Before we start, I am hosting an “AI in Marketing“ challenge.

It’s not a ‘let’s build apps with AI’ kinda challenge, but more like ‘how can we make our marketing workflows efficient with AI.’

Full deets →

Tea from my life

I have basic GenAI use cases for content and some automations. But I have never really tinkered with AI as much as I should have.

I didn’t exhaust credits. I didn’t f*ck up with APIs. I didn’t allow myself to make enough mistakes to learn from them and use AI effectively.

Since last week, I have set up a budget of 10h a week to play with AI. Build something useful or fun, but just spend enough time on it.

Exactly 10h; cute

I also participated in the Openclaw buildathon by GrowthX during the weekend. Tried building a social media agent; WIP.

Analysis in 250 words

I see indie hackers build AI solutions for newsletters. They are primarily solving for content creation, and I don’t think it’s the right approach.

If I am running a saas and my newsletter nurtures the readers, or if I am a huge creator repurposing my podcasts on newsletters, it’s fine to use AI to create content.

But think of Morning Brew, GrowthX, MKT1, etc. For newsletters where content is THE product, it is important that your research, insights, and writing are top-class.

Of course, you can create workflows that train on your insights, experience, etc etc.

But when I say don’t use AI to create newsletter content, I mean don’t throw prompts like “Write an edition on time management for marketers. I have attached the details of my ICP and their problems.”

The inbox traffic is real, and readers hate AI slop more than ever now.

So… Where do I use AI in my newsletters?

• Repurposing newsletter content into social media

• Identifying insights from subscriber sources, engagement, etc

• Turning content into infographics

• Creating thumbnails

• Using tools like the Ahrefs MCP server with Claude to understand what our ICP searches for

• To create growth and performance reports

• Compare data across platforms (Eg, Meta ads and Beehiiv) to find unified metrics

TL;DR: In newsletters, content is the product. Make sure your AI workflows only enhance readers’ experience.

Sneakpeek into the community

Reyana on how to keep in touch with leads, so you are constantly nurturing them:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• Totally love this ad from a fitness brand

• 100+ pitching guides to top brands

Hangouts

Of course, the most exciting thing in March is our AI challenge.

We have our usual monthly growth calls, goal settings, etc., but all of us have so much to improve in AI x Marketing, and I can’t wait to see usecases and learn from peers.

If you are a mid-senior level marketer or business owner but a beginner-mid AI operator, you should totally join us.

Tea from my life

I finished Dragon Ball last week. Love love love the anime. There’s still a lot to watch but I’m just taking a break so I read and listen to more podcasts lol.

Analysis in 150 words

I work with creators who hit millions of impressions every week, making solid revenue with content creation. I grow their newsletters.

My creator friends who scaled their socials to 10k+ audience often ask me how they can build newsletters.

My answer: “You only need to do three things.”

1/ Find Your IKIGAI

Passion: What are you passionate enough to write about for two years?

Skill: What skills and results of yours will make people pay $$$$ for your advice?

Demand: What are the topics that would help people in one of these: save time, make money, help in a career or hobby, or personal transformations?

2/ Measure Interests

Use Ahrefs and Google Trends to understand if there is traffic to the problem you want to solve.

Find popular questions, keywords, and searches. Can you answer these questions and turn them into weekly content?

“I want to do what nobody does” is a hard route.

Pick a path with traffic and intent. Go micro. Grab a piece of the pie.

3/ Level Down

Go two levels deeper with your initial idea. That’s your niche, and that’s where the money is.

Examples of my newsletters:

Sneakpeek into the community

Our community is getting a little geeky with AI.

Marketing resources shared in the community

• HubSpot acquired Starter Story. What a journey!

• LinkedIn Skills file (what makes LinkedIn content perform)

Twitter tweet

Hangouts

As a community, we want to get more geeky about AI.

Not in a “let’s build apps as non-technical people“ but more like “How can we use AI to save our energy and time for decision making, creative tasks?”

In March, we’re going all in on AI and I will keep sharing the updates here.

If you are still doubtful about joining the community, this is THE time.

Tea from my life

I was in Bangalore last weekend. Met friends, visited cafes, and attended a coffee festival. Life is good.

Also my first brew after coming back home

Analysis in 200 words

Whenever someone comes up to me and asks, “I have xyz subscribers. Can you help me grow more subscribers?” I respond with “What has already worked for you?”

So I met this person in Bangalore who was growing her company’s newsletter with LinkedIn. She was posting, commenting, and publishing lead magnets.

Her top channel was LinkedIn organic, and I went through her acquisition data. It showed me the source as website / LinkedIn.

This is good, but this is only a first step. If I were to advise, I’d go one step deeper into tracking.

Instead of just the channel (LinkedIn), I will also track medium (posts, comments under your posts, comments under others’ posts, lead magnets, profile clicks, etc.)

It sounds like a person with OCD screaming organisation, but no. It is details.

The point of tracking is to identify what works so you can double down on it. The narrower you get, the better insights you have.

This becomes even more important if you’re not using paid growth channels and your social presence is not massive.

Think about it. Do you really know what’s working for you?

