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87 Comments

Post Your Newsletter - I'll Suggest a Way To Monetize.

I'm here to creatively think of ways for your newsletter to make money.
If you have 100 subscribers, or 1,000 or 10,000, we all want some extra pocket money to pay for a new sofa, or a trip to Disney World next year.

Reply with a link to your newsletter, and how many subs you have. I'll think of a new way you can make money.

To celebrate releasing Make Bank Bundle a bundle of 3 Newsletter Monetization courses from 3 newsletter creators, I'm here giving creative, weird, fun ideas to make your readers happy and make you some bank. ::cash:: ::moola::

the Make Bank Bundle includes

  1. Profitable Newsletters*
  2. Monetize Your Newsletter
  3. Better Letters

You'll get 3 courses and way way more.

  1. 2

    I recently started nameea.com, it has affordable brandable domain names for sale. The newsletter portion is a listing of available domains, maybe with ideas for apps to start with the available name.

    Still not committed to the newsletter idea for the ideas for an app. But very committed to sharing great domain names. Just launched 2 weeks ago, and no subscribers yet. Your thoughts?

    1. 0

      A few growth ideas because the more subs you get the more names you sell. right?

      • This will cost you money but may go big. Buy domain names. While I've seen plenty of sites selling domain names. I've never seen any buying them. Buy expiring domains for double the cost. You could try it out with a google form or incorporate it into your site. Have a submit page or form. Perhaps even a voting system?

      • Connect with any and all idea newsletters, and get a section each week in their newsletter that offers unique brandable domains in the vein of that week's trend. And vice versa. Offer them a spot or link to their work in your newsletter when you offer a brandable name. Here's 3 trends you can use this for... and link to their newsletter's edition.

      • Trends .vc @dru_riley

      • Opportunities .so @jakobgreenfeld

      • trends .co @stephsmith

      • One key thing to growth is get people who want to share your newsletter with their audience. The answer: Interviews. Interview people who changed their name. Changed their domain during a pivot. Interview people who claim their name/domain caused them to fail (ask on IH, for people). Interview logo designers. Interview branding experts like Phil Pallen at PhilPallen .co

      Interviews don't have to be scheduled calls. you can do it all in google docs and email. I did that with my newsletter and it was wonderful. Pigeon for Gmail helps.

  2. 2

    First1000.co
    Case studies on how companies got their first 1000 customers.
    18k subs

    1. 1

      You have a great referral system. Get featured for referring 5 people. Perhaps monetize in a similar format. Feature 5 short text mentions every week for $10, or $20. Fill in any unsold with referral-earned folks. Dense Discovery charges $99 for classified ads and is sold out months in advance.

      You have a ton of great qualitative data. Put all the what works and what doesn't work into a searchable sortable, filterable google sheet. Sell that compiled data for $49. Yes it's free week to week but to offer it all in one package saves folks time.
      And enrich the data with categorization, add math (comparing different stats), add in some of your own ideas into ranking/rating and you'd have a wonderful database.

      You're inevitably getting more out of writing the case studies than any readers. This happened to me when I was running a newsletter and reading 100 articles a week. I spotted trends and could offer insights/context to companies that I didn't have when I started. I imagine a $49 1 hour call via a calendly would do pretty well, especially early stage startups who just need a gut check on what works and what doesn't. Or even growth teams seeking 10 more ideas.

    1. 0

      How many subscribers do you have?

        1. 1

          This might take about 40 hours of work in all. I've done it before when I made CreatorScape. It'll get you both growth and money if you decide to do monetize it.

          Create a list of all the companies in each space. I see you cover a variety of future niches. aging, fashion web 3.0. You can choose one and do it in a weekend or figure out all of the. I'd suggest picking one, maybe longevity, to start with.

          But that's not all. a map or a list of companies in the space, anyone can do that. What you do next is going to set you on the path of monetization. 1. You can do this by hand or use crunch base. Find all the investors of those individual companies. What you're looking to do is list each and every investor, and make sure you can see which ones invest in multiple companies.

          This is basic work when someone is raising money for their startup. you're saving them this time and energy. And you have a newsletter so you can do it in 3 to 4 steps, in semi public. meaning you can announce to your newsletter "I made this map. Did I miss anyone?" a week later after feedback add companies. then "I've found all the investors.. did. I miss anyone?" and after feedback add the investors.

          So you got a list of companies, a list of investors in those companies.

          You should 1st email them all and say "hey i put this list together and I cover the industry... here's my newsletter". I found that in my world of influencer marketing, investors in the space were happy to pay $50 a year in a premium newsletter to get more info, more access, deep knowledge. Having them subscribe now sets you up for success of a paid offering later.

          And then.... you ask them.. "do you want companies reaching out to you to pitch you?" <=== basically.. you want deal flow?

          and if they say yes, include what they want, how they want it and put it in a doc. Sell it to startups.

