

Freight forwarders neither want responsibilites, so they are basically "paper-pusher" between importer/exporter to custom office/maritime line/airline. So the responsibility is turned to them, relieving middle operator of any responsibility in its turn.

Even if you educate them, misinterpretation of any information can lead to massive damages.
So, the main target, small company shipping director or import export operator, usually leave the responsibility to the freight forwarder to whom he relies.

Please consider that there are no middle man or consultant in this industry, because every information can be disputed any time.

It's very easy to lose credibility on an information you know as correct but that is disputed by any custom officer or shipping line operator.

The main issue is that you cannot have control on information you share in this industry.

 

[Cameraman]

Hi @Cameraman

The point is that people feel scared to make mistakes.

And, since every information can be interpreted differently, time by time, for example by italian custom, it's risky to share absolutes infos.

Small companies do not want to have responsibilities of their own choices.
So they delegate to shipping companies / freight forwarders, to do all the work.

Freight forwarders neither want responsibilites, so they are basically "paper-pusher" between importer/exporter to custom office/maritime line/airline. So the responsibility is turned to them, relieving middle operator of any responsibility in its turn.

Even if you educate them, misinterpretation of any information can lead to massive damages.
So, the main target, small company shipping director or import export operator, usually leave the responsibility to the freight forwarder to whom he relies.

Please consider that there are no middle man or consultant in this industry, because every information can be disputed any time.

It's very easy to lose credibility on an information you know as correct but that is disputed by any custom officer or shipping line operator.

The main issue is that you cannot have control on information you share in this industry.

Oh well. Good luck then.

 

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[Andy Black]

my "overthinking delirium"

Here's a line for you:

"Overthinking is the art of solving problems you don't have."

I lack a lot of self-esteem

The market doesn't need to know (or cares) about our lack or over-flowing self-esteem. It only cares about whether you add value (aka help them).


Imagine you see an old lady come out of a grocery store. She drops her shopping and her oranges scatter all over the place. Do you rush over and help her without thinking? Or are you paralysed with imposter syndrome?


Next time you second guess yourself because you don't think you're good enough, qualified enough, young enough, old enough, experienced enough, attractive enough, fast enough, etc.

... just say to yourself "I *am* enough. Because I say I am."

I’m always afraid of being wrong

I see everything as a series of tests.

I wonder what will happen if I post this?

I wonder what will happen on that call in 5 mins?

I wonder what will happen if I send this email to everyone?

I'm really passionate about two main topics.

Great.

feel an impostor

It's not about how you feel. It's about how you help other peope and about how you make *them* feel.


Check out some of my progress threads. I just start and figure stuff out as I go along. I do them in public in the hope others see that's all we need to do.

Check out the first video in this thread:

• Learnings from 700+ PMs with fellow forum members

And beware your mindset. You seem to be in a "Yes, but" mode.

• Yes, but... (no, Yes, and!)

 

[MartinG]

A really insightful thread. Lots of golden nuggets for sure. @MTF your certainly captivating in the way that you write. I am curious, where did you learn your craft?

I do plan to start a newsletter in the new year. Idea initially came from watching My First Million Youtube video:

How To Grow A $75M Newsletter Business | Morning Brew Co-Founder

I look at people set up these kind of things and I think if this guy can do it, then surely I can give it a go. Newsletters definitely seem to be the easiest way to get the 'reps' in, in comparison to creating videos for example. Still, creating stuff that is good is another challenge.

At the minute I am planning to take a course on copywriting (Neville Medhoras) also get in the habit of writing daily. Being able to communicate effectively through writing online is certainly a great skill to learn if nothing else.

Been a 'lurker' on forums like this for too long.

I know the major challenge will be building my audience. I've experience building IG accounts, and am currently delving more into content creation on Youtube, so I will not be a complete newbie in this regard.

Thanks again for the great advice and information in this thread.

 

[GSF]

Some nice examples of successful newsletters here:

11 Substack Newsletter Success Stories [2024] - Starter Story

Here are some real life success stories of starting a substack newsletter: 1. I Know The Pilot ($840Kyear)"I Know The Pilot" is a free travel deal platform that sends airfare and accommodation deals to subscribers daily, with a focus on international travel. Garth Adams, the ...

www.starterstory.com

 

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[redshift]

Since I've gone through this gauntlet as well now in 2022 with my own subscription newsletter blog and am now cranking it down a notch (for the time being, to get my app out), I thought I'd share some of my findings here for anyone wanting to start one in the new year 2023, and not wanting to read my 20 min long escapades, oof.

So here's a 5:48 minute summary of my findings instead.

Note: If you go through the same path yourself, you'll likely come up with conclusions and results that might be totally different from mine. So take these as what they are-- one point of reference.