Sneakpeek into the community

Strategy I use to run ads for one of my newsletters:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• What makes LinkedIn content perform?

• The playbook behind every great campaign

• The ultimate guide to typography

Tea from my life

I wish I had some fun stories to share here. But I am travelling to Bangalore this week, so I am just working on weekends to not have work on the trip.

If you’re based out of Bangalore and want to catch up, let me know. I can’t promise, but I’ll try my best to meet.

I brewed for my friend. It was fun.

Analysis in 350 words

Matt McGarry shared the best and worst ways to monetise newsletters. Here is what I disagree with.

(fyi: love the guy, learned a lot from his content)

According to Matt, the worst ways to monetise: courses, low-ticket digital products, affiliate income, and direct subscriptions.

And the best ways to monetise: live cohorts, communities, services, conferences, brand collaborations.

In my experience:

• Courses: Yes, they are not standalone products anymore. Too many courses have saturated the market. In today’s context, courses are a great add-on. As an example, I have a community and I’m also building a course inside the community. This increases the value, aka packaging.

• Low-ticket Digital products: Unless you’re really big, you must have a low-ticket offer. It allows you to gauge paying potential and intent. You don’t want to build, hoping your audience will take your premium offer someday. Always test with a buy button; failing fast is okay and good.

• Direct subscriptions: I agree that people have a limited budget for subscriptions, but I believe publications should be independent of advertisers and partnerships for revenue. Especially true if you’re building in micro niches.

• Affiliate income: It’s a bonus. Just have a page (I’m building a tools I use page) and let people know what you endorse and why. Don’t get too desperate here; it’s nice to have money, but it must not be your major source of revenue.

• Live cohorts and communities: Given the state of the market, it’s the best way to monetise because people today love live experiences and need companionship more than ever. It’s time-consuming, so I’d only advise starting a community or cohort if your newsletter is one of your main projects. For side hustles, digital products have better ROI.

• Conferences: Works for big brands, people with great connections, local newsletters, micro niches.

• Brand collabs: If you’re a daily user and can actually vouch for people to invest their money in a product, you should pitch them for an exclusive partnership. It has great value in a world full of advertisements. Works great for creator-led newsletters.

Sneakpeek into the community

Chelsi was sharing her outreach process to land clients.

I added my two cents about how keeping in touch helps:

Marketing resources shared in the community

I read this on Twitter/X.

“If you feel lost, stuck, or uncertain, I strongly recommend you create a north star filter for yourself”:

On YouTube this week

I shared a short video on what people actually mean when they say “ownership of the audience.”

You can watch it on YouTube or IG.

Hangouts

In the first week of every month, we share the best content we have consumed last month.

Smiles from last Wednesday:

Tea from my life

I have set up Claude Code because it’s finally time I start thinking like a CEO, not an operator.

With hundreds of tasks every week as a solopreneur, it’s important I invest my limited time and energy into core business actions, not just every other action. So I am automating as much as possible with AI.

I am grateful my friends are talented developers. Makes my life easier when I feel stuck.

Before we start, I am always experimenting to find the sweet spot for our community growth.

This month, I am playing around with pricing. The investment to join CognitionX dropped from $69 for three months to $35. If you have considered joining CognitionX multiple times but never acted on it, this is the time.

Inside, we are a bunch of creators and business owners who talk about making revenue via content.

Join CognitionX

Analysis in 300 words

In December 2025, Nathan May mentioned lead magnets are the #1 growth channel organically.

I didn’t publish enough lead magnets, nor do I have a huge social distribution to measure data, but I can vouch that the audience always needs relevant resources, and they’re happy to exchange their email for it.

Pick your favourite, 10k+ list publications and check for their resources. I guarantee that at least 80% of them have published three or more evergreen lead magnets.

I slept on this, but I started creating lead magnets last week. This one got me 10 subscribers.

As I plan to do one lead magnet a week, here are some notes to myself:

• Do more of what works. People reacted better to a checklist over a cheatsheet? Do more checklists.

• Posting about lead magnets is a skill. You can’t actually give out the resource, but you need to make your ICP curious enough to comment for access. They need to see some value beforehand. It requires top-tier storytelling and copywriting. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Just study the posts you have commented on.

• Make sure the lead magnets are aligned with your newsletter. If your newsletter content is about writing great blogs, don’t make your lead magnet about content creation on LinkedIn. It should be something like an SEO checklist for your blog.

I know this is a little vague, but the point of this edition is to make you think seriously about lead magnets.

By the end of February, I will have more first-party data to share a playbook with you. I will also add my observations of how other creators are building their lead magnets.

Sneakpeek into the community

Vibhuti on the process of content repurposing:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• How can batching help you maximise productivity?

• What Saas owners are looking for when collaborating with creators?

• Sked Social’s report on how social media is changing in 2026.

On YouTube this week

I reverse-engineered why Ali Abdaal’s newsletter signup page is too good.

He has 370k+ subscribers.

Hangouts

Had a super productive 90-minute call, discussing Jan and setting up tangible goals for Feb.

Also, my learnings from Jan:

Newsletters are hot right now. It’s easy to feel the FOMO and start a newsletter without a direction.

Growing your newsletter is never a bad idea. But an email list without intent and direction is.

