[upbeat music] Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. Today's guest is Ryan Snedden, creator of Naptown Scoop, a daily local newsletter for residents of Annapolis, Maryland.
Ryan's been at it for three and a half years. He started in August 2020, and since then, he's built up a subscriber list of over eighteen thousand, representing almost half of Annapolis' population.
Last year, the business generated about two hundred thousand dollars in revenue.
I spent an hour with Ryan talking about how he got half the town to subscribe, how he prices ad spots, all the benefits of running the town's favorite newsletter, expanding to other cities, how he plans to nearly double his revenue to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars this year, and plenty more.
As always, thank you for listening, and enjoy. [upbeat music] For the listeners, who are you and what do you do? So I am Ryan Snedden, and I basically write newsletters. That's my thing.
Mostly local newsletters, but also now write a newsletter about newsletters, teaching people how to write local newsletters and, uh, I have about, I don't know, probably five or six more newsletters that I wanna start and, you know, that's a generalization to call them newsletters.
It really is just a different kind of media company and newsletter happens to be the main product, but when I do these things, I do try and think about them as, as more than just a newsletter.
You know, newsletter is just a, a way to reach an audience, uh, just like a podcast, just like a, a magazine was, and I guess kind of still is.
I think it's the best way right now and, yeah, it kinda still is, but, like, who reads the newspaper anymore? And, uh, it's definitely my favorite way to reach an audience. Yeah. So going into your background, you...
And you've talked about this in some other interviews. You don't have a journalistic background. You studied mechanical engineering in college, I think.
Uh, and I'm curious, like, did that-- Like, I think of that as such a, you know, systems and problem solving, et cetera. So, like, that...
Did that set you up in any unique way or, like, advantageous way to do what you do now, like be a newsletter publisher? Yeah.
So I think that the engineering definitely set me up, but I think also having that creative side of you. I re- I had to read a book in my freshm- first... It's called Fundamentals of Engineering.
It's taught by this crazy guy named Wally at the University of South Carolina. If anybody's listening and was an engineer, they'll know Wally. He made us read this book called A Whole New Mind.
I think it's by Daniel Pink, and the whole premise of the book was if you have both of those, the creative side and the deeply analytical engineering side, then you'll be incredibly dangerous, and dangerous in a good way.
And the...
You know, Wally made us read this book because Wally's trying to make us be engineers that can communicate and also creatively think and get really high-paying jobs because most engineers suck at communicating, and they're not very creative.
They're just math nerds. Um, so his whole premise was if you can do both of these things, then you'll be an absolute rock star, and I really took that to heart. Like, I already kinda had the creative side.
I had done some photography and, and film in high school, some professionally.
So I kinda had it, and then I got the engineering side, and then after engineering, I went back and did more creative stuff, got the writing side, and then that ended up being where I'm still at now and, and kind of found my, uh, what do they call it?
Zone of expertise. Zone of... I don't know. Like that... You know what I'm talking about? That, like, thing you're good at and you also like doing. I feel like that's where I'm at now.
That perfect, like, Venn diagram overlap. Yeah.
So with the writing too, after, I think after college or right before Life of Scoop, you had something called The Daily Thread, which I couldn't, like, find an archive of it, but what I could find- Oh...
was that it was a, like, outdoors-focused newsletter that you did for almost a year. What was that and how... Is that, like, at all a precursor to Naptown Scoop?
It is a precursor, but there's a fundamental problem with what you just said. It is... You said outdoor-focused. There was absolutely no focus. Um, The Daily Thread was a terrible newsletter.
It was a terrible project, uh, but it did teach me all the basics of, like, how to start a newsletter and how to, uh, just, like, the mechanics of it, actually, technically software. But it was a terrible newsletter.
I did it for almost a year and it got to, I think it topped out at eight hundred subscribers with, like, a thirty-five percent open rate, back when open rates actually kinda mattered.
I, I think it made, like, a grand total of, like, three hundred bucks or something. I think I spent five hundred bucks on, or eight hundred bucks on it.
And then, uh, I started Naptown Scoop as I was doing it at the same time and got Naptown Scoop to, like, maybe, maybe not quite in the first month, but pretty, pretty damn close to being in the first month, it had more subscribers than The Daily Thread [chuckles] and I was like, "Okay."
And it had also made more money, and I was like, "I think that one of these things is not like the other. I'm gonna, I'm gonna shut down The Daily Thread." And I actually sold it. Yeah.
I, I said I was gonna shut it down, and one of my subscribers bought it, uh, for eight hundred bucks. That was my first acquisition, first exit. Uh, but yeah, it was a terrible- Yeah...
newsletter, but it definitely taught me how... It taught me how to write for sure, 'cause I, I wrote a lot. Um, I think it was once a week. I don't think it was every day.
I think it was once a week, but I would write a lot for it. It was, like, probably close to a thousand words.
It was either talking about some outdoor sport or some outdoor adventure person or some piece of gear, 'cause I'm a... I love men's clothing and tactical gear and stuff like that. So it just t- it wasn't focused enough.
You know, one week I was writing about the, uh, the first couple to climb the Seven Summits together, and then the next week I was writing about all the Easter eggs in Pixar movies.
[chuckles] I don't know why I did that. Um, but it definitely taught me about writing, taught me how to be a good writer, and it taught me the mechanics of writing a newsletter or setting up a newsletter.
So by the time I decided to do Naptown Scoop, I, I had it set up and running in, like...
I, I think I, I set it up one night and started running Facebook ads the next day and, and then wrote the first episode a week later and...
So it was just nice to know all that technical stuff that made the, the setup super easy. Now you can find YouTube videos- Yeah...
for all that and you don't need to waste eight months of your life on a newsletter that's never going anywhere, but, um- Well, that's, but that's, like, that's not a waste, is it? Right?
Like, I feel like that's, like-I feel like it's like you have to do the bad newsletter before you can do the good newsletter because you have to like learn what not to do. I, I don't know.
I think that's like people wanna just like start something and make it perfect and good, and then maybe they like end up planning it and strategizing, and then they never even start.
And like you have to like make it terrible before you can make a new thing that's good, right? Yeah. I am a big fan of sucking at something before you get good at it. Like, I almost kind of enjoy the sucking phase.
Um, I, I'm kinda learning how to play chess right now, and I have played like... I think I played 36 games this week online, and I haven't won a single one.
And, uh, [laughs] it'll probably be several more weeks before I do. So I kind of enjoyed that, that sucking phase. But, uh, yeah, I wish it wasn't eight months for the newsletter. You know, this...
I, I really honestly [laughs] thought that it was gonna go make me money, enough money to survive and live, and it was not just a side hustle.
Like, I had actually quit my job to build this thing, which is the dumbest thing- Wow... I've ever done, but luckily I ended up [laughs] starting Naptown Scoop. Yeah. No, that's amazing.
I didn't realize you'd actually quit your job to start it. Like, it sounds like you probably should have done it for like- Well, I didn't, I didn't quit my job to start The Daily Thread.