Although, most of them are actually quite similar to what MTF has noted in this thread above.

1) I've come to realize that subscriptions are not that great of a primary business model. Regardless of how good the content is, people aren't in the mindset of becoming paid subscribers for newsletters so much. Pair that with the flood of newsletters out there. This becomes a very long-term game just to stand out and make 'good money.' I've noticed that most paid subscribers do so because they like the author rather than wanting to read the paywalled content. People are fine paying for one-off stuff (e.g., pdf, courses, books, etc.) but less so when buying a recurring subscription (as of now). So, this is similar to the Patreon model and more about building fans/trust, which takes time.

I think I read somewhere that some of the top newsletters on Substack have about a 10% rate for paid subs. The average is supposed to be 5%. Mine is currently even lower but slowly creeping up. I made the HUGE mistake of putting my "best" content behind the paywall. That means more than 95% of my readers don't even read it. That's the content that will get you subscribers and shares in the first place. So there's really a chicken and egg problem with the standard approach. The better way to do it is probably to keep all or most of your content free and then have some other paid content or companion products for subscribers. I'm experimenting with different approaches now.

The even better model is probably to start a free newsletter and sell ad space to sponsors. If you pair this with a referral network (like beehiv), plus paid one-off products, you can make some money. I've seen some free ones grow quite fast on there. There is a downside to referral systems, however. People share your newsletter for rewards rather than because they like your content. So you get huge growth but might end up with a not-so-engaged audience and low open rates. This is different from a productocracy. A productocracy is organic, where the content is so good that people want to share it themselves and are also highly engaged. That's what we like to aim for over here. Here's one way to do that:

2) Only write about something you are genuinely excited about and want to grow in. It will get too much otherwise and shows in the quality. It's fine to mix things, also. For me, that was a mix of entrepreneurship, creativity, and mindfulness (and now fiction). That's where I wanted to grow the most, so it's more of a lifelong learner type of newsletter, with me also being an end user of the product. MTF did the same with Discomfort Club because he wanted to improve his life. If I wanted to actually make big money with this project, I could have gone with coding, which is something I know quite well and can monetize easily and fast with companion products. But it's starting to interest me less and less now from a technical point (other than creating stuff), and I can't see myself writing about it for a long time. I would have ended up just abandoning that business had I started it. Follow your interests. It will keep you going in the long run. The more interests you can combine, the more fun you'll have and the more unique the product (i.e., relative value).

3) The voice really matters - I've realized that newsletters (of any kind) are very personal. It's kind of like sending an email to a friend, but in bulk (literally). So you have to bring your personality out and let people get to know you. I shied away from this for a long time and then just ended up sounding like the books I was reading. But that's not how I talk in real life, so why am I writing like that? I've started using my voice now and getting much better feedback. MTF does this quite well in his newsletter as well. An example of how to do this well-- take a bunch of your interests/research, combine them with your experience, and then wrap it up in a story. That's unique. It took me 6+ months to get here, and I'm still learning, but I didn't have any writing experience before this, so it might be a faster learning curve for you.

4) Add a feedback widget - I just used the one MTF mentioned earlier in this thread - FeedLetter. Total game changer. It's super nice to see people commenting, and that other people are actually reading your stuff and getting value out of it. It definitely makes it easier to keep going and improve. Not many people like to leave public comments for some reason, but they are happy to do so anonymously. That's what this widget is. I found this to be way more inspiring for my feedback loop than someone becoming a paid subscriber. If there's one thing I wish I had done sooner, it would be this. Helped me find my voice as well.

5) It's fine to migrate platforms or even change directions. I started on Revue, am now on Substack, and will likely move to beehiv or ghost soon. Just start somewhere and figure things out along the way. I might even end up changing the newsletter title. I added 'Startup' in there because I thought it would be a hit with the Twitter crowd (it wasn't really), but now I've been writing about a bunch of other things, and I don't even really talk about startups in the traditional sense (i.e., huge teams, raising venture capital, not making any money, etc.), so I might end up changing the title as well. If you are building fans, they won't mind, and it's better to have less of the right audience rather than more of the wrong one. One caveat-- create your own URL from the start so any external references stay valid (most newsletter platforms support custom URLs). Even if you change your brand, the old landing page can redirect to the new URL with a message.

6) Keep it as a side hustle / creative hobby, and don't obsess too much over the numbers. It makes it much easier to enjoy the process and focus on quality. This isn't really a great primary business model, as MTF discovered as well. But if you keep going, integrate feedback, and continuously improve, it will slowly build up into something great, perhaps even a productocracy someday. And you'll have much more fun in the process.