So I’m all in for newsletters (I mean, it’s a personality trait at this point.)

Because if you do newsletters right, it should contribute to your top three revenue streams. This could be your product, service, or a standalone media asset.

Keeping revenue as the goal, here are 8 questions you should ask yourself about starting a newsletter.

These are simple yes or no questions.

If you say yes to atleast 50% of the questions, start building a newsletter today!

Ready To Put Your Thinking Hat On?

1/ Do you have capital? This could be social capital (10k+ followers) or money ($1000+)

2/ Does your ICP hang out online, especially to get educated about the problem you solve?

3/ If you can send 8-12 emails, one per week to your ICP, educating them about their problems and how you can solve them, will you be able make them consider your offer?

4/ People love video content. Can you make your ICP read text if the value is good?

5/ Do you have leverage?

6/ Do you have a product or a service? At least, directionally do you know what to do with the audience you build?

7/ Do you have 3-5 hours per week to spend on your newsletter? Not just writing, but to focus on analytics, building distribution, talking to readers, etc.

8/ Do you have an angle that differentiates you from other newsletters in the same niche/industry?

If you still need more clarity or have ideas on your mind, feel free to ping me on my LinkedIn or X. I’m happy to help you out.

Best,
Vikra

Tea from my life

Last Monday, I mentioned I was feeling overwhelmed by the number of tasks I added to my to-do list. The feeling persisted for another few days. I was hopping between tasks. I couldn’t focus on one thing.

Mostly because I don’t have deadlines, and I am unable to prioritize.

I took time off completely. I wrote down only one task on my to-do and didn’t touch anything until I finished it. It could be a temporary thing, but I realised how much I am consumed by my work and that I need to meet more people, do some activities.

Anyway, I stayed away from the desk. Meditated, read books, and built LEGOs. It calmed me.

I know this is not what you signed up for, but I just wanted to share.

Analysis in 200 words

Today I want to share my mini playbook of how I run ads.

I run this newsletter called Caffeineletter with my friend. It teaches homebrewers in India to brew café-like coffee at home.

We have acquired 1200+ subscribers via Meta ads at $0.22 CPA. Our open rate is 45%, and CTR is 5%.

Some best practices we follow:

• Keep the ad creatives extremely organic. We have spelling mistakes, smallcase text, and real pictures of our coffee setup to make it look as natural as any other coffee-related post on IG.

Twitter tweet

• We run ads only 10-15 days a month. We acquire readers in batches, measure ad performance, review engagement data, and only then move on to the next batch. As a bootstrapped business, this helps us spend more time nurturing our existing readers plus ensure we are spending money on acquiring the right people.

• Always test new ads with a small budget. It provides directional data on how successful it is relative to our baseline CPA. We do this for 3-5 days, then increase the daily budget to the usual.

Sneakpeek into the community

What is marketing even?

Marketing resources shared in the community

• The most reasonable video I have watched about consistency.

• I have been spending time improving my LinkedIn. I found this good beginner-friendly video.

• Since we are on the topic of LinkedIn, here are some resources to grow followers. As I have mentioned a thousand times, my focus is on building a strong top-of-funnel for my newsletters.

On YouTube this week

I haven’t published anything this week (because of the overwhelming part I mentioned some time ago.)

But if you have missed out on my breakdown about the MilkRoad newsletter:

Hangouts

Last week, we had a private call in our community about what we’re doing to increase visibility (social media, video creation, etc.). Sick value from people across different backgrounds. More deets.

I adapted Alex Hormozi’s marketing principles for newsletters and I am sharing them live next week. I’d love it if you could join.

Details.

Tea from my life

Last week was anxious for me. I have put myself in a position where I could work before schedule (which is something I always wanted to do)

But now that I have time on my hands, prioritising and managing tasks feels difficult. I know the order of importance, but nothing is urgent so I’m always hopping tasks.

The solutions seem obvious in theory, but I am unable to put my mind to it.

Anyway, this is not really a “tea from my life”, but I just want to put out how I feel as a creator/solopreneur.

On a positive note, I met a friend after 6 months, posted a YouTube video, and hung out with my sister.

Analysis in 250 words

I am not really sure whether AI summaries will completely make readers skip newsletters, but I predict the behaviour will be similar to that of a book’s synopsis.

Readers will read summaries to decide if the complete edition is worth reading.

If your newsletter just shares information or curates resources, it will get harder to nurture your readers and establish trust or authority. Without nurturing, you’ll lose the advantage of email marketing.

How will your readers buy from you if they don’t know you enough?

Broader, generic solution is “Create quality content.”

But this is what quality content translates to:

• Solid research = Specific names, numbers, facts, resources

• Knowledge pack = What set of skills and experiences do you have that bring nuances to your sentences

• Access = People, places, and data most of your audiences can’t get into

• Visuals = Improve readability, help consume knowledge better with recall value, you can establish a brand. Plus memes.

• Writing = Not just AI slop and grammar. Make it entertaining or personal. Drop some jokes, rants, opinions. Let the readers connect with the personality.

What you say (content/value) is evergreen.

How you say it (presentation) becomes key in the age of AI summaries.

