If you are a founder and you do not have a newsletter, you are being financially irresponsible. I'm curious if you know how many subscribers your work has driven across your whole client portfolio.
I think it's probably like between three and four million, if I had to guess. You have some bespoke systems you've come up with that do more accurately capture this kind of quality.
People in media, they don't know sh- [laughs] People don't talk about quality enough in this industry. If you think you're too niched down, you're probably wrong.
If you were starting from scratch, you had to make a newsletter business, what would be the niche that you would focus on right now? In general, I think if you're trying to build a business, you wanna be-
Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. My name is Francis Searer, and today we're speaking with Nathan May, founder of The Feed Media, a company that helps newsletters grow, especially through meta ads.
Uh, Nathan is one of the leading providers in this space and a great creator in his own right. He actually, um, has been a major source of Creator Spotlight's growth this past year.
We use his services, full disclosure, and I'm also a big fan of his newsletter. It is m- easily... Uh, there's too many.
I don't wanna, I don't wanna play favorites, but easily top three newsletters about newsletter growth. Play fav- Anyways. I'll play fav- Go, go for it. [laughs] No, man. I got... Like you gotta...
I gotta have some neutrality here. Um, okay. I wanna start though with a primer on newsletter growth. That's how I wanna begin this conversation. Um, can you give me maybe
three to five core principles of newsletter audience growth that define your approach? Yeah.
Um, and maybe, like if somebody doesn't know, like let's say that somebody knows nothing about newsletters, I'd say, like I would just give people like a quick, like primer. Yeah, please.
So, um, I think that most people think of newsletters and they probably think of like Morning Brew, The Hustle, like those kind of folks, and so I'll use like that kind of an example.
Newsletters, uh, can be, they're not always, but can be, uh, really baller businesses. Mm-hmm.
So th- there's this newsletter called 1440, and they're like, they've kinda been unknown, but they've recently kinda come up and they're, they're pretty cool. They have like four and a half million subscribers.
They do $20 million of revenue with 20 employees, like crazy business. A m- Yeah... million dollars per employee. And if you like back out their user e- user economics, here's what's interesting. They...
So they make 20 million bucks. Let's say they have four million subscribers. They're making roughly $5 per subscriber per year. That's like, uh, 40 cents per month. Mm.
Um, so, you know, maybe, you know, you're not gonna have a newsletter that has four million people, but if you had a newsletter that had, uh, you know, 50,000 people, right, 40 cents per month, that's like $20,000, you know, a month, right?
Yeah. Could, could you build a business that is like that size, and would that be a good business? I think yeah.
And there's lots of things that like aren't pretty about newsletters, and we can talk about that, but that for me is like cool. You know, you get a lot of people, you sell sponsorships, and, um, these are great.
They're great businesses. Um, the principles of growth I like to think about, I think there are like a lot of mistakes that people make.
Um, I think the first mistake is that they get obsessed, they get addicted to cost per lead like it's, uh, like it's this drug. They want super cheap subscribers, a dollar, you know, $1.50, and that can work.
Um, but I think a lot of times people don't talk about quality enough in this industry. So they, they get all these people, and they get real excited 'cause they got subscribers.
They're seeing some people open, but it turns out, like the subscribers, they ain't so good. Yeah. And so they don't... They can't sell sponsorships.
They don't actually build like a business 'cause they get too fixated on the cost thing and not the quality.
Um, I think the other mistake people make, this is less related to growth unless you're talking about like revenue growth, people really love to procrastinate and not monetize. Mm.
They, they love, "Oh, I've got subscribers in. They're reading. Cool. I don't need to sell sponsorships yet. I don't need to sell a product yet. I, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait."
And that it's real comfortable to wait, but waiting doesn't actually tell you whether or not you have product market fit. Mm-hmm. I don't care how many subscribers you have or, you know, what their engagement is, I, I...
You don't... I, I think it's better to think this way. It's better to think you don't have product f- market fit until a subscriber or an advertiser has started paying you money. That, that's- Mm...
a much better way, I think, to approach these businesses.
Um, and I think the- J- Just to, just to repeat, so you're saying that y- as a newsletter you don't have product market fit until an advertiser is, is paying you money? I think that is a healthier way to think about it.
Mm. I think it's... Because it's easy to get addicted to number of subs, and then you find out six months... You, you, you spend a year on something, and it turns out, yeah, people aren't really clicking ads.
And so I can't really get sponsors to like pay me for stuff. And then, you know, I, I think that's like, that's like a shitty situation to be in. I, I wanna, I want people to avoid... Spend...
Your time is your most valuable thing. Mm. I would like people who are going into this as like, "I wanna start a newsletter as a business," so that's like a very specific, you know, thing.