If you are wondering whether it's worth getting into and starting one from scratch. I'd say go for it and try it out for yourself. There's not much money here, but it might just change your life (Or, if nothing else, it will definitely make you a better writer)

Hope this helps.

—

And now, as a corollary to everything above — If you do, on the other hand, want to go all in and make some money fast using this model, here's another way —

Take something you know deeply about. The more focused/niche, the better. Hire a bunch of writers and get them to write the content at a high frequency. You act as the director of the whole movie. Build a social media personality for yourself as the founder. Scale using google+fb ads, social media, newsletter sponsorships (swapstack, paved), billboards even. Keep the newsletter free and charge for ad space yourself and companion products (digital or physical). Integrate a referral system (sparkloop, beehiv) for explosive growth. Give people rewards (digital or physical, the more, the better) as incentives to grow. Launch your newsletter on product hunt and other aggregators and get your readers to upvote it. Build your own community, or even better, host a conference and sell merch. Keep going for a few years and then exit. That's how you end up with something like 'The Hustle.' But that's a multi-million dollar media/drop-shipping business, not a peaceful long-term one-person writing hobby that also happens to generate revenue.

—

Or, you can always find your own middle ground. It's up to you.

 

[Andy Black]

Since I've gone through this gauntlet as well now in 2022 with my own subscription newsletter blog and am now cranking it down a notch (for the time being, to get my app out), I thought I'd share some of my findings here for anyone wanting to start one in the new year 2023, and not wanting to read my 20 min long escapades, oof.

So here's a 5:48 minute summary of my findings instead.

Note: If you go through the same path yourself, you'll likely come up with conclusions and results that might be totally different from mine. So take these as what they are-- one point of reference.

Although, most of them are actually quite similar to what MTF has noted in this thread above.

1) I've come to realize that subscriptions are not that great of a primary business model. Regardless of how good the content is, people aren't in the mindset of becoming paid subscribers for newsletters so much. Pair that with the flood of newsletters out there. This becomes a very long-term game just to stand out and make 'good money.' I've noticed that most paid subscribers do so because they like the author rather than wanting to read the paywalled content. People are fine paying for one-off stuff (e.g., pdf, courses, books, etc.) but less so when buying a recurring subscription (as of now). So, this is similar to the Patreon model and more about building fans/trust, which takes time.

I think I read somewhere that some of the top newsletters on Substack have about a 10% rate for paid subs. The average is supposed to be 5%. Mine is currently even lower but slowly creeping up. I made the HUGE mistake of putting my "best" content behind the paywall. That means more than 95% of my readers don't even read it. That's the content that will get you subscribers and shares in the first place. So there's really a chicken and egg problem with the standard approach. The better way to do it is probably to keep all or most of your content free and then have some other paid content or companion products for subscribers. I'm experimenting with different approaches now.

The even better model is probably to start a free newsletter and sell ad space to sponsors. If you pair this with a referral network (like beehiv), plus paid one-off products, you can make some money. I've seen some free ones grow quite fast on there. There is a downside to referral systems, however. People share your newsletter for rewards rather than because they like your content. So you get huge growth but might end up with a not-so-engaged audience and low open rates. This is different from a productocracy. A productocracy is organic, where the content is so good that people want to share it themselves and are also highly engaged. That's what we like to aim for over here. Here's one way to do that:

2) Only write about something you are genuinely excited about and want to grow in. It will get too much otherwise and shows in the quality. It's fine to mix things, also. For me, that was a mix of entrepreneurship, creativity, and mindfulness (and now fiction). That's where I wanted to grow the most, so it's more of a lifelong learner type of newsletter, with me also being an end user of the product. MTF did the same with Discomfort Club because he wanted to improve his life. If I wanted to actually make big money with this project, I could have gone with coding, which is something I know quite well and can monetize easily and fast with companion products. But it's starting to interest me less and less now from a technical point (other than creating stuff), and I can't see myself writing about it for a long time. I would have ended up just abandoning that business had I started it. Follow your interests. It will keep you going in the long run. The more interests you can combine, the more fun you'll have and the more unique the product (i.e., relative value).

3) The voice really matters - I've realized that newsletters (of any kind) are very personal. It's kind of like sending an email to a friend, but in bulk (literally). So you have to bring your personality out and let people get to know you. I shied away from this for a long time and then just ended up sounding like the books I was reading. But that's not how I talk in real life, so why am I writing like that? I've started using my voice now and getting much better feedback. MTF does this quite well in his newsletter as well. An example of how to do this well-- take a bunch of your interests/research, combine them with your experience, and then wrap it up in a story. That's unique. It took me 6+ months to get here, and I'm still learning, but I didn't have any writing experience before this, so it might be a faster learning curve for you.

