How the largest newsletters got their first 1,000 readers

I recently created a new series in my newsletter where I deep dive into interesting business trends.

The first one is all about analyzing the biggest players in the newsletter industry: how they formulated their idea, shipped an MVP, and reached their first 1,000 users.

Here's a preview of some of the insights I uncovered on gathering your first 1,000 readers:

Method 1: Utilizing your personal network

If Tiago Forte met someone at the subway or grab coffee with them, he'd ask them for their email

Polina Pompliano got her first 1,000 by just "telling people what she was working on". For each email issue, she'd ask her early readers for help to share on Twitter to reach the 1,000 milestone

Method 2: Leveraging the audience of others

Dan Shipper calls this "climbing the ladder of influence".

His newsletter's interview model had a built-in growth engine because week after week, the interviewee will share the newsletter with their audience

Ben Thompson saw a huge inflection point with Stratechery after John Gruber spent "an entire paragraph in a full-length post" praising it

Method 3: Sharing with social forums and networks

Harry Dry of Marketing Examples discovered every place marketers hung out online and would add valuable articles on different Subreddits, Twitter threads, you name it

Starter Story found their distribution channel after posting successful case studies on Reddit

Method 4: Find your users directly

The Gist got their early users by setting up a launch party at a Shopify office with gift bags from Lululemon

Morning Brew collected emails from students in finance/econ classes across universities

I would love everyone's feedback on this type of content and where they found value! You can read the full issue here