Good first step.

Sneakpeek into the community

Reyana asked, “What did our newsletters teach us?” Nikita’s answer:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• Lenny took transcripts of all his podcasts and created a bot to answer questions about product and growth.

• One-page strategy for LinkedIn:

On YouTube this week

I am breaking down singup pages of top newsletters. Last week, I talked about Milk Road and why its landing page is one of the best in business:

Hangouts

I am hosting a session on how to apply Alex Hormozi’s principles to newsletter marketing.

Full details and registration here.

How I spent my time across four newsletters

• Published newsletters in AI, coffee, and content marketing niches

• Published my first video. Took the soul out of me, but I'm finally on YouTube. I will share content about what I read, newsletter growth, and lifestyle vlogs.

• Explored a new niche I want to get into. The idea is growing on me; I will create a plan for a 6-month test run and set a budget next.

• Started running ads for Cognition, but ran into some trouble (don't know what). My ads are live, but not reaching anyone (like 0 people).

• Caffeineletter grew by 113 subscribers last week. We are 1300+ now.

• Personal: Watched The Pitt, F1, Eko. Only 2x workouts. 37788 steps.

• Last week was unorganised and chaotic. The entire point is to achieve peace by building good systems. Clearly, a long way to go.

I use Rize to track my time.
If you choose the same, use code: VIKRA for 25% off.

Who are we learning from?

If you have even the slightest interest in marketing or business, you must have heard about Morning Brew.

It’s one of the earliest newsletters before newsletters were even cool. I mean it has become a verb (people refer to their newsletters as “morning brew style newsletters”).

It’s a pioneer and a giant in so many ways; and that’s exactly WHY YOU SHOULD NOT CREATE A SIGNUP PAGE LIKE MORNING BREW.

Breakdown in 200 words

Let me be honest. Morning Brew’s signup page is not that great.

If you give it to any average copywriter, they’d point out thousands of flaws and how you can optimise the page for conversions.

Irrespective of what strategies you come up with technically, you’d never beat the power of perception.

Think of how you discovered Morning Brew organically.

You saw the founders on the podcast. Your friends or colleagues talked about it. Your boss reads it daily. Or someone in your network posted. A creator recommended, etc.

So you already landed on Morning Brew’s page with a perception that is good.

Now that you’re on the signup page, here is why it works:

• It is read by 4M+. You immediately know it’s huge. Social proof + validation.

• “Hint of wit and humour” tells you it’s insightful but not hard to read/learn

• “Start your day informed …and ready to go” perfectly suits a 9 am newsletter, and shows you will have some new knowledge to share with the world after you read today’s brew

But… this will not work for you.

The signup page lacks an incentive, testimonials, an attention-grabbing image, etc.

Morning Brew's perception is so strong that it doesn’t need much convincing.

But nobody knows you, and nobody cares.

At every step of the signup page, you should convince visitors that it’s worth giving their email address.

The takeaway?

Don’t follow popular newsletters blindly. They have put in the hard yards, and now reap the benefits of their distribution and branding.

You’re not there yet. Give more details, reasons, and benefits to your visitors.

Who are we learning from?

So we’re talking about this newsletter called Casestudied. I almost ended up working with them, but I didn’t hear back during the final rounds of hiring.

The brand writes crazy good marketing case studies. Long form and I love how they interview professionals and present their views.

Breakdown in 200 words

In 10 bullet points or less, why Casedtudied has a dope subscribe page:

• Safe structure. Copy on left, image on right. Has no navigation or scrolling option.

• Calls out ICP “CMO”

• The subtitle is a bit vague, but basic enough to say, “Okay, I might want to check this out.” I’d remove “insights and inspiration” and keep only insights. It’s sharper and direct that way

• “15k+ CMOs” great social proof

• I’d skip the bullet point list. Or I’ll make it more specific. Especially the second and third points. They’re not only vague and lack curiosity, but also occupy space.

• Subscribe form is simple and clean. I like it.

• I am not sure about the text below the form. It’s just there, adding no great value. I’d be specific about the free or no-commitment angle. Even better, I will shed light on the incentive in the welcome email.

• The image gives a sneak peek into the content. I like it. Plus the images are dynamic (slideshow of 2-3 pieces of content).

Tea from my life

I bought a new keyboard and I think you should see it :p

Analysis in 150 words

In newsletters, content is your product but distribution drives your business.

Especially if you’re a creator-led newsletter with ads contributing to 1/3rd of the revenue or more.

Most early-stage newsletters treat content as distribution. Most of your time is spent perfecting your writing, publishing consistently, or sending more emails.

But equal time must be spent on growing distribution, aka subscribers.

Because you retain readers with content. But advertisers would be interested if you have an engaged distribution.

Advertisers think ROI. Advertisers think CPMs. Thousands of subscribers let you show the metrics advertisers prefer.

PS: I’m building a strong top-of-funnel in Q1 2026. Maybe this prompts you with ideas:

Sneakpeek into the community

Seena taught me what a good community flow looks like.

I have put together lots of action points after a member joins our community, but this helped me keep it clean:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• Beehiiv released this tool to add components to your website. You don’t have to build components from scratch.