4) Add a feedback widget - I just used the one MTF mentioned earlier in this thread - FeedLetter. Total game changer. It's super nice to see people commenting, and that other people are actually reading your stuff and getting value out of it. It definitely makes it easier to keep going and improve. Not many people like to leave public comments for some reason, but they are happy to do so anonymously. That's what this widget is. I found this to be way more inspiring for my feedback loop than someone becoming a paid subscriber. If there's one thing I wish I had done sooner, it would be this. Helped me find my voice as well.

5) It's fine to migrate platforms or even change directions. I started on Revue, am now on Substack, and will likely move to beehiv or ghost soon. Just start somewhere and figure things out along the way. I might even end up changing the newsletter title. I added 'Startup' in there because I thought it would be a hit with the Twitter crowd (it wasn't really), but now I've been writing about a bunch of other things, and I don't even really talk about startups in the traditional sense (i.e., huge teams, raising venture capital, not making any money, etc.), so I might end up changing the title as well. If you are building fans, they won't mind, and it's better to have less of the right audience rather than more of the wrong one. One caveat-- create your own URL from the start so any external references stay valid (most newsletter platforms support custom URLs). Even if you change your brand, the old landing page can redirect to the new URL with a message.

6) Keep it as a side hustle / creative hobby, and don't obsess too much over the numbers. It makes it much easier to enjoy the process and focus on quality. This isn't really a great primary business model, as MTF discovered as well. But if you keep going, integrate feedback, and continuously improve, it will slowly build up into something great, perhaps even a productocracy someday. And you'll have much more fun in the process.

If you are wondering whether it's worth getting into and starting one from scratch. I'd say go for it and try it out for yourself. There's not much money here, but it might just change your life (Or, if nothing else, it will definitely make you a better writer)

Hope this helps.

—

And now, as a corollary to everything above — If you do, on the other hand, want to go all in and make some money fast using this model, here's another way —

Take something you know deeply about. The more focused/niche, the better. Hire a bunch of writers and get them to write the content at a high frequency. You act as the director of the whole movie. Build a social media personality for yourself as the founder. Scale using google+fb ads, social media, newsletter sponsorships (swapstack, paved), billboards even. Keep the newsletter free and charge for ad space yourself and companion products (digital or physical). Integrate a referral system (sparkloop, beehiv) for explosive growth. Give people rewards (digital or physical, the more, the better) as incentives to grow. Launch your newsletter on product hunt and other aggregators and get your readers to upvote it. Build your own community, or even better, host a conference and sell merch. Keep going for a few years and then exit. That's how you end up with something like 'The Hustle.' But that's a multi-million dollar media/drop-shipping business, not a peaceful long-term one-person writing hobby that also happens to generate revenue.

—

Or, you can always find your own middle ground. It's up to you.

Great insights and write up. Thanks @redshift.

I think combining a paid email newsletter with courses behind the same paywall could be big, and isn't really talked about.

I'm also unsure about having a free newsletter. Maybe a free series delivered by email, and then occasional updates. I really liked just having a paid email newsletter and not having to worry about what to write to the free subs and the paid subs. What if the content for the free subs was distributed out there for free?

I like your point about being yourself and not sounding like dry books. I think this will become more important as AI helps spammers and SEO types flood the internet with even more generic and boring content.

This has been here for a while and is only set to get worse:

QuickVid uses AI to generate short-form videos, complete with voiceovers | TechCrunch

QuickVid, a platform that ties together various AI systems to generate short-form videos, brings opportunities as well as risks.

techcrunch.com

 

[Cameraman]

Great insights and write up. Thanks @redshift.

I agree. These are some great insights from @redshift. Thank you.

I think combining a paid email newsletter with courses behind the same paywall could be big, and isn't really talked about.

After our video chat a few weeks back I decided to develop a video newsletter rather than a traditional course. I'll continue to use my free written newsletter to gain subscribers, but I aim to sell the video version. I'm still in the development stage as I also want it to be a hybrid course that people can subscribe to using drip content.

 

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[MartinG]

From reading how others have build massive subscription based newsletters I see the main challenge as building a large scale following to funnel into your newsletter.

I wanted to ask a question about growing on Twitter

I am using this as an example as it where I see this happen the most.

How much more difficult is it to grow organically on Twitter nowadays and go viral in comparison to 5 years ago for example? And can you pay to grow?

I have no knowledge of Twitter.

Having built audiences on Insta and Youtube with shoutouts being the main source of growth, I am just curious to learn how Twitter compares to other platforms?

I understand building an audience takes a long time of experimentation, pivoting no matter where you go, however the thing I would like to avoid is getting on a treadmill of posting content everyday for a long period of time without ever seeing a return on time spent.

