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📰 Industry Roundup

beehiiv CEO Buys A Newsletter: Tyler Denk, the founder & CEO of beehiiv, has acquired Founder Secrets, a newsletter profiling the growth strategies of startup founders. Tyler was the last founder featured before the announcement and acquired the newsletter from Manuel Bleve, who runs marketing at Wefunder. beehiiv launched its Series B community round on Wefunder this month (which I was pleased to invest in). Manuel and Tyler have been transparent in sharing the plans for Founder Secrets subscribers… Read

2024 Marketing Budget Cuts Impact Newsletters: A recent survey indicates marketing budgets as a percentage of overall company revenue are down to 7.7% in 2024, which is 3.3% lower than they were pre-pandemic. This affects newsletter operators of all sizes, whether they’re vying for resources within a larger organization or are competing for dwindling ad/sponsorship dollars. Check out which areas are being cut… Read

Who Gets The Sponsors - Operator vs. Sales Team?: Sponsorships remain an important revenue source for newsletters, but what’s the most efficient way to win them? Some operators with the luxury of a sales team are still finding that they are better at closing the deal, as this recent thread demonstrates… Read

Case Study - Diversified Revenue & Markets at Podnews: James Cridland operates Podnews, a daily newsletter he founded in 2017 that covers all things podcasting. He has diversified his revenue stream into 3 discrete streams of revenue (classifieds, Patreon and sponsorship) and shares his thoughts on the importance of revenue diversification as well as breadth of geographical coverage… Read

⚒️ Letter Ops

25 Paid Growth Tactics: Regardless of the size of your newsletter budget, if you’re going to invest anywhere it should likely be in growing your audience. Here’s a library of over 25 paid growth tactics with examples suited for many budgets and audiences… Read

Case Study - Running A 5-Figure Newsletter For $130/Year?: Katt Risen has run the No-Code Exits newsletter for almost 2 years featuring successful entrepreneurs that achieve success with no-code tools. Her aspiration is to hit $75k in revenue in 2024 as she transitions from side hustle to newsletter-first business. She’s doing all this while building in public on a shoestring budget. Check out her low budget toolset and journey highlights… Toolset / Journey

Case Study - Layoff, Payoff & Evolution of Extra Points: Matt Brown writes about the forces that shape college sports off the field in his Extra Points newsletter. What started as an independent operation in 2019 borne of the necessity of a layoff has evolved into a 6-figure business with over 17,000 subscribers (several thousand paid) with diverse assets including a 4x per week newsletter, information products and games. It has been a winding path, and Matt has shared thoughts on what it takes to operate a newsletter that makes money, how his journey led to partnership/employment, and why that recently unwound over the past 6 months into uncertainty and an announcement this month of his newsletter’s future… Money / Journey / Uncertainty / Future

Newsletter For Sale: Should You Buy It?: Newsletter acquisition is a proven method for starting a newsletter and growing an audience (the newsletter you’re reading is an example), and the cost can be within reach of many budgets at low 4 and 5-figure prices depending upon what you want. The best way to figure out if this approach is for you is to start to look at potential deals, such as the sale of Dog News that is currently on the reputable newsletter marketplace Duuce. Here are just a few things I’d consider with this deal:

• List size is meaningful at >13,000 & growth rate of 3,000 per month is great - but what’s driving that growth for a 2 month old newsletter?

• The target audience of dog owners is a multi-billion dollar industry, but also saturated with competitors so further niching down may be needed

• The lack of stated revenue makes it hard to justify even the recently lowered acquisition price without a solid monetization and growth plan

Check out the terms of the deal - I’d love to know your thoughts… Read

🎉 Just For Fun

Newsletters Are A Marathon, Not A Sprint: I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon this past Saturday with my daughter Shannon, who is a newsletter operator in her own right. This is our second half marathon together, having run the NYC Half together back in March. I run a lot and will share more of my crazy running quest another time, but I find running is a great analogy for the things in life that take dedication and patience over long periods of time to achieve the desired result, and newsletters fit that bill. What do you do for fun? Reply and let me know!

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Disclaimer: Not financial or business advice. This newsletter is strictly for information and education purposes and may contain affiliate links or sponsored content from a variety of partners to keep this newsletter free of charge.

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