• If there is one thing I envy about Tushar, it’s his bias for action:

Hangouts

In November, I adapted Alex Hormozi’s marketing principles for newsletters.

It’s one of the best sessions I've hosted, and it certainly provided new perspectives/insights into newsletter growth.

I’m hosting it again soon. Register here →

In 10 bullet points or less, what have I got done last week:

• Published newsletters in marketing, AI, and coffee niches

• Pitched 18 sponsors for our coffee newsletter. Had a call with a lead and emailed another. Got many insights about what advertisers expect and how I can sharpen my pitch.

• Still working on reel/short creation. First video is always hard I guess.

• Published a new video tutorial in our community for marketers and newsletter operators.

• Personal: Finished House of Cards S2. Met friends. Tried two new cafes. Workout 6x. 65797 steps. Meh. Made sandwiches.

I use Rize to track my time.
If you choose the same, use code: VIKRA for 25% off.

Tea from my life

I love adult money. Got a Rajnikanth-themed calendar because why not?

Btw, Happy New Year! <3

Analysis in 300 words

I have been reading about newsletter predictions in 2026. A LinkedIn post mentioned CPC (cost-per-click) sponsorship deals are dead in 2026.

It’s hard to say without access to the sponsor results, but let us look at what actually happens with CPC deals:

• CPC models are great for small email lists. They help newsletters sustain as a side hustle and generate early revenue.

• But CPC models don’t generate a lot of money. Not because the deals are bad (Beehiiv’s ad network gives you $1-4 a click based on the niche) but because early-stage newsletters don’t have the authority yet. They can’t just vouch for a sponsor and get a lot of clicks.

• Even if you have authority, you don’t have control over the copy and the volume of unique clicks is not significant.

• Once you grow and earn your readers' trust, you will have leverage to pitch sponsors independently.

Where does this leave us?

All of us must do CPC deals in the initial days for two reasons:

• Early revenue

• Data on ads (you will understand the gap between click behaviours on ads vs your usual links)

Once you believe you have earned your readers' trust, I highly recommend pitching for exclusive partnerships with the products you use and recommend. Especially if you are a creator-led newsletter.

Not becoming the creator who vouches for anyone and everyone has great value.

…and that’s where the newsletter sponsorships will head: Exclusivity.

CPC deals will continue to exist as long as they deliver a decent ROI for sponsors from all their portfolio newsletters.

Sneakpeek into the community

I asked Grok to compare my Twitter to similar accounts and it gave a nice analysis of the gap between my account and pioneers in the space.

10/10 recommend.

Marketing resources shared in the community

• One of the best essays I have read on improving the quality of life

• Guide for prompt engineering if you’re still not into AI.

• Advice for generalists who want to join startups (more like how to approach companies by showing value)

Hangouts

This month, we are hosting two private community sessions.

• One on visibility. How can you make sure your great work is visible to the audience?

• Second is our monthly growth call to talk about January and plan for February.

I’ll host a public session as well. Details next week.

In 10 bullet points or less, what I got done working across four newsletters

• Published newsletters in marketing, AI, and coffee niches.

• Raised prices of our community subscription by 4x. The community is out of experimental mode, and I now have greater clarity on the offer and its value.

• Optimised community onboarding flow to make you feel welcomed.

• Explored a new newsletter niche.

• Published a database with the best content I consumed in 2025 (ranging from movies to blogs to books).

• Started learning SEO.

• Personal: Watched House of Cards, New Year's Eve with friends, workout 5x, 85600 steps.

I use Rize to track my time.
If you choose the same, I can get you a 25% discount. Use code: VIKRA

Tea from my life

I was in Chennai last week. It was only for a couple of days. I couldn’t explore the city as much, but I got to meet my friends. Especially Shashank and Srini.

I made a reel as well.

Analysis in 200 words

Before you step into 2026, I need you to understand and implement the concept of alignment. Alignment is when you discuss the same theme throughout your newsletter funnel.

Most creators and business owners have a mismatch across the different stages of their funnels. Social media posts and lead magnets don’t match the newsletter content. Products or services don’t extend to what you share in the newsletter. And so on.

This is how alignment works in Cognition:

On socials, I talk about newsletters. My lead magnets are about newsletters. Cognition is about newsletters. Then we have a community for newsletter operators.

See what I mean?

Visualise your funnel like this for alignment clarity:

Sneakpeek into the community

Some unsubscriptions are good. You don’t always need to feel bad when readers unsubscribe. Plus, it’s essential to have a frictionless unsubscribe survey to identify any issues you need to address. Or not, like in this case:

Resources shared in the community

• Potential is a drug

• Journal to reflect on your 2025

• 5 reasons your best content gets ignored

Hangouts

Thinking I should do a public session in the first half of January. It will mostly be around what you can do with newsletters in 2026.

I’m reviewing my year and sharing lessons in public.

This week, I will share reviews, reflections, context, and lessons about:

• CognitionX Reflections

• Cognition Reflections

• Caffeineletter Reflections

• Business lessons 2025

• Roach Mafia 5.0 experience

Our regular content about newsletters resumes in the first week of January.