          Every week you could interview an investor in the space. publish the info. and say "we publish 50% of the interview in this newsletter for free, buy the report and get 100% of the interviews from all time."

          so a few ideas

          • Make a Map
          • Find Investors
          • Do Interviews
          • Create a report
          1. 2

            That's a really interesting idea. Appreciate it. Thank you very much, Andrew.

    1. 1

      I wish I had something to tell you but I can't seem to find out what you're sending. Are you sending a weekly newsletter? or is it the blog content but I see the blog was last updated in May.

      Definitely you should have some archives or something pointing to past editions, unless I'm totally blanking on where you have a link.

      I see "start", "blog" "resources"

      1. 1

        Hey Andrew,
        Thanks for your feedback! Seems like I have to make some changes 🙏
        In short – it's a monthly newsletter, where I share resources, behind the scenes, and tips around making videos for non-videographers.

        The blog is just another part of the website where I express thoughts additionally.

        1. 1

          Got an edition I can see? happy to take a look.
          Any particular reason you're sending monthly? it's not nearly enough editions a year to be on top of mind. 12 vs 52.

          1. 1

            @AndrewKamphey, thats a good point! I actually added a link in the navigation for all past issues. I'm not the most consistent with sending out. Focusing on quality content, but your point makes me realise that I should have a good strategy for consistency. Any advice on that?

            1. 2

              The only strategy I have for consistency is making it so you don't have to push the rock up the hill every single time. Use some google alerts an curate a small section at least so you get momentum and a starting energy every single week. I curated all the time so I just open my gmail, and get 100 articles to read. easy peasy to start, start reading.

  3. 2

    Nice Andrew.

    Changed the subject and overall looking since we last talked.

    Here it goes:

    unicornsfeed.com

    1. 3
      • Sell front end audits. 15 minute reviews done by loom. see Six Figure Audits

      • Charge for coworking. It's a 1 hour call, 5 minutes to discuss what they are working on and you suggest what to do, then 50 minutes later review their work.

      • You always put the newsletter together from your kitchen? Offer 1 links to an amazon affiliated account that shows of a product to make your kitchen better. I know this is "off-topic" from front end, but you're the one who brought up kitchen :) So here's your novel/new idea.

      1. 1

        super interesting the audits actually.

        thank you so much Andrew.

  4. 2

    https://sendfox.com/thetestingacademy
    Software Testing related stuff video, resourcesand courses

    1. 1

      It looks like you're focusing on getting people started, beginners in the field. Which is awesome. And a lot of information is on YouTube, Facebook, in free places. Great that you're doing a course, and can charge for that.

      It's so hard to charge people looking for their first job. I do something similar, I give lots of free content so that someone starting can make their first dollar.

      I'd look beyond the beginners for monetization.

      • Create an enterprise course
      • Add Coaching, and Career Advice for those looking for a promotion.
      • You can create a job board specifically for people moving up. That might net better paid job ads since it's hard to find senior people or intermediates.
  5. 2

    https://startups.nocodeletters.com/

    A curated newsletter of twitter threads related to Startups

    1. 3

      Create a list of the 100 must follow startup twitter writers. People who are great at representing the startup mentality in written form on twitter. Put it on Gumroad with more in depth bio's. Interview as many of them as you can (5 questions google docs work well here) put that in the gumroad product.

      • I see on your gumroad you have one product you sell. Make it better and sell it for $30. Here's how you can make your 100+ tools list better. For each product, make a 5 minute loom video of you using it. If you've never used it before, signup for a free trial and record the first 5 minutes of you setting it up, using it for the first time. This might sound silly but honestly I'd rather watch a 5 minute video than actually sign up for tools myself. if I don't like the tool or can't find a use for it they have my info and I get bombarded with onboarding emails. But if you sign up and show me what it's like, I'm more likely to find the product I want to use and can use right away.

      • Create a classifieds ads section after each tweet you include. Short (less than 240 characters and a link, no images). Write them yourself to start with. Promote products or tools that speak to the heart of what the tweet you featured.
        For example this one ended with "talk to users" so feature 5 products that make it easier to find users, talk to users and keep notes for internal use. ( loom/calendly/syften/intercom... etc)

      1. 2

        The list sounds interesting to start with. Thanks @AndrewKamphey

    1. 1

      I'd defo be looking to monetize with companies posting jobs!

    2. 0
      • Feature at least one thing to do with an extra day. Find a killer Airbnb and feature it (get that affiliate setup). Other travel sites, or local deals sites should/could have affiliate. Have fun and find extremely interesting things to feature that even if someone can't go now, they will bookmark it later.

      • Charge for more personalized curation. Charge a one time fee for someone to submit their linkedin or cv to you, and you'll find them 10 jobs. I'm assuming because you read all the jobs and have some leg up on a person reading through for the first time. I'm not sure if this is really gonna be a great money maker, but could be a good outlet for those who already want to support you, to support you. $10 or $20 to save an hour is great for some folks.

      • Perhaps you can do shoutout trades or spitch sponsorships to other sites that celebrate alternative job searches: remoteok, key Values by @lynnetye ,

  6. 2

    Hi, Andrew. I bet you know what I am going to post 😂

    https://newsletter.microns.io

    19 subscribers

    I interested not only in monitization but also in growing organically it. All my subscribers came from Twitter and IH.

    1. 1

      For growth

      • Create an epic list of everywhere someone can post their company/sideproject/app to sell it. MicroAcquire, Sideprojectors, Microns. Include every site, newsletter, directory, marketplace, etc.

      • Every week interview 1 person who has bought a business/app within the past 6 months. Ask them 5 questions about the process and what they are doing now. Great way for them to promote to some technical audience, right? Broad questions here work: How did you find it? How did you end up buying it? Why did you buy it? What are you doing now with it? What are your plans in the future? Do you want to sell it again? Follow up with them in 6 months.

      1. 1

        Wow. That's a piece of awesome advice. Let me prepare for this.

      2. 0

        p.s. I'll be your first interview if you want to do it.

        1. 1

          Yes, it would be great! I will let you know.

  7. 2

    Great Idea!

    I have a niche newsletter on drones. Here's the latest issue - https://propwash.nihalmohan.com/issues/propwash-6-the-biggest-drone-conglomerate-you-didn-t-know-about-685014

    Thanks for your time!

    1. 2

      I'd suggest Amazon Affiliates if your subscribers regularly buy drones and drone accessories.

      If you don't know if they buy them, create a quarterly survey asking at least "how much did you spend in the last month on drones and drone accessories?" Publish it as "State of Drones" a good example is the yearly State of Switch Chris puts out at Switch Weekly. It ends up being his best new subscriber channel too.

      I'd think about interviewing CxOs at drone companies. Even if it's only 5 questions by a google doc, it could turn into a great deep industry report if you compile 20 to 30 interviews together. Something you can sell. "I asked 50 CEOs of drone companies...." is a powerful headline. A "dronescape" ala lumascape could turn into some nice consulting gigs. It did for me when I made CreatorScape.

      1. 1

        Thanks, Andrew!

        I really love the interview prompt idea. Going to give it a try soon!

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 2 months ago.

  8. 2

    Hello Andrew,

    Thanks for your time.

    My newsletter contain information about 2 industries - Technology, Defense & Aerospace.

    This is an example of my post from which I create a newsletter. https://dsarkar.medium.com/the-importance-and-benefits-of-human-machine-collaboration-in-the-next-decade-283573f7859c

    Total number of subscribers as of now is 50.

    Best Regards,
    Debo

    1. 0

      Do you have a link to your newsletter?

      1. 1

        I am sorry, I don't. I send newsletters as an email attachment.

        So the link to the publication that I just shared with you will be emailed to subscribers as an attachment.

        1. 0

          I meant landing page. somewhere people sign up for the newsletter.

  9. 2

    Listen Up IH

    Insights + Ideas + Inspiration for Indie Hackers, profiling successful Indie Hackers every week.

    Subs count - 750

    1. 3
      • Affiliate for Audible. Recommend every week a very on the nose audiobook that won't waste reader's time. And provide a link to your audible page to get a free audible book for free. it pays $15 for each free trial sign up.

      • Sell a database of Monetization tactics. Each week , if you you share the specific tactics, then put them all together from all weeks. You're saving time for the reader who doesn't have to go back and copy/paste them all into a doc themselves.

      • Sell a database of Growth tactics. Each week you share these, so put them in a google doc and sell it on gumroad. or put a stripe url with a payment and give access to the doc for each buyer.

      • If you don't have many that have monetization and growth, then put together an epic list of lessons learned. Categorize them and sell it as a deeper report. Check out 5,274 business ideas that Starter Story has. Yes it took a few years, but I bet you could put together now a list of 100 lessons learned.

      1. 2

        The audible idea is unique, hadn't thought of that.

        The database ideas I had vaguely thought of, but you've put them in quite concrete terms.

        Thank you 🙏

        I will work on them

        1. 1

          And I think design, and categorization can go a long way. Check out these examples

  10. 1

    Thanks for doing this!

    Yada Yada - 100 subs
    Helping non-developers (i.e. designers, product managers, and QA testers) know just enough to understand and communicate with developers.

    1. 1

      Perhaps: Create an info product "HitchHiker's Guide to Talking to Developers" part dictionary, part workflow, part checklist. At the beginning this could be very simple a google doc export of your words from your email issues. But can also be a growing FAQ. It can also be updated easily with a gumroad sale and keep adding to it after you sell it. It doesn't need to be a complete work to get started.

      Instead of waiting for sponsors to advertise you (at 100 subs) you can advertise your own product. And give away a part, or a small section for new subs to grow faster.