Like, I quit my job to do something, and I figured it was gonna be publishing of like online content, and then, uh, that one just happened to be the first thing I did, and I'm glad I stopped doing it [laughs] eventually.
And the guy who bought it ended up shutting it down. Uh, it's like it's gone forever. It's completely gone. Yeah. What did you... What drew you?
'Cause I think you quit your job, like v- shortly before COVID, unless I'm wrong. So like why were you like, "The next thing I gotta do, like I gotta start making content online and like making a living like that"?
Like, why... What really drew you to that? Uh, well, a guy everybody knows in the newsletter world named Sam Parr started, you know, The Hustle. Mm-hmm.
And I had this mentor in South Carolina who showed me The Hustle, and I absolutely loved it. And then I saw these other newsletters in South Carolina that were...
They were like local newsletters, which is eventually what I ended up, why I ended up doing that Naptown Scoop.
Um, but I was like, "Yeah, this newsletter thing is cool, and owning an audience is cool, and if you have an audience you can sell them anything you want." Yeah. "So I'm gonna go do that."
And also, they're easy to start- Yeah... and they're basically free, and, uh, you know, you can... It's, it's an internet business. You could do it from anywhere.
If The Daily Thread had actually worked or let's say I started a different newsletter that had been more successful, but it was about... You know, let's say I had stuck to the adventure sports phase.
Uh, like I could have done that from anywhere.
Now my local newsletter, I kinda have to be in Annapolis, but if something else had worked out, I could have run it from, you know, traveling the world like a digital nomad like everybody thinks they wanna be and then end up doing and then actually realize that you can't really do it for that long 'cause it's kind of exhausting.
Um, but I could have had that. I could've done that. So I liked that idea, that flexibility and, uh, to be honest, I just looked at it and was like, "I could do that." Yeah.
No, it's funny you mention like Sam Parr, The Hustle, My First Million. I think like of...
I've spoken to, I don't know, maybe a dozen people for this since I, since I joined, and I think like four or five of you have said- [laughs]... you know, "I was inspired by My First Million." It's like the...
Like there's this quote about like, uh, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, where it's like that record only sold 10,000 copies or 30,000 copies, but everyone who bought one went and started a band.
And I feel like that newsletter- [laughs]... or like that pod- like whatever, Sam Parr, My First Million, Sean Perry, like they are that of newsletters. Um, but anyways, moving on to- Yeah, they definitely, uh...
You know, now they kinda joke about it. Like, they're like- Yeah... "Why is everybody starting newsletters? They should... Like newsletters are done. They should... Like it's time to do the next thing." Um, but yeah.
Yeah. No, I think that's great. I definitely am part of that.
I was like kind of early, I think, maybe a little bit into that whole, uh, craze, but you know, still definitely not one of the OGs like they are or, uh, Sam is at least. Yeah.
And I guess then Sean made himself a newsletter OG. I always kind of forgot about Milk Road. Oh, with Milk Road. Yeah. 'Cause like Milk Road didn't inspire me. I was already doing my thing by then.
I liked watching its journey, but it wasn't like, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna go start Milk Road" like that. I was like, "I'm gonna start The Hustle for Annapolis."
I'm not like so OG that I was like inspired by The Skimm, but you know, The Hustle's still pretty close.
I think you said this in, uh, another podcast I was listening to, like anyone can go start an AI newsletter, but like there's not many people that are gonna start a newsletter about Annapolis, um, which like it's, it's about 40,000 people, right?
Like just over 40,000. You started this three and a half years ago, um, and I think you have like about half the city is on your list, right? So yeah. What's- Yeah. We have 18,000... give us like the origin story.
18,000? Wow. Yeah. Uh, so origin story is pretty simple. Like I said, I was in South Carolina and I was looking at this local newsletter there and I was like, "This is pretty cool. I like knowing what's going on."
And then I realized that they were doing that same concept in six other cities, and I was like, "That's pretty cool. Uh, they must be making a lot of money with this."
So I signed up for all seven of them, uh, got the price sheet, made a spreadsheet, and I was like, "Sign up for every one."
You know, they're running dis- They're sure probably discounting their sales, volume discounts and everything, so it probably wasn't exact, but I was like, "I think they're making like half a million dollars per city, so I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do that."
Or I didn't think that right away. I think I thought... I was like, "That's kinda cool." And then that was- Subconsciously it was there. Yeah.
So it was like filed away, and then when I moved back out of South Carolina back to Maryland where I grew up, quit my job in January, moved back in like May, I think, and then by July I was bored out of my mind.
Uh, Daily Thread was [laughs] not growing and, uh, I was like- It was unraveling. I wish I knew... Yeah. [laughs] The, The Thread was unraveling. I, I, I don't think it's ever raveled to begin with.
Um, so I was looking around and I was like, "I want something to do." Um, but I couldn't...
There was like nothing to tell me what was happening in town, and I was like, "Oh, wait, I remember those local newsletters down in South Carolina. You know, I wish I knew what was going on here. Maybe I could do that."
And I wrote about it in the Trends Facebook group. I don't know if you remember Trends, The Hustle product that was like the premium product that they did. And, uh, uh, peop- wentLike decently viral.
People were pretty excited to hear about it, and they were like, "Can I invest in you?" Like, "This is great." And I was like, "Oh, no, I wasn't looking for that. I was just, like, kind of writing about the idea here."
Uh, but then it r- bec- partially because of the excitement of that Facebook post, I decided to go and do it, and that is the origin story.
I, you know, like, basically wrote the post, woke up the next day and saw how many comments and everything it had on it, and then I was like, "Cool.
Uh, instead of answering all these comments, I'm gonna go actually do it." So I made the website. I think I made the website that night. Uh, just a pretty quick one, like, a one-page website on Webflow.
And then made a Facebook account, started running ads for it, and started, I think, a week later. Sent the first email on August 17th.
Uh, dirty little secret of Naptown Scoop, I don't actually think that was the first day. I didn't really archive well in the beginning, but, uh, that is the earliest archive that I have.
And I'm pretty sure it was actually August 10th. But we'll just go with August 17th from now on. Yeah. Were you, were you, like... I think you were on Mailchimp at the time. Yep, started on Mailchimp because- Yeah...
that was what you did back then. Like, all the other ones, like, kind of felt clunky. And so there was no Beehiiv. This is, like, well before Beehiiv was around.
Uh, I guess ConvertKit was around, but I don't think I found that one. Uh, Mailchimp was just, like, they had the best marketing, they were the biggest, and everybody knew them. Now you have 18,000 people.
Um, I'm, I'm curious, like, obviously the audience is people who live in Annapolis and maybe people visiting, et cetera, but, like, who is the Naptown Scoop? Like, why...
What does it make people feel like to read, to be a subscriber, to be somebody who, like, subscribes to this? I wrote about her in the Life of Scoop newsletter three weeks ago. I call her Michelle.
Um, basically Michelle is, like, the person who, probably around 50 years old, she's married, she doesn't work, her husband has a great job, um, they're probably members of the yacht club here, they might have a boat.