 

[Andy Black]

From reading how others have build massive subscription based newsletters I see the main challenge as building a large scale following to funnel into your newsletter.

I wanted to ask a question about growing on Twitter

I am using this as an example as it where I see this happen the most.

How much more difficult is it to grow organically on Twitter nowadays and go viral in comparison to 5 years ago for example? And can you pay to grow?

I have no knowledge of Twitter.

Having built audiences on Insta and Youtube with shoutouts being the main source of growth, I am just curious to learn how Twitter compares to other platforms?

I understand building an audience takes a long time of experimentation, pivoting no matter where you go, however the thing I would like to avoid is getting on a treadmill of posting content everyday for a long period of time without ever seeing a return on time spent.

Why Twitter? I'd say the ads and targeting aren't as good as Google Ads, but eith the exodus of advertisers recently and Elon needing to make revenue then maybe the attention is underpriced on Twitter at the moment.

I too don't like content treadmills. I'd rather tell lots of people the same thing than tell the same people lots of different things.

Personally, I'd look at Google Ads, YouTube Ads, and Facebook Ads before Twitter, but maybe that means Twitter is untapped.

 

[MartinG]

Why Twitter? I'd say the ads and targeting aren't as good as Google Ads, but eith the exodus of advertisers recently and Elon needing to make revenue then maybe the attention is underpriced on Twitter at the moment.

I too don't like content treadmills. I'd rather tell lots of people the same thing than tell the same people lots of different things.

Personally, I'd look at Google Ads, YouTube Ads, and Facebook Ads before Twitter, but maybe that means Twitter is untapped.

Thanks Andy.

I'm saying Twitter because most of the newsletters I am following/researched on seem to have derived their large subscription base from daily content on Twitter.

I'll certainly take a look at your mentioned methods.

 

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[ninjacopywriter]

Help people in online communities. Repurpose for your newsletter.

That way you’re not “finding stuff to write about”, you’re “finding people to help, helping them, and then helping your subscribers”.

I like this idea a LOT

 

[DarkZero]

Thanks Andy.

I'm saying Twitter because most of the newsletters I am following/researched on seem to have derived their large subscription base from daily content on Twitter.

I'll certainly take a look at your mentioned methods.

Twitter is fantastic for growing newsletters (depending on the niche). Sorry I haven't seen the rest of your posts to know your niche so forgive me. From 2020-early 2022 you could grow a massive Twitter brand very quickly. The algorithms really favored it in terms of tweet threads and the engagement rates from those. Today, those are not as effective. Definitely a bit harder. But not something you can't do.

If you started today, ask yourself where you would be a year from now in terms of subscribers and engagement on your Twitter profile. Depending on the niche, you could also use LinkedIn. Similar growth metrics, and in many ways, a lot better. All focused on growing a newsletter.

Both are very good if you don't want to only focus on short form video (or don't want to altogether).

 

[ninjacopywriter]

Twitter is fantastic for growing newsletters (depending on the niche). Sorry I haven't seen the rest of your posts to know your niche so forgive me. From 2020-early 2022 you could grow a massive Twitter brand very quickly. The algorithms really favored it in terms of tweet threads and the engagement rates from those. Today, those are not as effective. Definitely a bit harder. But not something you can't do.

If you started today, ask yourself where you would be a year from now in terms of subscribers and engagement on your Twitter profile. Depending on the niche, you could also use LinkedIn. Similar growth metrics, and in many ways, a lot better. All focused on growing a newsletter.

Both are very good if you don't want to only focus on short form video (or don't want to altogether).

Hi Dark Zero, what are your thoughts in general about growing an account on twitter? I've seen some guys talking about ghostwriting tweets for founders, ceos, entrepreneurs. I also see some people who want to do the one person online business (where some of the gurus you probably know the name) like justin, dan, etc

Thank you for saying that btw, bc I am starting to explore twitter right now. Not just necessarily for newsletters, but in general to create some kind of business online eventually...

 

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[DarkZero]

Hi Dark Zero, what are your thoughts in general about growing an account on twitter? I've seen some guys talking about ghostwriting tweets for founders, ceos, entrepreneurs. I also see some people who want to do the one person online business (where some of the gurus you probably know the name) like justin, dan, etc

Thank you for saying that btw, bc I am starting to explore twitter right now. Not just necessarily for newsletters, but in general to create some kind of business online eventually...

Yeah you definitely can. It really comes down to what you want to build and for what type of audience.

If you want to do ghostwriting, then yes, definitely do twitter. If you want to build a solo-run online business, you can do it. Just know that it takes time. Give yourself 6 months. 1 year. Even 2 years. Some of those people that took off within the past few years had some things working in their favor (ie. businesses closed down and people at home) where social engagement skyrocketed.