Caffeineletter in 2025

In August 2024, Aravind told me he wants to write about coffee. He has been homebrewing for ~4 years and has many stories to share from his brewing experiments and from exploring cafes while travelling.

He asked me how he could start, and I asked, “Do you want to do it together? I understand newsletters. You understand coffee. We can create something worth reading.”

kinda like this

We have been friends for years and there wasn’t a second thought about building Caffeineletter together.

We booked an Airbnb in Lonavala a month later and discussed what we wanted to solve for our audience. In October 2024, we launched a newsletter for coffee homebrewers in India to discuss coffee science, brewing techniques, and recipes.

For the first three months, we had a test run with 50 readers. This helped us identify what was missing in our content and polish it before it reached more readers.

In the first half of 2025, we tried growing organically. It was slow because both of us had limited social capital among marketers and developers, among whom we were searching for homebrewers.

So we decided to invest in Meta Ads. Neither Aravind nor I had time for short-form content, and we knew the audience hung out on IG, so our best bet was ads.

It’s a whole new skill I had to learn, and it has the highest ROI of any skill I learned in 2025.

We have carefully run ads in multiple batches, learning from data and feedback. This was in Q3 and Q4. We also experimented with Reddit ads, but they didn’t perform at all. On the same ads, Reddit gave us thousands of impressions with no conversions, while Meta gave us engaged readers at $0.20 CPA.

Now we are at 1265 subscribers with a 48% open rate at the time of writing this edition.

We have invested a little over $1000 (domain, Beehiiv, Meta ads, merch) to get here.

What we have got done in 2025 (and notes, strategies, thoughts….)

• If you’re building in a micro niche, running ads is a reliable strategy to grow fast and capture a sizeable market.

• Reddit ads didn’t work for us, and a couple of my smart friends mentioned the same.

• Don’t rely on Meta AI (Advantage+) to run ads. We lost $60 and had to prune 350 emails from the Advantage Network (segment suggested by Meta AI). The open rate was below 6%, compared with our usual 65% in month one.

• We captured first-party data with survey forms during onboarding. This helped us understand our readers' coffee habits. Now we create content based on data, not assumptions.

• Not all newsletters have similar monetisation models. We thought it’d be easy to sell ads but no. Most of our sponsors are bootstrapped, so we need to create win-win offers to partner with them. Still figuring this out.

• We built Baazar, one place to all find speciality coffees across India.

• We also built a Grind Size Converter. You can refer to any grinder and find its equivalent on your grinder.

  

What’s in for 2026?

• We will continue to build tools, resources, and more that will help homebrewers with their coffee habits.

• We haven’t generated any revenue yet. Our primary focus in Q1 is to partner with roasters, cafes, and equipment makers.

• Expand marketing channels. Meta ads have worked for us. Now we expand to X, IG, and Reddit for organic growth. I’m learning SEO; that might come into the picture at some point.

• We will explore in-person experiences.

Love,
Vikra.

I’m reviewing my year and sharing lessons in public.

This week, I will share reviews, reflections, context, and lessons about:

• CognitionX Reflections

• Cognition Reflections

• Caffeineletter Reflections

• Business lessons 2025

• Roach Mafia 5.0 experience

Our regular content about newsletters resumes in the first week of January.

Cognition in 2025

Cognition has potential, but it has always been on the firing line, taking bullets for me.

Despite my cute little social capital recognising me with this newsletter and making over $3000 from a list of less than 1000, I have never given Cognition the importance it deserves.

All my travel plans, new clients, hectic days, and exhaustion after sports easily replaced Cognition without a second thought.

There were weeks, even months without publishing. If I were my consultant, I’d bash myself for this lack of discipline or even worse, lack of action with a truckload of ambition. It’s the same as being purposeless. Takes you nowhere.

If I had to summarise my 2025 with Cognition, I’d say it has been a year of clarity, with a bias toward action.

Ever since I realised the power of ownership and the place it puts you compared to a service business, I have shut down all my “fun” projects and side hustles.

I continued working only with Neatprompts (challenging work, great CEO, favourite team), keeping the time off Neatprompts in my newsletters.

Now I’m a guy with a 12-week streak.

That’s normal for many. For me, it’s an insanely proud streak I wouldn’t want to break. Plus I have executed fast, failed fast, learned fast, all because I said no to perfection and did scrappy work.

That’s the mindset shift. Now we talk about tangibles.

Funnel for Growth in 2026

As a founder, I need a clear picture to understand what happens at different stages of Cognition. I need to know where my readers would come from, what their problems are, what they expect of me, how I turn Cognition into a business, how I automate growth and business, etc.

And yes, that’s a lot for my tiny brain. So I visualised it for myself.

I’ll keep this short:

• Segmented the entire business into ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu. Listed what happens at each point.

• ToFu: When you don’t have scale, you win with speed and volume. So I decided to be present across multiple platforms and formats. This includes Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Lead Magnets (SEO), Meta Ads, Webinars, YouTube, Reddit, and IG (not in the picture).

• I have also clearly determined success metrics and what I track (in green). I have added query parameters (aka utm links) everywhere to track and capture growth data obsessively.

