Newsletter without a product?

Totally valid, Product hunt started as a newsletter.

Absolutely not a problem. @roberTino

I'm also in my baby step to start a curation driven newsletter. Keen to exchange ideas!

Definitely start now, but my advice would be to pick a topic you deeply care about - it doesn't have to be a personal manifesto / "this my journey to building a business" newsletter to be helpful to you later on.

I run a newsletter called Remotely Inclined, which is for people who run businesses remotely. I don't have a product (yet), but I use the newsletter to 1) build an audience and 2) interview remote entrepreneurs, my potential target audience.

There's also the ancillary benefit that building my newsletter has given me some press opportunities, which helps me raise my own profile and online credibility - that alone will be helpful, if indirectly, when I launch more products.

And the final benefit: writing a newsletter is a product. You will get more into the habit of getting feedback from "customers" (readers), being consistent with "updates" (new newsletter editions), and being mindful of putting out quality "products" (content). All of these mindsets / skills are transferrable to the product world and will help you be a better owner / operator.

The audience size to drive sales, in my opinion, is the icing - skills and mindsets are the cake.

Building an audience is about doing something interesting and sharing it with others. So I think you should do both at the same time. You can write about how you're coming up with ideas, how you plan on testing them, etc.

Happy to be your first subscriber :)

PS. If you're looking for ideas, I wrote about three here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/looking-for-a-business-idea-heres-three-companies-ready-for-disruption-9b4ba46428?utm_campaign=digest-daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=indie-hackers-emails

They may be a little big for what you want to start with, but future issues are going to contain some smaller opportunities as well.

I also think it's valid. You can start writing about your journey, talking to your readers and see what they are interesting in learning more.

Idea might come naturally.