But maybe IG is more relevant. Or LinkedIn. The social platform is only a means to end as to what type of business you want to build. This is not the same as building a "content creator business" which is only focused on content.

I primarily work with those who have "product-first, content-second" types of businesses rather than only "content creator" businesses that happen to sell products. The latter can scale easier because of lead flow but can also take longer from a business perspective because it doesn't always follow the CENTS model here.

Ghostwriting, agency, freelancer type of businesses can leverage content to get more clients. And that's something that doesn't require much of a delay to get there.

If you want to run an agency on the backs of a social brand, you can do that and it doesn't require a huge audience to get started. Actually, it requires no audience to get started. A sizeable audience just makes it easier.

 

[cottonbuds]

Really appreciate this thread. I'm thinking of starting a newsletter as well and have questions on researching content. I'm thinking of doing something where I curate information in a fast changing field. How do I stay on top of all the info?Do people use google alerts, some kind of feed etc to stay on top of stuff or manually look for interesting stuff from a few different sources?

 

[Wisith]

I'm only on page 2 of the thread so excuse me if this has been mentioned.

A friend and I are creating a software to help students. I'm thinking of creating a newsletter to offer help and guidance to the students. This will help get eyeballs on the software.

I know Parr's The Hustle was mentioned in this thread prior. As of now (2023), he still thinks it's viable and can be copied. His business partner started the Milk Road during COVID and sold it within a year: With 250,000 email subscribers, crypto newsletter Milk Road sells after just 10 months

The idea I have is to cater to a demographic that is not native to English. I live in an area that is a melting pot of different ethnicities. There are sales people who crush it because they cater to Koreans, Armenians, Chinese, etc. due to their ability to speak and connect to the culture. I see this with real estate agents, lawyers, car salespeople, etc.

You can take an idea that's already being done by someone else and aggregate the information into a different language.

 

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[Wisith]

Roughly 6 months after starting this thread, I'm starting to think that newsletters only make sense for a few big popular niches (finance, news, business, tech) and mostly if you're targeting people over 30-35.

The newsletter format is too obscure today. Particularly if you're targeting younger people who have grown up with social media and only use email for boring stuff (work, transactions, etc.), you'll struggle to make it work.

Our software is catering to college students. I'm looking at creating a newsletter for them to help get the word out. The attention span of college students are totally shot so I was thinking about this. I don't know how many of them will actually read newsletter? If so, how long will they want the newsletter to be?

As an older millennial, I'm signed up on several newsletter myself. I find that Morning Brew is pretty long and I just glance through the email.

Question to all who built their own newsletters: how many articles did you have lined up before launching? How often do you publish newsletters? How long/short do you keep them?

 

[PureA]

@MTF update?

 

[MTF]

@MTF update?

I recently sold my newsletter for low four figures. I didn't even recoup my financial investment, let alone my time investment.

I'm still very pro email list but not so much for regular newsletters where you need to send content weekly or even more often. It's too easy to end up on what @Andy Black Black likes to call a "content treadmill" that does no good to anybody (including your readers).

Perhaps it can work if you hire writers but if you're doing it solo, it's a lot of work for a low return. It's because each newsletter issue only creates value when you send it. Very few people read the archives. So in a way, writing newsletters is like publishing posts on social media that disappear within a day or two. I prefer creating content that's more long-lasting.

Instead of newsletters, I would create free autoresponder-based courses that lead to paid digital products (for example, a 7-day course leading to a specific outcome and then selling a more comprehensive paid course). Then I would keep sending emails but to paying customers and primarily to upsell them. It's just not worth it to write content for free these days, particularly with the rise of AI.

 

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[Andy Black]

I recently sold my newsletter for low four figures. I didn't even recoup my financial investment, let alone my time investment.

I'm still very pro email list but not so much for regular newsletters where you need to send content weekly or even more often. It's too easy to end up on what @Andy Black Black likes to call a "content treadmill" that does no good to anybody (including your readers).

Perhaps it can work if you hire writers but if you're doing it solo, it's a lot of work for a low return. It's because each newsletter issue only creates value when you send it. Very few people read the archives. So in a way, writing newsletters is like publishing posts on social media that disappear within a day or two. I prefer creating content that's more long-lasting.

Instead of newsletters, I would create free autoresponder-based courses that lead to paid digital products (for example, a 7-day course leading to a specific outcome and then selling a more comprehensive paid course). Then I would keep sending emails but to paying customers and primarily to upsell them. It's just not worth it to write content for free these days, particularly with the rise of AI.

I think an advantage of free newsletter issues is driving people to content on other platforms, such as YouTube videos (the reader gets free content and the creator gets views and traction), or blog articles (the reader gets free content and the creator hopefully gets the article shared).