Like, she definitely got a gran- a brand-new Jeep Wagoneer last year. Um, kids go to private school. Like, that's the average reader of the Naptown Scoop.
And, like, that's gross oversimplification if anybody's reading or hearing this that lives in Annapolis, don't get mad at me. But, like, that's kinda who we write for, is, like, that 50 to 60-year-old woman.
I think everybody thinks it's gonna be a younger demographic. Like, every...
'Cause, well, 'cause I'm young, and it's all on the internet, and everybody thinks it's gonna be, like, all, you know, 20-somethings and 30-somethings reading this. But in reality, it is over 50% over the age of 50.
And if you extend that down to the age 35 or 30, it's, like, 75%, 80% over the age of 35. It's, like, mostly older people. Uh, and 75% women. Does that map to, like, the...
Does that map to the population, like, breakdown of Annapolis much? Um, there are definitely more older people here than younger people. It's not really a city where young people move. Uh, so...
I mean, it's also just a smaller city, so I think there's less opportunity for young people. It's a pretty expensive place to live. With the stats you were saying, you, you've got the age breakdown.
You said 70% women, et cetera. Do you, do you just gather this through onboarding surveys? Um, not, not through onboarding surveys.
It's all done once they're on and signed up and actually like it enough to give us some information. But, uh, yeah, it's all self-reported. Yeah.
What I feel like with something like this where it's, like, such a, it's, like, such a service that you're doing to people and it's, like, this relationship thing, like, that they probably are more willing to give information than, like, you know, something that's not, like, a location-specific audience.
Which, um, I read somewhere else that you, uh, like, you thought one of your major differentiators was your relationships and your ability to, like, you know, message every single per- whenever anybody replies to an email, a comment, a DM, et cetera, and, like, have that one-on-one relationship, and, like, in person too.
Um, but I th- that... Wherever I read that was, like, maybe a year ago, two years ago. You've scaled since then. Is that still possible, or has that become, like, not something you can do at a certain point of scale?
Is that still your differentiator? Yeah, it's definitely still there. I don't personally respond to every email anymore. Um, most of the time, my assistant will answer.
But every once in a while, I'll pop into the inbox and I will see something and I'm like, "Oh, I can handle this really quickly," or I'll just like handling it. Like, last week, I tweeted about this about an hour ago.
Somebody emailed me and asked me if I had any tickets to this thing, extra tickets to something happening this weekend, and I didn't. It's super hard to get tickets for it. It's already sold out.
Then today, somebody emailed me and was like, "Hey, I've got two extra tickets. You know anybody who needs them?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah, like, Chip needs some."
And so I emailed Chip real quick and I asked him if he still needed tickets, and he was like, "Oh, wow, yeah. I can't believe you remembered. Like, thanks." And I was like, "Well, cool, here's, like, two tickets."
Yeah, they're still definitely there even though we have that, a ton of people reading every day. There's still that personal connection. Uh, and it's certainly still there in the community in person, face to face.
Like, that's something that I take super seriously and, and will forever. I just think it's the right way to do things. Uh, yeah, I just can't imagine doing it any other way.
Like, last weekend or was it two weekends ago? I think it was two weekends ago. Uh, this couple stopped me in a restaurant and I was... It wasn't, I wasn't eating dinner or anything.
I was out with some friends, but they stopped me and sat down with them and basically spent an hour and a half talking to them at, at this... You know, I eventually...
I d- I had to get dinner 'cause I wasn't planning on sitting down, so I, like, sitting with them, grabbed a hamburger and, um, you know, the... I think that made them really excited. They, they love reading the thing.
They were excited to meet me. I, I don't think that should ever go away.
I think people will always appreciate that, especially the bigger you get, like, the more notable they think you are, and so the more valuable it becomes actually. And you never know what's gonna happen on that too.
Like, you always, just always be open to stuff like that. You never know who you're gonna help. Like, like, what if that guy that I... I don't know who this guy is. He just emailed me and asked if I had any tickets.
But what if that guy happened to be the CEO of some gigantic company?And he's like Yeah... "I think that, you know, we should advertise with you." You just never know what's gonna happen, and that's not why you do it.
But if you don't do that from the start, it's really hard to do that later. Yeah. That's... So that's really interesting, actually. Something you touched on is how, like, it's made you this character in town.
Um, and, like, it's, it's the Naptown Scoop, and it's like this, you know, media product, but then you are in the signature of it. I think, like... Let me see. I, I have one of the, the news- newsletters up here.
You'll say, like, in the local businesses section, like, "I'll always let you know when something's sponsored," and, like, that personal, "I will," you know? It's not, like, "We will," or something.
Um, so I, I'm interested, like, what, like, why... If you made that decision really consciously to be like, "This is Naptown Scoop, like, by Ryan," or is it like... Like, how did that develop? I don't know.
It's like, 'cause it seems they're somewhat inseparable, like, you and Naptown Scoop. Yeah. So it was never really supposed to be Naptown Scoop by Ryan. I didn't really care that it was by me.
It was just always Naptown Scoop is by a real human that lives in your town, um, and we're gonna talk very casually. We're gonna just write you this email.
Like, we would, you know, if I, if I was sitting down with a friend explaining what's going on this weekend, like, that's how I would write it.
Like, I'm not afraid to write this weekend for, for the upcoming Scoop that, you know, the Saint Patrick's Day parade is the best one in Annapolis.
I don't think the newspaper is ever gonna take that sta- strong stance on something because there's six other parades that might call them and be like, "What the hell?
Why'd you say, like, you know, what's wrong with my parade?" And I'm just not afraid to do that and say, "B- guys, by far, this is the best one. There's not a question. This is the best one."
And also, to, to use that first person language, um, to put some opinion in there. You know, as long as the opinion's not gonna piss off too many people, I'm pretty cool with it. Um, but it was never really...
I didn't care that it was Naptown Scoop by Ryan. It was more just, like, Naptown Scoop by real humans who talk like your friend.
Uh, my, my writer's now got, like, the old- the longest running one I've had now, like, she'll put her own personal spin on stories when she's writing them, and she's not afraid to put her opinion and her, you know, like, a little, share a little bit of her life in there.
Uh, and I always say, I, I kind of, I encourage that 'cause I always say the same thing. People connect with people, not brands. So who cares if it's Naptown Scoop?
But if it's Naptown Scoop and there's some human faces and names attached to it, I feel like I want it to, to seem like we're sitting on a park bench or, like, sitting in a brewery together and I'm telling you what's happening over a beer.
That was always the, the focus and the goal. It was... So it didn't matter that it was by me. I just happened to be the person who was there to do it and, uh, the price was right to hire me. So that was what I did.
[laughs] I am curious about the team. You, you were just talking about you've got a couple writers. Last... The, the most recent thing I could find was that you had one full-time employee and four part-time employees.
So what, what is the team? Um, is th- and is that information up to date or... Yeah, what's... How many people are on the team- That is-... and what do they do?... not, not up to date.
Uh, we have one full-time person, a full-time assistant who helps out that is awesome, super helpful.