  11. 1

    Unzip.dev - A newsletter that unpacks developer trends every few weeks. I have more than 2100 subscribers at the moment.

    I had some companies look into sponsoring Unzip, but I'm not sure that publishing every 3-4 weeks is relevant to that kind of business model.

    Thank you for your time! <3

  12. 1

    This Week In React: weekly React curation newsletter of 10k subscribers (summer 2022)

    Localized:

    I'm currently at 1.5k€ MRR from newsletter ad sponsoring but curious to know how I can earn more. The localization makes it possible to sell different ads/things to different audiences.

    1. 3

      I made a 17 minute loom video for you: https://www.loom.com/share/35eef3f2219b4bc99b5ccd49c0264fee

      Not sure if you're doing this in the React Hebdo newsletter because I don't speak French (sorry), but I'd think through every single local business that a developer would frequent. Not just react themed things. Every single cafe with good wifi and open to remote workers. every single event (speeddating). Doesn't have to be related directly to development at all. I'd reach out to each and every one of them and just barter first. Seriously. ask for two $50 credit to a cafe. 1 you'll give away (so the cafe will get two shoutouts in two weeks) and 1 you'll use yourself.

      Do meetups, on Mondays (because that's the slowest in food and beverage) ask for first drink on the house. while it might not be directly cash in pocket, you'd have a discounted place to drink, if you drink anyway. And possibly if there are 10-12 people, just ask for your tab to be on the house.

      Note: the website link on your profile page redirects back to IH, not to your site: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/french-react-newsletter

      Add a Community News section to your newsletter. People can submit to it. and sell it for $10 to $20. super affordable. I know this doesn't sound like much but it's an extra $1k per year you can add to your top line revenue. And basically it's a way into your newsletter to test it out for sponsors. If you have people who want to try it out, or add-ons. to make larger packages.

      i'm reading your sponsor page and it's hard to grok. I'd create 3-5 packages and be more clear on how much they are and what people get.

      Instead of just saying "1st spot" or "2nd" and a price. Put together 3-5 packages at costs from $100 for 5 news placements to $2,000 for 3 top spots and 5 news placements.

      1. 1

        🙌 Thanks a lot @AndrewKamphey, didn't expect such a video!

        For what it's worth, the sponsorship page you consulted is a page I just put online yesterday! It's far from perfect but I'm still happy and consider an improvement on what I previously had!

        FYI I'm coming from these 2 legacy sponsorship docs (that still got me to 1.5k MRR):

        Not sure if you're doing this in the React Hebdo newsletter because I don't speak French (sorry), but I'd think through every single local business that a developer would frequent. Not just react themed things. Every single cafe with good wifi and open to remote workers. every single event (speeddating). Doesn't have to be related directly to development at all. I'd reach out to each and every one of them and just barter first. Seriously. ask for two $50 credit to a cafe. 1 you'll give away (so the cafe will get two shoutouts in two weeks) and 1 you'll use yourself.
        Do meetups, on Mondays (because that's the slowest in food and beverage) ask for first drink on the house. while it might not be directly cash in pocket, you'd have a discounted place to drink, if you drink anyway. And possibly if there are 10-12 people, just ask for your tab to be on the house.

        My French newsletter sponsorship slots were full since 2022, selling 1k€/month ads on average. And I try to keep the newsletter sponsors highly relevant to a React developer speaking French, that may be in Paris but also in Montreal. I'm not sure accepting free drinks in a coffee would bring anything to me.

        Also, I'm not a particularly social person in the first place and don't want to organize meetups. This is also quite time-consuming. At most I could become involved in a React conference in Paris, but that's a totally different subject.

        Note: the website link on your profile page redirects back to IH, not to your site: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/french-react-newsletter

        Fixed, thanks :)

        Add a Community News section to your newsletter. People can submit to it. and sell it for $10 to $20. super affordable. I know this doesn't sound like much but it's an extra $1k per year you can add to your top line revenue. And basically it's a way into your newsletter to test it out for sponsors. If you have people who want to try it out, or add-ons. to make larger packages.

        That's something I'll consider. Will watch the video again because I'm not 100% sure to understand what those links are. I clearly don't want to pollute the quality of the newsletter.

        ---

        ## Video content

        I totally agree that this page remains too dense and hard to understand. I tried to nest less relevant information in collapsible, hope people will still figure out that they can be uncollapsed... But it's still too dense.

        /sponsorship => /sponsor: yes in practice both lead to the same page. I'm thinking of renaming this /advertise instead 🤔 I feel the term "sponsor" looks a bit too much like charity and companies sponsoring are expecting a ROI.

        I'll definitively use company logos and remove the "..."

        For now, I just ported my existing offers and revamped them a bit: first sponsor / second sponsors / job offers. Before I only had 3 undistinguished sponsorship slots with the same pricing.