Otherwise I don't really see the point of hiding weekly free content behind an opt-in wall.

@Fox ... curious what you think given you have a few free email lists.

 

[MitchC]

The daily newsletter model relies on having a big list and outsourcing writing

The business model is selling advertising, more emails, more ad spaces

This only works with a big list

 

[redshift]

I recently sold my newsletter for low four figures. I didn't even recoup my financial investment, let alone my time investment.

I'm still very pro email list but not so much for regular newsletters where you need to send content weekly or even more often. It's too easy to end up on what @Andy Black Black likes to call a "content treadmill" that does no good to anybody (including your readers).

Perhaps it can work if you hire writers but if you're doing it solo, it's a lot of work for a low return. It's because each newsletter issue only creates value when you send it. Very few people read the archives. So in a way, writing newsletters is like publishing posts on social media that disappear within a day or two. I prefer creating content that's more long-lasting.

Instead of newsletters, I would create free autoresponder-based courses that lead to paid digital products (for example, a 7-day course leading to a specific outcome and then selling a more comprehensive paid course). Then I would keep sending emails but to paying customers and primarily to upsell them. It's just not worth it to write content for free these days, particularly with the rise of AI.

I don’t think this is necessarily true. There’s a few different skills to learn here— writing, marketing and monetization. If you spend time on each one, you can easily turn this into a successful business and not have to write stuff for free.

Take a look at this guy here-- Solo subscription newsletter business on substack, no courses/other paid content. Makes $2m per year, just from paid subscribers, and only getting higher. Note: he does also have a slack community and real world meetups, but all that came later. He started with just charging for paid subscriptions, and loads of other people are doing this as well now.

While this model does inherently lend itself to a content treadmill if you pick the default route / what everyone else is doing. It isn’t necessary either. I just told my subscribers that I won't have a regular schedule in order to focus on quality. Now I just write everyday and post whenever I feel it's ready. It still ends up being 1-2 weeks but I never feel the crunch since it's just part of my routine and I quite enjoy writing now. In my case I even have monthly paid subscribers and haven’t seen any churn in paid subs. Probably because it leads to better quality and less information overload for the reader as well. Depends on how you look at things I suppose.

If you have a free newsletter though, there’s really no need to get stuck in the content treadmill at all. Just be upfront that you are on your own schedule and focusing on quality. This will lead itself towards more long-lasting content as well, and you can treat it more like a blog/newsletter combo. MJ’s new fastlane newsletter seems to fit this category. I don’t think he would feel the need to be locked into a regular schedule either. He might indeed find it beneficial, but that would be a personal choice.

One way to monetize a free newsletter from scratch is ad-arbitrage. Buy cheap ads on FB etc to get subscribers and sell expensive ones on your free newsletter. CPC’s on newsletters are much higher than social media ads. Again, this needs to be paired with super high quality/engaging stuff, otherwise noone is going to care and you’ll just waste a bunch of money. There’s too many newsletters now to be able to make a quick buck here. Paid courses would be the next step up. You can also always just write a book using the content from the newsletter, or use your newsletter to sell your book(s). You just have to broaden the timeline a bit and think long-term.

I’m treating it as a long term play myself and currently just focusing on improving my writing (for the next 6 months at least). For me, that's the biggest draw for writing a newsletter, and I'm finding it quite enjoyable. I'm just relying on word of mouth and organic growth now. I'll start scaling and monetizing again afterwards. I was already able to get a recurring monthly income stream with a small-ish ad budget within 8-9 months last year (paired with high quality content and continuously improving). I made the mistake of advertising in other newsletters (CPC's there are quite expensive as mentioned before). Social media ads would have been a much better ROI. This isn't my primary business anyway, so I'm not too focused on the short term returns for now. But, the schedule is quite manageable and I can easily foresee this turning into multiple revenue streams within the 3+ year horizon. I might even change models (subs -> free) at some point. Again, all this stands on quality writing and content. So I'm focusing on that first. Everything else will fall into place naturally.

 

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[Natural]

Hey guys. Cool thread and inspired me to possibly start my own newsletter.

I'd like to hear your opinions on growing a newsletter in the Chess industry @MTF @Andy Black @MitchC @redshift and others. Or any other skill game for that matter. Could be a mixture of education (some key concepts broken down simply and in a more "fun" way) and entertainment (fun things that happened this week, drama, etc) one email per week.

This way the reader would get better at chess and also stay up to date in the Chess world.

Write it in a fun and engaging way and find your "voice" and something that the readers enjoy.

Would this be a good foundation for a newsletter?

In the future, the monetization could be training material, courses, exclusive content, and maybe even a paid subscription newsletter or relevant affiliate deals.