Then we have two writers, uh, three social media people, but one is very occasional, and the other one is about to go to culinary school in Ireland, so she'll be out for six months.
Um, and then one is, like, pretty heavily involved, probably looks at it almost every day, and that's, like, the overall social media manager. So two writers, three social media people.
That's about to cut down to two, but I'm gonna try and get it back up to three. And then I just hired two salespeople, and all of those people, they're all part-time. Two salespeople.
Why, why was now the time to do that? It's just too much to also do the ads now? Yeah. So I had had one. She kind of really helped it get off the ground.
Didn't really know a lot about advertising sales, but figured out what she needed to know and was invaluable in getting us where we need to go, and we worked together a lot.
Um, and then she had a baby and bought a house and is amazing at her other job where she makes [laughs] a whole lot more money than I ever paid her, uh, or could.
Her gross salary is more than Naptown Scoop's gross revenue still. So she's an absolute killer, uh, at her real job.
And so she had to just cut something out of her life, and that was the easiest thing 'cause, you know, not gonna get rid of her house, not gonna quit her high-paying job, and you can't get rid of your baby.
So the thing that was left was Naptown Scoop. So, uh- Yeah. Are these, are these all local people, by the way? Everybody except the assistant is local.
The assistant does live in Philippines, which is always surprising to people. Yeah, so the time was right for salespeople.
I'd had one, and then I didn't have one, and then I kinda had just kinda focused, like, let inbound leads take over and just kind of not...
I didn't do any outbound sales at all, which looking back, if I had, we probably would be much bigger, much faster. But I was focused on hiring writers, outsourcing everything I could.
Like, I don't write any ad copy anymore unless I want to.
You know, we had enough money to make it, and so I was like, "I'm gonna focus on these other things, and we'll focus on ad sales later, and we're gonna hire a great salesperson."
I only wanted to hire one, but I had two really amazing people. And I was like, "I don't want to let one of you go. And I know I could find you later and always get you back again.
It's not like it's now or never," but I just felt like I wanted them both, and I kind of have enough for both of them to make enough money. Neither of them are doing it full-time.
Uh, if, if one of them was doing it full-time, it would've been a disservice to the other one to, or to that one to, to hire both. But since they're both part-time, uh, it, I can, I can have them both.
And so one is working on just our basic ads that are in the newsletter. They're pretty easy to sell. Um, she's basically done the exact same thing before, so she was perfect for it.
And then the other one I just get along really well with and we're really collaborative, uh, even in just the couple meetings we've had. It, it was very clear that we worked well together.
And so he's more like my special projects person, I call him. Uh, he'sHe's awesome. Like, I probably will talk to him now that he's on board a couple times a week.
We'll, we'll spend a lot on the phone together, and I just... I, yeah, I wanted them both. Yeah. You gotta have the, the gap filler special projects person, I feel like, on, like, a, a small business like this. Yeah.
He's like, you know, the, the person where, you know, what, what, what, uh, w- we don't really know exactly what to do here, like, you know, Mike's job. Yeah.
Um, so I wa- before we get into some other stuff, I do wanna touch on, on revenue and, like, profit, et cetera.
To start, I mean, you said that, uh, this other person, like, her full-time salary is more than the full, the full revenue that Naptown Scoop makes so far.
Uh, are you comfortable sharing, like, an even, like, a revenue range? Oh, yeah. So 2023, it was about $200,000.
My target for this year is three fifty, uh, almost double because now that those other things are in place, like, the ma- I can focus on ad sales most of the day every day now.
You know, every day that goes by, we're losing revenue possibly because we haven't sold an ad that day, but I still think three fifty is a pretty conservative number. This, this ad salesperson is... She's a killer.
I've already sold before I even put her on. I think it was $175,000 worth of ads for the 2024. So we're already on track. You know, sell a few, two more contracts and we beat last year already, so that's fine.
Uh, but I, I really think it can get to three fifty, uh, probably more because, uh, once this new salesperson gets going, they'll really get going fast. So it's gonna be a slow ramp-up, but it always is.
Um, and then I have some, some other projects going on where, uh, I think you're targeting, you know, said haven't even gotten to two fifty in revenue yet.
Uh, some of these other projects I'm targeting to do that before we even launch with them.
You know, we've got normal ad salesperson trying to get us to that three fifty based on the, just the Naptown Scoop newsletter, but then we've got special projects, Mike and I working on a couple things that could get us to half a million.
So I think it would love to get it to a million dollars a year or very close. I would be very happy to get, uh, a newsletter in a town of 40,000 people to a million dollars a year.
And then as, you know, ten years from now, obviously the price is going up every year, so hopefully, um, hopefully significantly more than that. If we can...
But I, my thought process is if I can get Annapolis 40,000, if I can get that almost a million dollars in business, then what can I do in a city of 120,000 people? Can we, can we do three million? Can we do two?
Two and a half? Like, maybe we can't get to three, but maybe we can get to two and a half. And you don't need that many people working on this.
The, uh, the costs associated with getting to two and a half million are not that high. Uh, they're cer- they're not that much higher than the costs associated with getting it to one million.
So I love the very simple nature of the business, and then also there's a lot of benefits that you could take out of it that are, you know, the social capital. Mm-hmm. Also a lot of your thing...
A lot of your life that you were already gonna live can be expensed because it's part of the business now. So, you know, the, the profits and the revenue don't tell the whole story.
You know, if, if you were to think about in terms of selling a small business, the term seller's discretionary earnings comes to mind, and there's definitely a lot of benefits there that it gets me. Yeah.
Um, before we get back into some of the monetary stuff, like, i- it's interesting talking about, like, you think you can get up to a million, et cetera. Um, I always like...
I think that not every business should scale or is meant to scale, and I like that that's so built into this. Like, it's a town of 40,000 people. You can only get so many people to subscribe.
You can only, you know, sell so much ad, ad revenue or ad placements, et cetera. So, like, I, I don't know.
I'd love to hear you talk about how the business is capped in terms of maybe audience revenue, team size, and, and media output. Yeah.
So that was one of the things I really loved about it when I first discovered the idea.
I was like, "I could be totally wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that I will run Facebook ads until we get to a certain point, and I'll just turn them off, and I'll just turn off a giant monthly expense, and I'll never turn it back on."
Unless we, you know, we'll, we'll keep the churn fixed, uh, or, you know, fill in the gaps, fill, fill in the leaky bucket with new Facebook ads.
But I turned Facebook ads off about a year and a half ago, and I haven't run it anymore since, and it still gets bigger every single week. And so I'm like, "Yeah, I was right."
You can spend a ton in the beginning, get to some point, and then just shut them off and keep growing. The snowball is already rolling.
It's not like we're just saying, "Yep, all right, we're gonna get to a certain number and then we can't get any... We're, we're just gonna shut off Facebook ads."
You reach a point of saturation where the new subscribers get prohibitively expensive, but then you can get them in organic ways that don't cost as much, like just people telling their friends about it.
But yeah, we got to fifteen thousand or something before we turned them off, something like that, and that's a pretty good chunk of people in a town of forty thousand. Now, there's... We cover more than just the town.