If you're doing that, you want to validate whether it is a good business fast. Yeah. Even if the answer's no. Even if it's, if it is a bad business, it's better that you know early rather than, you know, a year in. Yeah.
I think i- it's interesting the way you're talking about, um, i- if, if you want the newsletter to be a business because I think that there is a, a crucial difference that you're referring to there about people who want the newsletter as the end in and of itself, as kind of a creative out- outlet, um, output and outlet, uh, versus people who are trying to use a newsletter as a means to an end, whether that's selling products, whether that's selling advertising.
Um, I think that is a very crucial difference that I would, I would want the listener to, to hold in, to bear in mind. Yeah. I get, um, super like, uh...
I get, I'm get real nerdy about the, the, you know, the ud- economics and the LTVs- Yes... like all this stuff. I, I think, um- Nerd out, brother.
[laughs] Dude, so if, if we stepped away from that, I do think, uh, like I think it's dope if you write it. Like I, uh... Here's a newsletter I would love to make. Mm-hmm.
I, so I live in New York, and I've been lucky to...
Like I came back to New York this year, and I've met all these like 21, 22, 23-year-old like kids basically who run around and have these crazy, you know, seven-figure bootstrap businesses.
They like, you know, they drop out of college, do these crazy things, and I would love to meet more of those people. I love... Those people are like espresso shots. They give me so much energy.
[laughs] I love those guys and girlsI would love to have a newsletter that is just, uh, about b-bootstrapping a business locally in New York and have like founders join that.
I wouldn't wanna make-- I don't care about making money from that. That, that would just be bo- Can I, you know, can I acquire friends for- [laughs]... two dollars a friend to help on, with my ads? [laughs] Oh, God.
I think that'd be so cool. Like, I wouldn't wanna make money from it. So, so it's totally cool- Wait, wait, wait, wait. I wanna, I wanna stop you here for a second. One, one thing- Yeah, yeah...
that's really interesting to me about the way you're saying this is like, uh, uh, like 'cause there's a million newsletters. I don't know if a million. A million.
There's, there's many newsletters, many podcasts, many Instagram accounts, et cetera, many people creating content about building businesses, bootstrapping businesses. I'd say it's a pretty crowded field.
But I think the way that you're saying, like, "I would love to make a newsletter about s- bootstrapping businesses specifically in New York, probably specifically in this like tech-driven culture," um, I think that also says something about the way you think about newsletters, um, and the way you think about building media products in this.
That it's very much about niching down. Yeah. I think so. I think there are exceptions to niching down. But in general, I think if you're trying to build a business, you wanna be specific.
You, you wanna, you wanna make choices. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, in a newsletter, that's kinda like... I'll give you two examples. So I'll give you a non-newsletter example really fast.
I was on-- I was scrolling like, um, on my Instagram feed, uh, maybe two months ago. A few months. And I see this ad for an e-commerce agency, um, focused on dogs.
They, they basically, they run paid ads for dog-focused e-commerce brands. Mm. And I thought, "God, that business sounds tiny. That sounds awful. I mean, how, how could that be a big business?"
And then I, I was like, I go through people's funnels, and I, I, I went on his LinkedIn, and they've got like 15 or 20 employees, which, you know, the average agency makes somewhere between a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollars per employee.
So we're talking about- Yeah... like a probably, you know, three to four million dollar a year business. It's just so niched down. Yeah.
Which is like, you know, i-if, if you think you're too niched down, you're probably wrong. Uh, I was like- Well, I think, I think another way to frame it too is it's more about like the competition, right?
Like this idea of like this dog agency you're talking about, like what that is, is it's like one way to frame it is about niching down.
The other way to frame it is about being hypercompetitive, where when somebody, you know, somebody starts like a dog food e-commerce brand or like some new vet care startup, right?
It's like it's gonna be a very easy choice to pick this dog-focused agency rather than like X larger agency that does so many things.
Maybe you wanna go with that larger agency 'cause it's a name brand and they have this big portfolio, but like it might actually be an easier choice and less competition for this niched down dog agency [laughs] to do it, right?
Yeah, I think that's part of the irony. Like if you were, like, if you run a, a dog brand, like are you gonna go to like the guy who's like...
Are you gonna go to the guy who's only for his entire life, his entire life has been figuring out how to get people to buy wet dog food? [laughs] Like that's all he thinks about all day, every day. Yeah. Yeah, man.
Like, yeah. And it's the same thing with like the... I always like to use the example of like the AI newsletters- Mm-hmm...
'cause e-everybody lo- Oh, like everybody wants to make an I- AI newsletter, and, um, I think that's a terrible idea. There's already like four or five big ones, right?
There's The Rundown, there's Superhuman, The Neuron, Prompts Daily, The Deep View, and there's like a, you know, maybe one or two others. Um, but the three really big ones are The Neuron, The Rundown, and Superhuman.