        1st sponsor price === 2nd sponsor price => this is a mistake, thanks :) I created this page in a hurry and also took prices I applied to recent ad sells because I didn't want to upset sponsors that could see a lower price on the page that I invoiced them in practice 😅

        I'll definitely suggest and product, conference packages in the future. For now, I consider it's part of my "custom offers" (I just sold one this morning). This page is the full detailed sponsorship offering, but I guess it makes sense to create dedicated pages for each sponsorship need, and make sure only the relevant information for a given use-case remains on that page.

        About the job offers, I almost never sold any in the English newsletter (didn't try much either), but it represents like 70% of my sponsorship on the French newsletter, where companies in France are looking to hire local French developers. I'm considering opening a Pallet board/talent collective for the English side. Still need to figure this out. I also started cold-emailing my French subscribers one by one (for now I only emailed a hundred) to see if anyone is looking for a job and connect them with a headhunter.

        About my sponsorship calendar, it is public because I build the newsletter in public (and share monthly reports). I guess being public can also help grow the newsletter? At my scale I am not really afraid to keep it public and get it scrapped. My sponsors are also found in other popular developer newsletters. Also, I believe my audience is more high-quality, and my prices are not higher. I'm more likely to steal sponsors for larger newsletters than the opposite. I'm mostly afraid that sponsors see an empty calendar and think they have a lever to negotiate the prices.

        Note my calendar is quite empty for now because of:

        • the summer - low activity mode particularly for French companies with HR in vacation
        • my newsletter Revue=>ConvertKit migration pause in August
        • my offering refactor

        The N/A slots correspond to past slots that didn't actually exist back in time 😅 hopefully the 2023 calendar would look cleaner. Also looking for a tool to manage sponsors. I may try getsponsy.com

        In general, I also feel that I should focus on collecting sponsorship leads instead of presenting a ton of information upfront. I'm not 100% sold on a simple form "enter your email and get a PDF of our offers". On my side, I don't really like when prices are not visible. But maybe I could hide the prices a bit more, in a secondary page, not too visible, so that the first page really focuses on capturing the lead.

        Also agree to reach out regularly to past sponsors. I do this already, but still manually. I'm not sure automating this with ConvertKit would help at my scale, and prefer to do things that don't scale until I'm satisfied with the results.

        ---

        A bit related, but I thought this @Sacha comment interesting:

        I also recently implemented a completely automated link scheduling and payment flow using Stripe, which greatly lessens my workload and also ensures I don't forget to collect payments.

        Although interestingly, I suspect my conversion rate might've been higher when people had to manually get in touch by email. After all, for a purchase of this size you probably want to speak to a real human being first. For that reason, I'm thinking about hiding my sign-up flow and only pointing people to it after a first email contact.

        From A Newsletter for Driving Traffic Became My Top Revenue Source

        On my side, I'm also more and more convinced that automating everything doesn't work, and people like to keep a human touch to all this. I think I'll eventually hide the price of premium packages, and only implement automation for low-tier packages like job offers (and community links). I could scale the time-consuming email back and forth with a virtual assistant 🤷‍♂️

        1. 1

          Glad you found it interesting. one note is that I would not recommend either doing a pdf or showing your pricing. I do think you can do both. It is a very weird thing but giving someone something to download, and getting their email address, will absolutely increase your revenue. Few people who are willing to pay you, will email you first. I know it's weird. but I wouldn't hide your pricing and then make a pdf download. I would do a pdf download in addition to having your pricing available.

          You can and should keep the human touch. I would, also, not automate everything. Not sure if it came across in the video that you should automate things, but I did not have that intention. I do think you can add more buy now buttons. Low priced items that you can add in quickly, with a little touch, go ahead and add a stripe button or stripe checkout with a link or a stripe payment link. something with no code, and I do think you'll have more revenue, and more customers.

          Before you "scale the time consuming email" consider fixing the fact of back and forth email. You are already on the road to fixing a lot of back and forth, by having available dates, prices. and I'd add packages. I don't know a single newsletter writer who has gone broke emailing potential sponsors. It's the highest revenue action you can take day to day. If you do find yourself going back and forth too much, then fix your copy. Fix your process. or make more sales. The craziest thing I've ever been a part of.. is when (as a buyer) I want to buy and ad ... and the newsletter writer is the one who keeps going back and forth. I'm like "just send me a payment link the first email. I want to pay now!" like.. why do I have to request you send me a link? Always have a payment link in your emails with potential sponsors! (sorry for the rant)

          1. 1

            I see thanks, lots of great tips that I'll implement soon :)

            Yes I will definitively add some stripe button for those that just want to pay immediately without any chat ;)

  13. 1

    Awesome thread Andrew!

    I write a newsletter about startups at MIT. I'm about 3 months in and currently have just under 500 subs: https://seamuscassidy.substack.com/

    I published a free database of 100+ early stage MIT startups below that generated a lot of my subscribers. You subscribe and I send the database for free.

    https://nuc5cux0yzya.umso.co/

    Mostly interested in growth tactics at the moment, but would be interested in longer term monetization ideas too. Thanks in advance, really enjoyed reading this thread!