I think there's probably about a hundred and ten thousand people that could possibly read it, but even still, that's a very signi- eighteen thousand out of a hundred and ten thousand is a pretty significant chunk.
A pretty great market penetration. Yeah. No, that's amazing. Um, and then also I think you now do five times a week, but you used to send three times a week, right? That is correct. Actually started with one.
Uh, sent- Oh, with once a week, okay. Yeah. What's the story of, like, send cadence growth there?
The story, and it always comes back to money, is started doing it once a week, and then I was like, "I am never gonna turn this into a business that makes any, enough money for me to live on if I am only sending one a week."
Because I, at the time, I only had four ads, or I think I only had one. Uh, no, I think I might have had all four kinds or all, all two kinds that I thought of.But then I was like, "Yeah, no, I can't do this.
This is crazy." So I went... I, two weeks in, I surveyed the audience and I said, "Would you guys like this to go to three times a week or do you wanna keep it at one?"
And it was, like, dead even down the middle, but also it was like 150 people.
So I just took the survey a bunch of times myself, and then I posted, like, I screenshotted the, uh, the results and I was like, "Look, everybody wants three times a week."
So then I did three times a week and nobody cared, nobody unsubscribed or anything.
Um, and then we went on like that for probably about three years, and in that time I said I had one big ad with a photo and then, uh, three in each newsletter with not photos, text ads only.
And all the big ones always sold out really quickly. Everybody wanted those.
So in that time I created another picture one, so now there were two picture ones, and then three non-picture ones, and I sold out all those picture ones and I'm like, "Well, now what do I do?"
Like, I'm not gonna add another one. That, that would be too, too much in the newsletter. It's only 1,500 words or 2,000 words. I can't add another 100-word ad, um, and another picture. It'll just junk it up.
So I decided to go to five days a week, and this time I learned, and I did not survey the audience.
I just announced that, "Hey, we're now going five days a week," and no meaningful drop in open rate or subscribe, like unsubscribes. I, I... So I was... It, it was fine. I was more worried.
I kne- I knew people liked it, and so I knew that they wouldn't mind getting more of it. I was more worried about having enough content to do it.
I don't think you could do five days a week in a city any smaller than this, unless you had a ton of bad stuff going on or something like that. How do you, how do you get all that content for five days a week?
That's, that is like a- Um, so we're just-... physical job... we're checking a bunch of places every day, and then also people are sending us stuff.
Uh, that's like the most annoying question to me, and I'm not getting angry at you for asking it. Mm-hmm. But it's just, like, people, they always ask. They're like, "How do you get all...
Like, how do you get all your content?" I'm like, "We go look for it." Like, it's not that hard of an answer. It's all out there. Yeah. Stuff happens. Um, not, not all of it is out there.
Like, we do get told stuff now that isn't anywhere else, which is cool, but in the beginning we weren't doing that.
Nobody was like, "Wait, I'm gonna email Annapolis Scoop 'cause they have a lot of people and they'll, they'll break the story for me."
Uh, we were just checking all the websites that already exist and all the events calendars we could find, and every social media page that we knew was producing.
And I always say "we" 'cause I don't like saying "me," but it was just me. Um, pr- social media pages that were producing good content regularly. It was just a shit ton of work.
[laughs] Like, it was just, like, hours and hours of digging through stuff.
This is why curation newsletters are valuable because the regular person that lives in town, especially the busy ones with three kids or a high-power job, they don't have time to go do that.
They just want you to send it to them in a quick five-minute email. So that's, like, kind of the most annoying question when people ask me, like, "How do you do that?"
And you're like, "Well, you just do the work that's required." It's, there's no secret sauce to it.
The secret sauce might be picking the right ones, 'cause you don't wanna put stuff in there that nobody cares about or stuff that pisses people off, but the, the sauce is not finding it, for sure.
At a certain point- Yeah...
it becomes a little bit of the, becomes a little bit of your secret sauce 'cause, like, now we're big enough where people do tell us things and they're like, "You know, you can talk about this now."
Sometimes they say, "You... We're telling you about this, but you can't talk about it until this date. Please don't publish it until then."
You know, sometimes they work with us to help them get the word out, and it's almost like a marketing consultation kinda thing. But that didn't happen at the beginning.
It was just all about finding the right information. Yeah. And it was all out there. No. It just- Yeah... spend the time. This, so this, I don't know, this...
You touched on a lot there that, that's really interesting, in- interesting to me. So it's like the service journalism of a local journalism, right? And obviously local newspapers dying, et cetera, have been for decades.
Um, and, like, what you're doing is, is important because it is, like, you know, it's like it's, it's, it's a real service. Like you're, like you're saying, like, people will open it.
The open rate didn't drop when you started doing five times a week because people wanna know in five minutes what's going, what's going on in town.
Um, so I am, like, curious about your, your, like, editorial guidelines or, or how you think about that, how you choose what to cover, what not to cover.
Like, because it's, it's this service you're doing that keeps people coming. So yeah, do you have, like, specific rule, editorial rules that you've set to follow? Yeah.
I'll start with some easy ones, like no politics, no crime, unless it's like a major, major, major crime that you can't ignore. Like, if the mayor... I always... [laughs] This is always the example I use.
Sorry, Gavin, I know you're not listening, but if he was, uh, if the mayor got kidnapped, we're gonna write about it. Like, you can't not, you know? But if somebody gets carjacked at the Safeway, uh, nobody cares.
I hate to say that, trivialize a terrible moment in somebody's life. Uh, but the aver- uh, what I always think about is does the average citizen of Annapolis, like does our average reader need to know this?
Do they care to know this? And I don't think should they care, um, 'cause I'm not trying to tell you what to think about. I just, I'm trying to think would this, would they find this interesting and necessary to know?
So, like, the mayor's kidnapped, absolutely, they'll want to know, even though that technically is crime and we don't really do crime, they'll wanna know.
Carjacking at Safeway, unless there's like five in a week and now you should maybe not go to that Safeway or be really careful when you do, um, then, then we'll write about it maybe.
But I try to only do things that I think they'll really care about.
I guess that's kind of a little bit of the secret sauce is deciding what and w- that's not, because I think it's, it's almost more important about what you don't include than what you do, because you don't wanna include things that aren't useful, 'cause if it's not useful, people will stop reading it.
And you don't wanna incur- you don't wanna include too many things that piss people off, because if you piss them off too much, they'll leave.
Uh, you can piss them off a little bit, and sometimes you have to talk about uncomfortable things, but you don't wanna do it too often.
But you definitely don't wanna include things that they don't care about.Uh, you wanna include things. Like, that's a hard thing.
When people send stuff in, they're like, "Hey, um, you know, like, my dad wrote a book, uh, and he lives in Annapolis. Will you write about it?" And you're like, "Well,
you know, the average person here doesn't really care that your dad wrote a book on how to declaw cats." Like, that's not... And, um, that's not a real example, of course, but like, that's not relevant.