• MoFu: It’s the newsletter. This is where I nurture readers and build relationships by solving their newsletter problems. I genuinely find happiness in helping my people build great newsletters. So I optimise my MoFu for the value to the best of my ability. I will share insights, feedback, and BTS of how I grow three newsletters here.

• BoFu: This is where I make revenue. Premium community, paid subscriptions, 1-1 consultations, upsells in the community, etc. Since I don’t run a service or product business through my newsletter, it is important to have multiple revenue streams and be super good at them.

• Highly recommend writing down the offer to your subscribers at each stage. Gives you clarity about the content you publish.

It all comes down to action

My biggest learning of 2025 is when you don’t have scale, you win at volume and speed. That’s my strategy for 2026.

Also, this mindset:

Think less. Act more. Fuck around and find out.

Twitter tweet

PS: I launched my YouTube channel yesterday. Now I will share more newsletter insights and BTS vlogs on my channel.

Merry Christmas.

Love,
Vikra.

I’m reviewing my year and sharing lessons in public.

Over the next 5 days, I will share reviews, reflections, context, and lessons about:

• CognitionX Reflections

• Cognition Reflections

• Caffeineletter Reflections

• Business lessons 2025

• Roach Mafia 5.0 experience

CognitionX in 2025

In July 2023, I started my community as my newsletter’s referral program. You refer three readers and get access to Cognition’s private WhatsApp group.

Some months later, it was just another WhatsApp community. The initial excitement died out and the group slowly went silent.

A year later, I believed online communities to be the next big thing after newsletters. So I revived the community, but on Discord.

I was sure the community shouldn’t be on WhatsApp because it’s a mix of personal and work. I didn’t want members to skim messages just because they’re on the app.

Yes, access is great on WhatsApp and engagement is a challenge on Discord. But I wanted members to open Discord with intent.

I was sure that if value = significant, members would overcome friction, and it happened.

Between July 2024 and April 2025, the community grew to 200+ members. It was free and I used it as a lead magnet to acquire subscribers to Cognition.

While it was broad and a great place to hang out and make friends, it didn’t solve problems. It didn’t help business owners improve their marketing. Or at least not at the value level I hoped for.

During this time, I have learned a ton about communities and hosting, thanks to Ayush. Sometimes with his direct insights, sometimes by just observing him (shoutout to his Indiemasterminds community, best thing that happened to me in 2024).

So... back to May 2025.

After I realised the community must help our members, I sent a message explaining the community’s new direction: “It’ll be about content marketing and the inactive members would be removed.”

10/10 recommend cleaning your community regularly. Learned from Tushar.

Road to the paid community:

1. Removed 200+ members. Started from 0 again. Hardest step

2. Sent an email to 45ish members who have opted in

3. In the email, I mentioned the offer and priced at $6 a month

4. Plus gave an early bird offer of 70% off for the first three months (because of the low self-confidence that anybody would pay)

5. To the most active members, I gave a Golden Ticket to show gratitude for supporting me early. Golden Ticket = Free Community Access Forever

Members like Shashank SN were supportive enough to purchase despite the Golden Ticket.

Anyway, in 2025 Q4, I experimented with sessions, channels, resources, challenges, etc., to understand what our community likes. I had 1:1 calls with each member to understand expectations.

Roachmafia and SheR HQ made me realise my strength is newsletters, and that’s what members expect of me: to support business owners and creators in building newsletters.

So after three months of experiments, I niched down the theme to newsletter content, growth, and revenue.

The community is now 24 members strong, with 12 paying members, and all are renewing their subscriptions.

2025 was a year of clarity.

In 2026, my focus will be on obsessively solving our members’ problems.

In the next edition, I will share about Cognition’s funnel and plans ahead.

Tea from my life

I am in Chennai for a couple of days. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to explore this beautiful city as much, but will meet a few friends <3

I had good cheeseballs on the weekend

Analysis in 150 words

Rainar, our community member, asked me if I knew of newsletters with killer welcome emails.

I will publish a swipe file with the best welcome emails soon.

For now… I have some rules of thumb I follow for all the welcome emails I write:

• Immediate value. On your signup page, you include incentives to nudge your visitors to subscribe. I call this immediate value (checklist, ebook, swipefiles, etc.) Make sure you carefully place this resource around the information you want your audience to read.

• Set expectation. Tell your readers what kind of content they can expect and when. Humans love reassurance.

• Gain trust. Thousands of leaders talk about the same topics you write about. Show them how you’re an expert and why reading from you benefits them.

• Best resources. Optimise value at each point of contact. In Caffeineletter, we have curated resources based on our readers’ expertise levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), so they can immediately pick and start consuming.

• Don’t sell. Don’t go from hi to buy yet. It’s okay to mention you have upgrades if you’re a large newsletter, because scale can drive sales sometimes. For early-stage newsletters, I recommend give give give then ask. Or subtly mention in the footer.

Sneakpeek into the community

When should you think about newsletter monetisation:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• How to grow on Substack at 500 subscribers per month

• How to set annual goals and actually stick to them

• How newsletters would look like in 2026

Hangouts

On the 17th, I hosted a private session with members to set goals for Q1 2026.