    1. 1

      This is gonna be weird, but I'd suggest doing market research. Meaning you seem to have a lock on "MIT" and this is probably very early adopters of technology, could be a hard group to get feedback from. So you could get let's say 100 people to agree to answer questions once a week, or do a 1 hour call once a month. And then sell that as market research to early tech makers.

      Market research firms make gobs of money, and you could be a smaller sized more direct version of this. You're under 500 subs now so I would imagine you can get about 10 to 50 of them to say yes to getting early updates about new technology and for their agreement to respond to a survey or join a call. You'd need lots of demographic info directly from them, and then you'd aggregate that and sell $500 to $1,000 a month sessions were a company puts their product or a survey in front of your group of early adopters.

      $500 for 10 users feedback for some enterprise companies is super cheap! I'd reach out to 100 product managers that want to reach early tech adopters and ask them if they want to do a trial run. You'd charge them less for being in an early test. $250 per 10 people who show up.

      I know that might sound strange but it's a lucrative business to be in, if you can be in it. And you'd probably make everyone happy.

  14. 1

    Hi @AndrewKamphey I’m a Associate Product Manager & I’ve started a product management newsletter- Rabbit Hole (itsrabbithole.substack.com) where I read 30+ publications & share 1 products management article thrice a week! So far I’ve got 250+ organic subscribers in 3 months of launching!

    1. 1

      Here's an idea: Create an ultimate list of tools you've used in your career. Could be a google sheet or a notion or an airtable. The key is to have your own personal experience with each product, tool, saas product. Go deep. Spill the beans.
      Then go to each product and figure out if they have an Affiliate program.
      Every new sub gets this list, IF you update it every quarter send updates to all subscribers. So they get it often. and remember it and use it.

      and if you want one more: make a paid monthly group call. an AMA. get questions before. Make the thing two hours. 1st hour answer questions that were sent ahead of time. second hour meet everyone who is there and get new questions. Charge for it. Maybe make it part of a premium substack if you want to stick to that platform.

  15. 1

    What about https://readsom.com 🙏
    I'm building a newsletter discovery platform and started sending a newsletter (now close to 200subs).

    Since it's a newsletter on newsletters (and a wide range of them) it's difficult to narrow a target audience and therefore to figure out the growth strategy.

    1. 1

      In this post I'm suggesting monetization strategies. Would you like those? You're pointing out that it's difficult to figure out a growth strategy. Everybody struggles with growth.
      Here's one idea: interview newsletters, who will in turn feature your interview. you can do an infinite number of interviews for growth

      As for monetization:

      You can affiliate for Paved.com (I work there now, and we have a good affiliate program that InboxReads has mentioned in Indiehackers before)

      1. 1

        Of course, just with a small reach, one (monetization) can't happen without the other (growth).

        Thanks for the tip, I will definitely check out Paved, and if you have more - I would love to hear them all 🙏

  16. 1

    Looking for tips on organic growth for my first newsletter: https://0xshash.substack.com/
    Bite sized content on everything that happened in web3 over the past week

    I posted in a few web3 discord groups that I'm part of but didn't really get new subscribers. Also its my first post and trying to focus on consistency/ content quality over growth at this point.

    1. 1

      Make a list of the top 100 hacks of all time. and keep it updated.

      In your latest you mentioned: This marks the 2nd largest hack in Defi.
      and didn't link to any resource or authority. How do you know it's the 2nd largest? You should be the authority on this. and link to it. and everytime someone mentions big hacks, they'll link to you. and new hacks will bring in more visitors every time.

      1. 1

        That's a great insight Andrew. Backlinking to my own content that will be referenced elsewhere. Will definitely do that and update my post. Thanks!

  17. 1

    Hey Andrew,

    I am late to this post and you probably might not even see this. Still, here's my newsletter:

    https://domainscout.substack.com
    10 awesome domain names and ideas delivered. Almost every day.

    I have about 50 subs now. Although subscriber growth has hit a plateau in recent weeks.

    1. 1

      I got some growth tactics ideas for you and within those some of them are good to monetize too. But if you want to focus on growth, then do that, and then charge later.

      For Growth:

      • Create an epic guide to buying/selling domains. Pick either or do both. 50 tips on Buying Domains for Cheaper, 50 Tips for Selling Domains. 50 Ways to save money when you're buying domains. (buy bulk, buy direct, buy expiring) You probably can come up with 50 yourself. Or look to the next idea to get others to give you tips.

      • Interview people. You could interview one person a week who has sold a domain. What might be fun too is to interview both parties, the buyer and the seller some weeks. this podcast episode features both myself and the buyer of my newsletter that I sold him. I just don't see this often where you get both perspective at once.