They could buy an ad- Your dad-... if they wanted. Yeah, they could buy an ad, but even though, I'd probably be like, "It's not gonna work very well, 'cause nobody's gonna buy anything from you."
But if your dad wrote a book about our most famous lighthouse, then yeah, that's gotta be in there, because people... Like, we have this one lighthouse here. I, I love it too. I'm, I'm guilty of this. It's a...
Everybody is obsessed with it. And so if anybody does anything regarding the lighthouse, it's gonna be in the Scoop.
Um, it, it just, it, it, and, and any kind of major event that's gonna shut down traffic, or if, if someone who doesn't know about it is driving by downtown or walking by and they're gonna turn their head and be like, "What's that?"
Like, that's definitely gonna be in there so you know what's up. A lot of times it'll be in there well in advance so you can find out about it and put it on your calendar if you wanna go to it.
But yeah, the, it, you gotta make it... Most importantly, it just has to be valuable every day. If people are bored by it, they're not gonna keep reading it, and you have to keep them interested.
And you're allowed- Yeah... a little bit of wheelay- leeway. Like, you don't have to be 10 out of 10 every single day. You can't be for five days a week, 50 weeks a year. That's not possible. Yeah.
But you wanna be almost always awesome. You know, some days- Yeah... there's just not a lot going on. Some days the newsletter's kind of a dud. But I try to, even on those days, how can we make it not a dud?
Can we, uh, oh, remember a piece of content that we put out like three months ago or something that we can re-share? Or can we make something up? Like, can we write a new one real quick?
Uh, what, what's going on out there that we can... You know, this, this one's a dud. How can we make it not a dud? Uh, but every once in a while you just have a dud. Yeah, I mean, that's what? 550. Like,
I can't even count. That's like almost 1,000 issues a year. Yeah, we're doing like two hu- 250 of these things- Yeah... a year. So- Yeah. It is... every one can't be great. Like, every Morning Brew is not great.
Every, uh, you know, even when the team that wins the Super Bowl lost a couple games along the way, right? Like, you just- Yeah... it happens. You keep coming back. That's what matters.
Uh, so I wanna go back to monetization for a little bit. So you've got the ads, and then is there anything else besides, um, ad sales you're making revenue on? Not significantly. Like, we do...
The newsletter ads are almost all the revenue, so in March we billed $15,362 worth of newsletter ads and $0 of social media ads.
Next month, hopefully we'll bill around the same number of a- newsletter ads, and I think we'll do about $2,000 in social media ads. So like, you can see that most months the social media is zero.
It's just something I don't sell very often. If I do, maybe it's part of a package. But, uh, we just don't do a lot of it.
But yeah, everything else right now that we make money off of is miniscule compared to newsletter. Like, we have merch that we sell at this pop-up shop, which takes like half the revenue, which is annoying.
Uh, but even if [laughs] they didn't take half of it, it's like maybe 1,500 bucks a year, something like that. Yeah. Um, but we do have- It's the value of your merch being around town kinda, right? Yeah.
It's, it's more than just the profit made. Um, if it was just the profit made, I wouldn't do it at all. But we also have a, a membership program where people can support. Yeah, right now it's pretty heavily advertising.
It'll probably always be like that. I am thinking about other ways that we can make money, but it's like kinda just the thing that I'm good at. Like, I can build an audience- Yeah...
and I can build a super engaged audience. And if I have a super engaged audience, someone is gonna wanna pay to reach it.
Uh, whether that super engaged audience is members of my town here or people out there that wanna learn how to start a local newsletter, like, I think that's what I'm good at, is just building these strong audiences, which is why I wanna build another newsletter.
Um, and I actually wanna hear... I, I would like to talk about that one at the end- Yeah... 'cause I wanna hear your- Yeah...
thoughts on it, 'cause I have a stupid idea that I think I'm gonna do as a test for my next newsletter, or my next non-local newsletter. Um, okay.
My, my next, my last question about monetization, though, is do you personally make, like, a, your full living off of this? And if you do, when did that, when did you, like, when did that become true? Yes, I do.
I have since I quit my job. Um- Yeah... but in the first couple of years, you know, there's some creative ways to make that work.
So for the first year and three months, I lived with my parents, so I didn't have rent and I didn't have to pay for a lot of food. So that makes things a lot cheaper. It's your seed round. Yeah.
[laughs] That, that was my seed round. I like thinking of it like that. The, the actual seed round, though, was in November of 2021. My dad was like, "You need to move out. You're driving across the bridge to..."
'Cause they're 45 minutes from Annapolis.
They were like, "You're driving across every day, like super early in the morning, and then you're over there working all day, and then you drive home super late, and then you come home and still work.
And like, you're gonna fall asleep at the wheel. You gotta move out. Do you have enough money to move out?" And I was like, "Kind of?" And they were like, "Okay, we'll pay your rent for the first year if you...
if, like, could you move out then?" And I was like, "Yeah, you like really are con- concerned I'm gonna fall [laughs] asleep at the wheel, right?" And they were like, "Yeah, you should, you need to move out.
Like, it's, it's actually unsafe. You're, you're kind of a workaholic, and this is not good." So I did, and I was like, "There's no way I'm letting you help me for a year, though." So after six months...
[laughs] I was dumb. I shouldn't... If your parents offer that, just take it. Just, just do it. So I told them at six months that I was good, and I was not good.
Um, but I was just stubborn and prideful, and I was like, "I'm not letting you do this. This is dumb." Then I was just super poor. [laughs] Yeah. So for the... That was, you know, two years to...
Well-Two years and three months in, and then, uh, I made like not very much money that year.
Always kinda made it through, but there were definitely a couple of months where I had to pay my rent, my rent late to my cousin. And then, you know, that still kinda happened every once in a while.
We'd get into like a cash flow squeeze. I'm not great at accounts receivable, and so we'd have like people that owe us fifteen grand, but we wouldn't have it, and I have bills. So that kinda sucked.
But yeah, now this year finally got it to a point where I replaced the salary from the job that I quit. It feels so good to not be stressed about money again. Um- That took like three years though to get to that point?
Uh, it took like three and a half years to get to that point. Yeah. So yeah, kinda sucked.
But also like I was focused on paying other people to make the thing bigger, and I was like, "I can just get by and figure it out.
I can eat cheap food and not go on vacation and just, you know, Spartan lifestyle it," 'cause I think in twenty-five years it'll be worth it. Uh, I'm willing to make that sacrifice.
So I always, just for some reason, it's... this is such a vivid description I always remember, and I don't actually love everything the guy says, but he's kind of smart in some ways.
Gary Vee used to say, "Eat a shit burger so you can eat caviar later." And I just always... that always stuck with me, and I was like, "Cool. This is just my shit burger, and I'll, you know, caviar later."
And 20, 20 years out, who knows how many years, but like right now I'll just get... just, just survive. You know, there's no saving, there's no sp- there's no extravagance, there's just surviving.
So yeah, then finally got to this point, and I...
it took me three and a half years to get to this point, but I think next year, uh, with these new sales reps and just again, every year that you survive and continue to grow your cachet, and you can raise prices, and then we can have new products.
I'm hoping to go from what I replaced to double that next year. I think that's not unreasonable. Um, and then, you know, only up from there, hopefully. Yeah.
Um, so questions, questions about that, but first I always like to ask people if there's like one really tactical piece of advice you would give to other people working in newsletters, not necessarily local newsletters, but just with newsletters generally, your best piece of advice.
This is kind of annoying advice because it's so stupidly basic, but every time I see stats and numbers I'm like, this is basic, but it's like, you know, hearing those stories about Kobe practicing the fundamentals and everybody's like, "Dude, why are you doing that?
You're the best basketball player in the world." And he's like, "Yeah, why do you think I'm the best basketball player in the world? I do this eight hours a day or something."
Uh, and like Steph shooting however many shots he shoots a day. It's the basics are what make you win, and I'm just reminded that people don't do this because I really only spend a lot of time with people who do.
But it's just not quitting. Like so many people are like, "I'm gonna do a newsletter," and then they write three episodes, and then they quit. It, it... I...
it, like I said, it sounds stupidly basic, but if you commit to writing a newsletter and you say, "I'm gonna send it at this time on these days," and then you do that and you don't miss an episode or an edition or whatever you call them for three and a half years, I'm living proof you'll change your life.
I mean, like [chuckles] hopefully you can do it faster, not be dumb like me. You know, maybe don't quit your job first. Um, but it's not that complicated. It is hard 'cause- Yeah...
you know, sometimes you don't wanna do it, and sometimes that means you gotta stay up until two AM to finish the newsletter to get it out by six the next day.
But if you just make that, you know, I'm gonna make the boneheaded commitment that I'm gonna s- I'm not gonna let any... I don't care if there's a hurricane or,
you know, like my dog dies or I'm sick, 'cause I've written The Scoop sick before. I'm gonna get this thing out every single time that I've said I'm gonna get it out, and I'm gonna do that for years.
And if you think like that, you're not... I, I don't wanna fight you. I don't wanna compete against you. [chuckles] Yeah.
I wanna compete against the guy who's like, "I got a great idea," and then three weeks later he quits. Like, those are my favorite people to fight. Yeah. One, one more tactical question quick too. I...
'cause I think I heard you talk about this in the Newsletter Operator podcast. Uh, referral system. I was like struck by how smart you were on referral system stuff. What's...
what advice would you give people for, for building a, like a referral system that actually works?
Uh, well, when you say you're impressed by how smart I am, what you're really impressed by is how good I am at seeing smart things that other people do and then doing the same things, AKA copying them.
I would honestly say like go to the... if you... for like a newsletter referral system, go to lifeofscoop.beehiiv. It's like the holy grail of local newsletter growth or something. It's the subject line.
And that's like a super, super tactical, like this is actually how I would build a referral program for, for, a local newsletter. But the most...
if you like distill down to one piece of advice, is the only thing that matters in a lo- in a referral system is the first baseline. Mm-hmm. Like the first milestone, because almost nobody will get past that.
And so you make that one free, and you... for you to fulfill, and you make it kind of easy to get. Uh, mine's three subscribers. A lot of people do one. A lot of newsletters do two, but I do three 'cause I'm greedy.
Make it free, make it automatic for you to fulfill, and that's the only one that you should think about.
And you should think a lot about it and like make sure that it is a really well-aligned incentive for people to share. I got lucky with mine, and I was like, "I'm gonna do birthday shout-outs for people."
And for any local newsletter, I would say don't even think about it, just do birthday shout-outs, because everybody likes seeing their name in print. And then also it is a growth tactic too in and of itself.
Like obviously if somebody's birthday is in there, they got three subscribers or someone else got three subscribers and then used their birthday shout-out for somebody else.
But so now if, let's say, I used my shout-out and I got three subscribers to sign up and I use mine on you, I'm gonna send it to you because I'm like, "Hey, look, your name's at the top of the thing."
And you're like, "What thing?" And now you sign up. And so nowThe birthday shout-out that you, that I had to get three subscribers for has actually given me four.
Maybe even better case scenario, instead of just sending it to you, I put it in our, our group message of our, you know, our running group and there's als- you know, a dozen guys that run together every Saturday morning, and now we get six new subscribers out of the thr- uh, plus the three.
So for a local newsletter, I wouldn't even mess around with anything else, just birthday shout-outs all day long.
Uh, but for any other newsletter that's not a local newsletter, the only one I would spend any time, mental energy thinking about would be the first one, and I would spend a lot to make sure that it's a really valuable thing.
Like, for my Life of Scoop newsletter where I teach people how to do local newsletters, the first level referral is, I think it's two for that one, and it is a PDF of all the tools that I use to run Naptown Scoop and how I use them.
Um, so it's, it's just a Google Drive PD- it's a PDF in Google Drive that gets automatically sent to somebody when they get two subscribers. Obviously free for me to send that to them.
Didn't cost me anything to make except time.
So I could talk about referral programs all day long and, and I, I would go read the thing, but those are the, that's the tactical advice is only think about the first one and make it free for yourself to fulfill.
Um, okay. So I know we're almost done. So last question. Uh, you've been doing this for three and a half years. Where are you with it in three and a half years from now? Ah, that's a great question.
In three and a half years from now, uh, Naptown Scoop is definitely doing m- doing a million dollars in revenue, um, through our main newsletter advertising and we're gonna have a couple other publications that are relevant to town and that'll, they'll up, you know, increase advertising potential.
And then I have one other thing that I'm not gonna talk about, but it's, you know, kinda like a, it's an event sort of thing that I think will be big, that'll hopefully be a significant chunk of revenue as well.
So Naptown Scoop's doing great. Um, and I've also used it to start several other businesses. So I'm actually starting one right now.
Uh, portable restroom trailers that I'm gonna rent to wedding venues and, and all sorts of places. Anybody who needs bathrooms but doesn't wanna rent a porta potty, wants something nicer.
Um, gonna do a lot of marketing and relationships selling through the Naptown Scoop for that. I'm gonna s- I, I will have started something else as well. I don't know if it's gonna be a marketing agency.
That's something I kinda wanna do. Uh, I don't know if it's gonna be a home services company, like a kinda like fence building.
Uh, but then also there will be other Scoops out there, um, finding partners through my Life of Scoop newsletter that I wanna operate with. Um, testing that model out for a little while.
I might end up going the franchise route or the licensing route. Um, but yeah, in, in three and a half years it's gonna look a whole lot different than it does now. There will be certainly mul- multiple of them.
Uh, whether I'm owning them or they're franchised is kinda yet to be decided. Uh, but I also have, will have kinda taken over Annapolis. It'll, it'll undoubtedly be the most popular news source.
I mean, it kind of already is, but in three and a half years it'll, it'll be unstoppable. Yeah. You'll be eating, eating caviar every day, um, I guess. I don't know about every day, but uh, you know- Eh, you know...
I always dream about being able to buy like actual true international first class flights with cash. Um, and those- Yeah... generally include caviar, so you know, hopefully once or twice a year. Works out, yeah.