Speaking to most of the members, I realised we wouldn’t want to invest in paid growth yet. Most of us prefer to grow as fast as possible, organically.

So ofc, the sessions in January will be around growing newsletter subscribers organically.

If your ICP visits your landing page instead of the subscribe page from your marketing channels, this edition is for you.

Early-stage newsletters make the mistake of not building a dedicated subscription page.

First, Landing pages and Subscribe pages are not the same.

While landing pages focus on branding, positioning, and providing context, subscribe pages focus on conversions.

Today, we will learn the signs of a winning subscribe page by looking at some examples. Based on my 3+ years of studying newsletters.

5 Common Signs of Winning Newsletter Subscribe Pages

1. Non-Generic Benefit:

I am tired of vague, generic benefits that sound like “Your go-to place for NBA interviews.”

Rather have a 2-3 line copy that clearly mentions who the newsletter is for, how it helps them, and why they should subscribe.

In fact, add more direct copy/benefits.

Example: “We interview NBA athletes to show you their mental preparation before games”

2. Humanise CTA:

Simple ‘Subscribe’ CTA works.

But if you can get creative by mentioning the terms only your audience knows, why not? For creator-led newsletters, it could be phrases your audience associates with you.

My friend and I run a newsletter for coffee homebrewers obsessed with good coffee.

Our CTA = "Yes, I hate instant coffee"

3. Add a nudge to the CTA

It’s no secret that a lead magnet improves conversions.

(called magnet for a reason)

Give instant access to resources in the welcome email. Make sure it’s mentioned on the landing page so your reader expects it.

This will encourage your readers to open, click, and spend time consuming your content.

I call this immediate value.

Example: “Sign up and we will immediately send you 10 resources every marketer must read”

4. Do not include the archive page

I had a moral dilemma for the longest time, telling myself, “It’s not right to ask people to subscribe without reading the content first.”

But my perspective changed when I understood what visitors were actually looking for.

It’s not really content, but an assurance that whatever they sign up for is worth their time/email.

So instead of adding an archive page that might disrupt the subscription flow, I’d add:

- Social proof (testimonials, subscriber count, etc.)
- Leverage (show how you’re an expert)
- Immediate value (ebooks, checklists, links, etc.)
- Killer benefits, a call out to ICP, etc., to ensure visitors get the assurance they look for.

Demand Curve = Testimonials

Plus I love how Stacked Marketer calls out their ICP:

5. Image that adds value

Most operators treat images like visual assets. Just to add some colour.

But they can speak a thousand words and show your newsletter’s value. If you don’t have an infographic, a screenshot of your newsletter, or any image that shows why you should be trusted or makes the visitors curious, think twice.

Notice how The Ad Professor shares ads in the background:

Also I love how Why We Buy newsletter has a graphic explaining how the content transforms you:

Think

If a yes on each question below earns you one point, how many points have you scored?

1. Do you have a dedicated subscribe page?

2. Do you have copy that highlights specific benefits to your ICP?

3. Do you nudge visitors with immediate value?

4. Is there an image that shows what the inside value would look like?

5. Is there social proof?

6. Does it show your leverage?

7. Does it call out your ICP?

8. Is your CTA personalised? If it’s just “subscribe”, is it by choice or default?

Send me your score. Feel free to send your subscribe page.

Happy to share thoughts.

PS:

I run a community of newsletter operators. Together, we work on making revenue from our newsletters.

The community is priced at $6 a month, billed quarterly. I am raising the price to $23 per month, effective January 1st.

If you want to lock in the same price forever, now is the time.

Best,
Vikra

Tea from my life

I had the most productive week. Ever since I got back from Jaipur, I had this intense bias for action and I have obsessively worked towards making Cognition 2026 Q1 ready. Kind of amazed by my own focus and speed.

Also, I am considering quitting sugar again. I have quit for 2 months this year and the results were unreal. I’m yet to figure out the time period and rules for my next challenge.

Last week was all about great food.

Analysis in 200 words

I have realised most newsletter operators (especially content creators) run newsletters like content people, and that's where they fail.

Successful newsletters have three pillars intact:

• Content (how do you constantly solve your readers' problems)

• Growth (how do you constantly get more readers)

• Monetization (how you make money constantly / how it helps your business)

Constantly is the keyword.

You promote your newsletter once a week. Or pitch your product once a month.

While there is a method to how salesy you get, there is always an opportunity to subtly let your readers know about your offers.

My point is: Content creation is a constant cycle. So should be acquiring subscribers and making revenue.

As an early-stage operator, you might not acquire a subscriber or make a sale every single day. But TL;DR is you need to work on content, growth, and monetisation every single day!

Some examples of how you can achieve this:

• Repurpose your newsletter content on social media

• Build in public; share BTS

• Create a content calendar

• Add links to your products or services in email footers

• Have a section in your newsletter for plugs

Sneakpeek into the community

Always think about revenue models, even when you feel it is super early:

Marketing resources shared in the community

• How to grow on Substack at 500 subscribers a month

• Loop marketing by HubSpot

• 5 reasons your best content gets ignored

Hangouts

Our next public webinars are in January. We only have private sessions this month.

But I made a quick video explaining what happens inside the community: