5 weeks and 500+ subcribers later

So my first newsletter grew from 0 to 585 subscribers in about 5 or 6 months before I sold it.

My current newsletter has 512 subscribers and it's only been 5 weeks. Not to mention more than 90% of the subscribers are organic (have signed up from sources that didn't cost me anything).

What I've learned:

  • Hyper niche isn't always great. If you want a SUPER loyal audience and want to be the dominant authority in a given space, then very niche newsletters about cactus growing or duck farming might work for you. I gaurentee you'll see slower growth though.
  • Broad niches are not as oversaturated as they appear. My current newsletter is in the "startups & entrepreneurship" space. Some might say that there are a million newsletters that cover this stuff. But I just gained 500+ subscribers with 44% OR and 9% CTR in 5 weeks by soley commenting and posting a couple times per day on Reddit. I dont run ads, spend hours making short form video content, or have any social media accounts for this newsletter. And it's working. Which leads me to my next point.
  • Pick a broad niche with the slightest angle to it. Don't be "the AI newsletter." Instead, be "the AI newsletter for blue-collar workers." That's enough to differentiate and draw-in a ton of subscribers in a short period of time. Choose a niche that will save people time or money or teach them something they desperately want to know.
  • Automate as much as possible. Make your life as easy as possible. Perfect your newsletter template over time and then just keep using that one. Can you batch newsletter creation? Spend a full day creating a bunch of newsletters that can publish on a schedule for a couple weeks or even a month. Can you train ChatGPT to write your outlines for you? Do that.
  • Don't do detailed case studies or interviews. Hot take, but I did this for my first newsletter and it completely burned me out. Each newsletter probably had 15 hours of work put into it and I was STRESSED putting 1 out per week. My current newsletter takes me an hour or less and I send 3 per week. If you have to find people, research and create questions, interview them, synthesize the meeting notes, write the newsletter, find supporting content... and you're just starting with 79 subscribers and $0 monthly income? Find an easier model to start with.
  • Send frequently. My current newsletter is designed to put as many ideas in front of a person as possible without seeming like spam. Three times per week they get an idea and a detailed roadmap on how to execute it. People like this because it's like effortless inspiration. No thinking required. The newsletters take 3ish minutes to read and can either be skimmed or slowly read and truly serve as a step-by-step business plan. Find a balance that won't annoy people because more newsletters = more money for you. One send every other week will not make you as much money as 3 sends per week. It just won't.
  • And of course, the basics: Do yourself a favor and buy a custom domain from GoDaddy. It's $12 for a year and you'll look way more legit than having the beehiiv subdomain. Spend some time making your branding and colors look nice. Use Canva to make a clean logo. Create a simple tagline in the hero section of your page. Don't drown people with a paragraph of what they can expect and why they should subscribe in hero section. This is your first impression people. If you can't explain what the newsletter will provide in 1 sentence, you probably shouldnt be writing a newsletter.
  • Oh and also you NEED to make a lead magnet that you give every subscriber for free when they sign up. It should have some value: "Free Report on Best Places to Buy Duck Eggs and Ducklings" for you duck farming newsletter. You get the idea. You should try to distill this into a very short sentence or phrase that fits in the placeholder text space for your "subscribe" bar in your hero section of your homepage. This way you don't have to tell people they get free stuff in your tagline - just a clean Header, tagline, and subscribe bar with place holder that reads "Get the free duck breeder report..." and a subscribe button.

I'm probably leaving stuff out, but I'm happy to answer questions. ✌️