      • I think the act of reaching out to 100 to 200 people who have bought domains, in forums, chat groups, direct emails, you'll gain a lot of them as subscribers too. And be able to get shares of your newsletter when you print it.

      • Consider a written interview, by google docs to be the method you can do this asyncronously and easy for your interviewees. Ask 5 questions, the 5 W's usually do well. Starter Story has a great playbook for this.

      And one thing I noticed, you haven't had an edition in a few weeks. Might be why you're not growing. Consistency is key.

  18. 1

    Hey Andrew!

    I write 10+1 Things sharing 11 interesting, offbeat stories curated by me.

    https://rishikesh.substack.com/p/african-apocalypse-build-a-great-life

    I started 2 months back and currently standing at 70 subs.

    What are some ways to monetize when I cross 100 subs?

    Would love to hear some ways for organic growth as well !

    Thanks!

    1. 1

      For growth, I'd put yourself out there more. It's called 10+1 things, but its' really Rishikesh, Rishikesh, Rishikesh. Be bold. Put yourself on the front. Put a face on the newsletter. Make it fully yours. Own it. Check out the best newsletters on letterlist, they all have a face!

      And take a think about who your newsletter is for. That's going to unlock a ton of growth, because your new subscribers probably don't know you exist yet. So to get to them, you have to know them first. Your newsletter as it stands uses a lot of "I" and if you both fully become one and the same with your newsletter while simultaneously discovering who you are writing for, you'll figure out what to do to get new subscribers.

      Some tactics to help: Create a PDF (in a google doc) with 10+1 of your very favorite things you've ever curated. Enrich them with more references, tweets, historize them: let readers know how they came to be. Place them on pedestals and idolize them. Write 1,000 words on each one. You'd then have 11,000 words on the greatest 10 +1 things you've ever witnessed online. And you'd have a wonderful little ebook to put in first time subscriber's inboxes. Something to get right away.

      Consider going daily or weekdaily. Meaning you offer 11 links each week and it's a lot. You pour your heart an soul for 9 hours a week... but not everyone will click on everything. If i got 6 emails from you each week I'd be more inclined to click on one. send 2 items an email monday through friday and send 1 digest with a bonus item on Sundays as you usually do. Something to consider since the only extra work would be to copy/paste 2 items into a substack edition and queue up 5 of them for the week. Note: I do 5 emails a week for coffeehouse

      And then once you're making even a few dollars a week, you can pay it forward to artists. Via, the image you include each week, I think you could do something more with this. Instead of offering it to artists to be featured, try paying them. Could be like a reverse advertising spot. It keeps your art in there and offers support to creators/artists. Say something like "apply for a spot" instead of a contact me for a spot. Since you're paying you can accept applications. I know it sounds like a little, but paying even $5 or $10 per issue could be an interesting thing for artists to share. Maybe it was their first digital dollars made from their art.

      1. 1

        Thanks a lot Andrew! I'm still trying to process everything you suggested! Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this!
        You made my day!

    1. 1

      Hey Joe, So cutting edge dev specific newsletters seem to be a hard little nut to crack in terms of monetization. So much of web dev is pay it forward. Free github repos, free how to articles, tutorials, video walkthroughs. Your target audience is one that is adverse to paying for technical knowledge.

      At first I thought this way. But I think there's a few avenues you can go that push on the boundaries a bit. Paid community might take too long to get fully off the ground but is something that is needed. I might angle it towards getting high level questions answered faster, than searching. Because there's more and more free info and knowledge, it's faster to ask a group who are all equally motivated to help. But this type of group is hard to get started and might not be worth the time or effort to monetize. But would be fully worth the effort to keep it free and open.

      Seems you're already getting sponsors, which is great. One more wrinkle you can add to your newsletter to increase total revenue is shoutouts or classified ads.

      shoutouts - text only. (max 100 to 200 characters)
      classified - short text with one embedded link. (no more than a tweet maybe less)

      You can price these super cheap so that anyone can buy them. To advertise a github repo, to show off a project and get traffic, to try to sell a project to a dev who can actually take it to another level.

      The point of making them cheap is to make them easier to support you. The people buying are going to be your subscribers, They will want to support you, but don't think of themselves as advertisers.

      I noticed you test code. (from your personal website) I think this could be a huge business for you. or small side project. Check out the writing here on SEO Audits. I've done something similar with reviewing newsletters. It's been a great thing to be able to offer and do for cash.

      I know for sure I could use a skilled developer to review my code on a new ruby on rails project. Or on an old one. Lots of apps that can help facilitate this like codementor.io but I think if you'd like to keep it personal it's great to advertise in you r own newsletter these things. Not put it on a site, but just sell through gumroad and use loom. And you already offer coaching in your website but I think a productized version of this could easily be advertised in your newsletter, by you.

      1. 1

        Classified ads, priced super cheap, sounds really interesting! I love the idea of getting anyone to show off their work for a few bucks.

        Advertising for my own services is also a great idea. I'll make sure to fill in the blanks with those in the future.

