🟢 9,824 subscribers in 281 days
To reach my goal of 10k subscribers in 12 months. Am I really on pace?
(2.5 min read)
Welcome to the 27 new subscribers since March 12!
3 parts today:
Growth update
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Growth experiment idea
Growth update
Good news: I now have 176 subscribers!
Bad news: Nearly 3 months in, I only (😉) have 176 subscribers! How could I possibly reach my goal?
Good news: My recent monthly compound growth rate was 55%. 🎉😮
This newsletter could have 10,000 subscribers around the end of the year.
Using 9.2 for how many months are left:
(1+55%) ^ 9.2 * 176 = 9,921
🛑 But can we really make these 2 assumptions?
Subscriber growth compounds.
This rate of growth will hold steady.
From what I’ve seen in others’ newsletters, I doubt either assumption is as true as I’d like it to be.
I’ve been dreaming of attracting 10k subscribers in my first year like some people do, but those writers seem more obsessed and single-minded.
They send lots of direct messages asking people to subscribe, post fanatically on social media, propose countless cross-promotions with other creators, etc.
They have jaw-dropping work ethic.
I can confidently say I’d never be willing to put in the work that this guy did:
(By the way, he’s now at “Over 87,000 subscribers”.)
Meanwhile, I on the other hand spend my days reading books and consuming other content that kills my work ethic (as you could tell from my previous post).
When I step back and zoom out and think about what’s important, I care less about stats and more about my day to day life.
I’ve been too future-focused for too long.
However.
I don’t want to underestimate the power of showing up and putting in the reps.
You can’t perfect a habit until you create the habit.
So I’m giving myself grace as I work this muscle and get into a rhythm of posting twice weekly.
It’s reasonable for us to assume that these emails will only get better as I learn more about how to write a newsletter that resonates with people.
So right now (at the beginning) is the worst it will be.
Which means people are sharing it less than they’ll share it in the future.
As more subscribers arrive, there is more social proof, which attracts more subscribers.
There will be at least some compounding that happens.
Compounding is magic.
I love exponential growth.
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Growth experiment idea
There is no Absolute Best Newsletter Platform™.
All the ones I know about (Substack, Beehiiv, Ghost, ConvertKit, etc) have pros and cons.
I wrote my first few posts on Beehiiv before moving here to Substack.
Since then, I’ve wondered:
Could it be better to use multiple newsletter platforms?
After running this idea by an author with 30k subscribers and then also a former employee of Substack, my answer is:
“Probably. It’s worth trying!”
I’ll likely point https://WorkLessProfitMore.com to a thoughtfully designed landing page instead of the Substack signup page.
New subscribers could then receive a daily welcome email series before being transitioned to this twice-weekly newsletter here.
The Substack recommendations engine will still work, and I’ll also be able to do more growth hacking at the “top of the funnel” (via API integrations).
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👀 Caught my eye this week:
Have you ever experienced a windfall?
I’m starting to wonder whether it’s not all rainbows and butterflies.
Do you care where your money comes from?
Do you only want to earn it from meaningful work?
Or would a windfall (or lottery winning) suit your needs?
Cathie Wood (CEO of Ark Invest) says bitcoin could go as high as $3.8 million by 2030 even though it’s only ~$70k now.
10 years ago I took a small gamble on it and haven’t sold any. What if that turns into something huge?
Even though a large part of me would love enormous profits, part of me wonders how I’d feel if most of my life’s wealth came from a gamble instead of my work.
All of my posts are still 100% free.
I’m not a fan of paywalls, so I’d love to avoid gating my posts.
Click the ❤️ button if you like that they’re free.
Writing to more people like you will be fuel enough! 😊
Should email sub growth be your core marketing strategy than paid marketing should be your main channel. Especially sponsorships of newsletters that have “geometric similarity” (similar shapes).
Expect to pay $1-$5 per sub.
By far, the most efficient way to grow a following. When calculating time invested CAC, social media becomes significantly less attractive.
The one exception is YouTube because it has the potential to be such a strong flywheel that it justifies the upfront expenditure.
Also remember that newsletters have a default state of NEGATIVE growth! I.e. with every broadcast you churn subscribers. There is not a single person who grows their newsletter by writing newsletters. Ergo, you must have a top of funnel channel that drives subs to your newsletter.
A newsletter is a middle of the funnel tool with two functions:
i. Create mental availability: being one of (preferably the first) to come to mind when a prospect is considering buying from your category.
ii. Establish your authority: convince people who are on the fence that you’re the go-to-guy for their market problem.
You now know what took me many years to understand/internalize and still exceedingly few people know this.
They think newsletters are top of funnel which is why they get nowhere.
Contrast this to YouTube where you can absolutely grow by merely making Good capital G content (content that ‘they’ not ‘you’ think is good).
That is because YouTube has a distribution engine built into its business model. The incentive structure is such that what’s best for YouTube aligns reasonably well with what’s best for you; getting eyeballs on your content and keeping them on it for as long as possible.
YT makes money by showing people ads. YTers can monetize by getting a portion of that revenue but much more interesting is to monetize that attention yourself on the backend.
The fact that they’re invested in getting you attention (assuming Good capital G content) is a unique feature that no other platform has. On almost every other platform, you’re in charge of not only creation but also distribution. Which is a wildly unattractive proposition if you really think about.
Agree with most of it except changing the default state. That’s most likely a non starter. Similar to how we see loyalty (repeat purchasing) among FMCG consumers increase as a function of market penetration but not the other way around.
Does that mean we’ve proven that it can’t happen? No. But it does imply that it’s unlikely and the marketing efforts for a large fmcg biz are probably better spent on increasing market penetration instead of loyalty.
People just don’t share newsletters. No matter how good they are. And the occasional anomaly isn’t enough the be measurable when compared to the churn of .5-1%
So in my opinion that would be a misallocation of marketing resources. They should be on the TOFU channel instead assuming churn is around industry average.
The second thing I’d slightly disagree with is using the newsletter for qualitative market research.
I think it’s very useful if your nl is large enough and if you can email a survey / ask a question, why not?
But the issue is that it needs to be well-designed (asking ppl about problems instead of solutions- would you like X - is bad for example) and it can be difficult to get enough people to reply.
My preference for smaller solopreneurs is another form of qualitative market research called digital ethnography. Basically go to online hangouts where your audience “bitches and moans” about their “expensive problems” and then research what they’re currently buying in order to fix said expensive problems.
That’ll also inform your: copywriting, positioning, price, pricing architecture, features, and can give you a lead pool for the first set of customers.
But overall agree w your assessment.