Um, I guess just to end it, is there anything specific you wanna plug for the listeners? Yeah. Well, if you wanna learn how to do a local newsletter, follow @lifeof_scoop on Twitter and go to lifeofscoop.beehiiv.com.
I write about it every week for free and it's like really actual tactical stuff. Like today I wrote about, um, you know, using- getting the right s- physical swag to promote your newsletter.
A lot of people overlook that for newsletters, but it matters in a local newsletter and so I tell people exactly how to do that.
Two weeks ago we talked exactly how to do a referral program, like step-by-step how to build it. So super practical advice that, uh, most people would be charging for.
And I do do newsletter consulting as well, and I, I definitely charge for stuff on that newsletter. I'm not doing it for fun. It's there to make money.
But there's a ton of free value given away 'cause I think that the right way to make yourself a lot of money is to create a lot of value for other people and then take a little bit of it as payment.
So definitely selling things on there, but getting a lot for free too. You could never pay me a dollar and you can learn a whole lot. Uh, but then I wanna go back to that other newsletter that I'm thinking about doing.
Oh. And I wanna get your idea- Yeah. Right... your opinion on this 'cause I think- Do you want, you want me to keep recording it or turn off the recording? Yeah, no, I want this to be in there. I think it'll be fun.
Okay. Yeah, all right. Let's hear it. I wanna hear, I wanna hear what people think. So I've wanted to do this forever. I've wanted to do a newsletter about super yachts.
And the reason I wanna do that is because that's obviously a humongous ticket item.
Like if, if let's say I started a super yacht, super yacht newsletter, and maybe let's say I was writing about full charter yachts and somebody reached out to me and said, "That yacht is awesome.
Can you put me in touch with that broker for the charter?" And I called the charter broker and said, "I have somebody interested in this. Um, I have this newsletter if you haven't heard of it."
They would look it up 'cause they probably wouldn't have. "And they're gonna rent this yacht from you for the week. How much is that worth for you to pay me?"
And for some of these boats you're talking about a $250,000 rental for the week. Uh, that's obviously gonna be worth something. And so it could be a huge business with very few actual customers. That could be amazing.
On a totally different spectrum, if somebody read it and was like, "That's a super cool boat, I actually wanna buy that boat," you're talking about a $30 million purchase price, sometimes far more.
Um, you know, just massive, massive transactions. And so I've always wanted to do something in that and kinda see if I can capture any of that value. But the thing that I'm thinking about, this is a stupid idea- Yeah...
is because obviously to do any of those transactions, whether you'reSpending 250 grand in a week on vacation or you're buying a $30 million thing, you're having a lot of money.
Um, so I'm thinking about making this newsletter cost money to read because I want it to per- be perceived as a higher value, um, and also I wanna make money.
So it would cost money to read, and this newsletter totally should be free. Like, it's not the kind of newsletter that you would probably pay for.
Um, it'll, it'll highlight the news that's happening in the superyacht industry. It will highlight the transactions that are happening. If, if a, if a notable boat is sold or listed, that'll be in there.
And then we'll obviously highlight and write about specific boats and also, like, new technology. There's always new pe-people... It, it... You'd be surprised how much of an industry superyachts are. Yeah.
Um, there's a lot happening. And so we'll also highlight places to go on your superyacht, whatever. All the... You know, that's the kind of content we'll write. But then here's the really dumb idea.
I want to make it not invite-only, but I want there to be an application to be able to read it. And not, not actually just to be able to read it.
Like, I want you to have to ask me for permission to pay- Like a fucking onboarding survey. This is like, you have to actually, like- Yeah. Like, if, like, if... So I want basically two kinds of readers.
I want ultra-rich people, and I think that they will have to provide proof of funds [chuckles] to read this thing. Or, like, you know, we can also...
You know, let's say, for example, you could use your LinkedIn to ver- somehow verify that you got the scratch to buy some of these boats or to charter.
Like, if you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and you send me your email address, like, you sign up, and you send me your LinkedIn, and then you, like, connect with me or something, I...
You could verify it in ways that are not taking a screenshot of your bank account. And then if you're in the industry, you just send your credentials. Like, oh, you're a charter broker for, uh, for Northrop & Johnson?
Cool. Like, send me an email from your work account and we'll be good. Like that, you'll get in, too. And so maybe charter, maybe industry people get a discount on it. I don't know.
I'm just like, what do you think of that idea? Well- 'Cause I've always liked the idea of, you know, you can't have this content unless you belong to the club.
Um, I've never done anything that actually takes advantage of that, tries that theory. But for this one, I feel like given the exclusivity of the industry, it kind of fits. Yeah. No, I think it's like...
I mean, it's an insane idea, but you only need, like, literally a handful of people- Yeah, like-... to actually sign up and subscribe, right?
So it's like, I think it's just that, like- This newsletter could have 500 subscribers and be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars- Yeah... because those 500 subscribers could be serious power players. Which is...
And I imagine, you know, being in Annapolis, you know some boat people. You have, like, some kind of entrée into this world, right?
So I think, I think that, that makes sense if you do- Yeah, there's not a lot of superyachting in Annapolis. No. But, like- I'm talking about boats that are 40 meters or more.
Like, there's only, like, four or five of them here. But you know more about boats than I do. Like ships, boats, whatever. Like, more than your average person, so, or, like, that world.
So I think, like, it's the, it's just a matter of, like, deciding, like, I'm gonna try this for, like, however many months and, like, you know, put X time and energy and money into it, into setting it up.
And then it's like, okay, well, maybe I've... But then I guess once you start, you just keep going.
But yeah, 'cause it's like, if you on- if you only need, like, 10 people to sign up to do it, then it's, like, you know, worth the gamble, I think. But it's [chuckles] it's, I mean, it's an insane idea.
It's kind of like- It's kind of a dumb idea. [chuckles] Yeah, it is. But I'm like, I kinda like it. Like, you have to apply for the right, and then you still have to pay. Like [chuckles] Yeah. I don't know. It's...
But, like, I think that's how you kinda create the value when, when there is- Yeah... no value. Or it's like, or the perceived value. Who cares if I start a newsletter about superyachts?
But if, if you can't read it unless you are... unless I say you're allowed to read it- Yeah... and you have to pay to read it, like- Why are you keeping me out?... may-maybe it's worth something. Like- Yeah...
maybe this guy's got it going on. Like, who knows? I don't know. You should, like- If you're listening to this- You should send them, like, a metal, a metal business card, too, once they sign up or something.
Like, you have your actual, like, club card. Well, yeah, especially if it's 800 bucks a year, like- Yeah... I can... You could spend a lot of money acquiring customers or treating them well once you have them.
So- Yeah... if you're still listening to this and wherever this gets put into the podcast,
DM me on Twitter or just write at me at lifeof_scoob and tell me why this idea is terrible or why it's amazing or what you would do differently. Um, really interested in the superyacht industry.
Also just as a nerdy engineer and a lover of the finer things in life, uh, you know, dream of spending my vacations on a $40 million boat someday. [outro music]