        Thanks for the awesome ideas - keep up the great work!

  19. 1

    This one might be tricky: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/. List is pretty good, ~3,500 subs, but it's a geeky, mostly research-driven project. I've explored advertising a bit but not sure where to go for that.

    1. 1

      So this might cost around 50 to 100 bucks but its worth it. Run a list of your subscribers through Towerdata's email intelligence. You dont need to get every data point. But I would make sure to get demo and house hold income at least.

      Use that aggregated data to sell pretty broad geeky stuff.

      Dense discovery is selling out and their audience is seemingly broad. Simple classifieds might be the trick for you too.

      If you havent thought of it, I would interview at least 5 interesting people for each year of the web. Your journey through that might be of interest to readers. And perhaps unlocking longer interviews would make it easy for folks to want to buy a membership if you offer one.

      Consider also posters for sale. Might be fun to roll out updates for that too!

      1. 1

        These are some really fantastic ideas, I really appreciate it! Going to get to work on them too.

        Question: when you say “use that aggregated data to sell”, do you mean in materials I show to potential advertisers? Or are you referring to something else?

        1. 2

          Yes when selling ads

  20. 1

    https://optimisetrends.substack.com/
    Newsletter on Marketing optimisation and A/B testing

    1. 1

      How many subscribers?

      I checked out your 1st or 2nd edition. Without much to go on here's a few ideas.

      • A/B Test Results: Either as a database or an info product, I'm sure some percent of readers want to see a ton of test side by side. Even if this info is qualitative, or anecdotal, it might be great to see a ton of it side by side.

      • Conversion Audits. Gaps .com writes about six figure SEO audits. I bet you could use that playbook for Conversion audits. https://gaps.com/six-figure-audits/

  21. 1

    My weekly newsletter on building a successful creative business is at http://bcc.craftsmancreative.co

    Thanks!

    1. 1

      How many subscribers Daren?
      From a quick look it looks like you're monetized in a lot of ways. Info products on gumroad, benchmark app, community, courses. I'll try to think of something you don't do already it might just be twisting or tweaking something you already do.

      Like you have done so many course launches. You could put together a checklist for under $10, and offer a consultation call for $49 for anyone launching a course on udemy/kajabi/gumroad. could bring you deal flow too.

      1. 1

        Thanks Andrew! Yeah, the online courses have become it's own business. Pretty fun year!

        I just crossed 1100 subs, but growth is sloooooow. The monetization is all in place for new subscribers to become aware of products & stuff, but I do like your idea for a lower priced product / lead magnet.

    1. 1

      first off, great deal sourcing guide. I've forwarded it to a few people that need a list like that.

      Because of your experience with Due Dilio, I'd look at putting together $19 to $99 Due Diligence guides. Along with checklists. That should broaden the type of ads you can run for yourself. And possibly be a great tripwire for fb/goog ads. Basically you could advertise a guide for $50 and then a by product of that is they sign up for the newsletter. I saw you tried twitter ads, they don't convert well to sign ups directly.

      • Consultation Calls: I'd highly suggest making them paid. It helps keep flakes out.
      • Branded Section: I think some sections that are branded around an idea and sponsored quarterly make sense. I know GrowthMentor is spending money on ads (I get their ads all the time) and might be a good fit. Feature a different growth mentor each week in a section. could sell 1 ad spot for a quarter at 10x the price of a single ad. And this might fit in more with your content and helpfulness.
  22. 1

    I think it's great you are offering this support.
    A lot of people are handling higher amount of traffic but not many conversions.
    Although your courses might be great for the beginner marketer, I would highly suggest to personalize the emails in a way that will make the user want to convert.

    One way to do it is by using personalization like Twik. It will identify the user anonymously on your site based on fingerprint (not cookie - which means more reliable), and based on pre-funnel and behavioral data will deliver the best converting options for this user.

    You will only have to provide the options for the tool and it will do the work. Personalized emails definitely works better then general emails sent to all.

    1. 1

      Well newsletters aren't like direct emails. I, for one, get a little awkward if a newsletter addresses me by name and targets me too much. I enjoy as a subscriber being one of many.

  23. 2

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

    1. 3

      How many subscribers?

      It seems you're building startups, so you'd ideally monetize by getting customers, right? At first it might make sense to focus on building and getting the subscribers as customers, but perhaps there are a few infoproducts you can produce.

      • Consider producing some ebooks on the markets your researching as you're doing 12 startups in 12 months.
      • Consider market research among your peers that only you can do, in your age group. I've seen a lot of Gen Z marketing consultants move into products after a few years of consulting for companies and doing market research.
      • And you could probably try out donations, buymeacoffee .com but check out putting info products behind coffeelinks. But do please check out the Terms and conditions to see if age is an issue.
      1. 1

        This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

        1. 1

          Tom, did you work on it yet?

  24. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 months ago.

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