1000 Subscribers for EastVC Newsletter
Hi all,
finally reached 1000 subscribers for https://eastvc.news/, so to share some info.
It took around 5 months from 0 to 1000.
80% of subscribers came from LinkedIn. I found that DMs work really well, most people are happy to check it and subscribe. Most subscribers are people who work within the VC industry. Twitter is probably also good, but since I don't have many followers not many subscribers came from there.
Since I reached 1000 subscribers, I decided to open it for sponsorships. Sold out next 4 weeks for advertising (max 1 ad per edition). This newsletter is probably one of the best ways for startups to present themselves to a larger VC audience.
In the meantime, I declined 2 offers to sell it.
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Congrats and great progress. Any tips for reaching out to people on LinkedIn? Did you do it from your own account and Inmail them? Did you post status updates featuring new posts? Any growth hacking tools would be awesome (I’m from Boston too BTW)
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I am sending DMs from my account, usually, I add people, and if they accept I send them DM. It's working but it's really time-consuming and probably not sustainable for the long term, but it's great to get the first 500 subscribers. Later is a bit easier, since people share newsletters with colleagues so you are growing even if you don't do much. Just be prepared to send a lot of DMs.
I prepare at least 2 posts per week that are connected with the newsletter. For example, I post a summary of total amounts raised in Boston and then link to the newsletter for more details. Also, I found that any graphics and charts work really well - whenever I share them I get few subscribers. But all in all, the hardest thing is to keep doing it while you have 0 money from it haha :)
Congrats! Very cool. Keep us posted on your progress.
Nice, congrats! What do you charge for each ad?
Thank you. These 4 weeks were 20 cents per subscriber per week.
nice, well done
Great post! How did you get advertisers?
I found companies that make products for VCs and reached out to their marketing departments. Good old cold-email :)
This is very cool and the direct outreach had not crossed my mind. Most my subscribers come from LinkedIn as well!
There might be some audience overlap as well, as I write a newsletter geared towards private equity and investment firms looking to learn more and invest in the cybersecurity space. It’s called Cybersecurity Market Insights (https://signup.fractionconsulting.co) and it’s like Trends but just for my specific niche.