I also did a quick Google search for keywords and the term "chess training" gets around 1900 searches per month in the US where the "top of bid (low range)" is at $0.67 and the high range $2.07. I don't know anything about Google ads though.

 

[Andy Black]

Hey guys. Cool thread and inspired me to possibly start my own newsletter.

I'd like to hear your opinions on growing a newsletter in the Chess industry @MTF @Andy Black @MitchC @redshift and others. Or any other skill game for that matter. Could be a mixture of education (some key concepts broken down simply and in a more "fun" way) and entertainment (fun things that happened this week, drama, etc) one email per week.

This way the reader would get better at chess and also stay up to date in the Chess world.

Write it in a fun and engaging way and find your "voice" and something that the readers enjoy.

Would this be a good foundation for a newsletter?

In the future, the monetization could be training material, courses, exclusive content, and maybe even a paid subscription newsletter or relevant affiliate deals.

I also did a quick Google search for keywords and the term "chess training" gets around 1900 searches per month in the US where the "top of bid (low range)" is at $0.67 and the high range $2.07. I don't know anything about Google ads though.

Are there chess publications? Are there big YouTube channels and videos with high views? If so then I'd say that's a good sign.

I bet there's other searches with high volume that are more info-seeker based. What do you find when you do those searches?

How would you get a steady stream of subscribers?

 

[MitchC]

Hey guys. Cool thread and inspired me to possibly start my own newsletter.

I'd like to hear your opinions on growing a newsletter in the Chess industry @MTF @Andy Black @MitchC @redshift and others. Or any other skill game for that matter. Could be a mixture of education (some key concepts broken down simply and in a more "fun" way) and entertainment (fun things that happened this week, drama, etc) one email per week.

This way the reader would get better at chess and also stay up to date in the Chess world.

Write it in a fun and engaging way and find your "voice" and something that the readers enjoy.

Would this be a good foundation for a newsletter?

In the future, the monetization could be training material, courses, exclusive content, and maybe even a paid subscription newsletter or relevant affiliate deals.

I also did a quick Google search for keywords and the term "chess training" gets around 1900 searches per month in the US where the "top of bid (low range)" is at $0.67 and the high range $2.07. I don't know anything about Google ads though.

Chess is making a huge comeback and is a big trend you could ride

I play a little bit, and there was a brief chat about it in the random thoughts thread. The recommendations were Dr Wolf app which is $10 a month as coaching, and chess.com which is free, and books.

I have heard that some of the pros sell courses, and people do pay for coaching, so maybe these are the types of things that could be sponsoring the newsletter.

I’ve never seen any being advertised and I play, so maybe if I signed up to a newsletter and saw one promoted in it I’d buy.

The newsletter could have a lesson each day, one of those chess puzzles newspapers used to have in them, and yeah maybe some drama/news/subscriber interaction. You could make the puzzle a challenge with a prize to get open rates, reply rates and sign up rates through the roof.

I can see it working. Like any business, it will be in the execution. Can you find sponsors? Can you get subscribers? Is the content good enough to get the open rates? Definitely doable.

 

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[redshift]

Hey guys. Cool thread and inspired me to possibly start my own newsletter.

I'd like to hear your opinions on growing a newsletter in the Chess industry @MTF @Andy Black @MitchC @redshift and others. Or any other skill game for that matter. Could be a mixture of education (some key concepts broken down simply and in a more "fun" way) and entertainment (fun things that happened this week, drama, etc) one email per week.

This way the reader would get better at chess and also stay up to date in the Chess world.

Write it in a fun and engaging way and find your "voice" and something that the readers enjoy.

Would this be a good foundation for a newsletter?

In the future, the monetization could be training material, courses, exclusive content, and maybe even a paid subscription newsletter or relevant affiliate deals.

I also did a quick Google search for keywords and the term "chess training" gets around 1900 searches per month in the US where the "top of bid (low range)" is at $0.67 and the high range $2.07. I don't know anything about Google ads though.

I think it's a good idea. Like @MitchC said, it would depend on the execution. If you are passionate about chess and want to get deep in that space, then go for it. You can put a spin on it to make it fun and then promote the newsletter where chess fans hang out (reddit?, chess websites etc).

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Just an FYI, this newsletter trend will be just that--- just a trend.

It is hot now and will fade later.

It is like when Podcasts where the big thing and everyone had one. And now there are a million dead podcasts. It is following the same lifecycle as most internet trends, like the time when everyone had blogs, and now, there are a million dead blogs.

Just like blogs and podcasts, there's only so much content one can consume. I get 15 newsletters a day -- I cannot read them all. The Fastlane newsletter has always been a function of the forum, however this new emerging trend with newsletters makes it a lot easier for me to monetize it.