Those guys were early.
They got 200, 300, 400 thousand subscribers completely organically because they were posting online on January 1st of 2023 when AI was starting to blow up, and that helped them quickly get sponsors and validate the idea and like that was a once in a life opportunity that will never, ever happen again, and those were the people that were there online at the time with followings who were there to capture it.
It, it's, it's not the same way anymore. Th-those newsletters have already won. Mm-hmm. Uh, if you want to have an AI newsletter now, you need to niche down.
So there's this really cool newsletter, for instance, it's ca- it's called The Anchorer, and it's around like Hollywood and like the business of Hollywood and all this stuff, and they have a bunch of different newsletters.
But one of them is called Reel AI, R-E-E-L AI, and it's about how AI is used, uh, in the scripting and the production process.
It's how AI is changing, you know, legal and A- I, uh, IP rights and all this stuff in Hollywood.
Well, and this works, this works too because it's within this media company that is already like Hollywood focused, that already has like a high degree of trust.
I'm pretty sure Janice Min, the founder, she comes from traditional media, I believe, right? So like this, in this example, they have this trust, they have this audience already.
So for them, like creating this AI sub-newsletter, this newsletter within th-their greater portfolio, um, it's like the, the market is already built in and it's like you already trust us to cover general Hollywood issues, whatever, everything they cover.
Um, here's also the best resource for you to get AI, AI news because maybe these, you know, the newsletters you're mentioning, Rundown, Superhuman, Neuron, maybe that seems more opaque or like, you know, people don't know it, so they don't trust it from their specific audience.
So that's a specific case of like if you already have a media business, um, s- doing a spinoff, I would say even almost more than the niching down, right? Yeah, but I, I think that idea could work on its own.
Um, like that could be a standalone newsletter and do- For sure... quite well. In, in my opinion. It would take like... It-- Would it be easier to do it if you...
Like I, I saw Janice at one of these conferences, and my takeaway is she like, she, like e-everybody else is in media, and she kind of like, she hangs out with like Anna Wintour and like celebrities, and she also- Yeah...
happens to be in, in media. So it's like, "Oh, cool, you got a bunch of like cool friends. All right." But I mean, that's like pretty cool. So it's probably a lot easier for her to do that. Yeah.
Um, and she, she's, I don't think the founder, she's the CEO, but- Okay... uh, a lot easier for her to do that because of her pedigree, because of her, uh, sort of status in that industry.
But like there are people, you know, Sean Griffey, who started Industry Dive.
That's a company that got to a hundred million dollars of revenue and, uh, sold for five hundred and twenty-five million, I think, back in like 2021.
And they, those three co-founders didn't come f- They had like waste management and retail and utility dive, all these like niche kinda unsexy B2B stuff.Uh, Sean Griffey was an MBA.
He didn't, like, come from, like, the media world, and so it's absolutely possible to do this not being, like, in the industry. It's easier if you are. Mm-hmm. Um, but it's, you know, it's a rule that can be broken.
Uh, one thing I want to touch on before we move on is you brought up The Neuron, obviously. That's a big story, one of the big acquisitions of this year.
Uh, you helped The Neuron grow, I don't know from what subscriber count you started working with them to then what they, what they sold at, or I don't know if you're still working with them.
We can get, get into that if you'd like. But, um, you also almost acquired it, and you wrote about this in your newsletter.
So I would love for you to tell me the story of why The Neuron was a success that made it acquirable.
Um, i- you know, in as mu- I'm sure you pr- probably have more detail than you are able to share, um, but in as [chuckles] much detail as you're, as you're able to share. Yeah. Dude, the acquisition was, uh, crazy.
Um, we lost it narrowly. Um, ah, dude, I was, uh, I was furious [laughs] when, when, when, when we lost.
And, uh, you know, a- a- as you are in, like, any of these things, like, this, this stuff hap- happens, and you're, like- Mm... disappointed. Um, we work with the acquirer, uh, now, and I think that it's this guy, Rob.
He's, like, super cool. No love lost. He's, like, bootstrapped his business, this guy, Rob Elefant. He's awesome. Um, you know, that's, that's life. You know, sometimes stuff doesn't work out. You take swings.
It doesn't happen. But, um, yeah, The Neuron was kind of like o- one of the big three. I mean, it, it still is. Mm. Uh, that started in January 2023. I started working with them when they had maybe 150,000 subscribers.
I think they sold when they were roughly 500,000 subscribers, something to that effect. What, um, over how long of a period was that from 150 to 500,000-ish?
Um, they-- I started working with them in September or October of 2020, uh- 2024. Uh- 2024, I think. Or no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, 2023. Even before. It's almost two years ago. Yeah, yeah. Mm.
And they sold in February of 2025. Mm-hmm. Um- Two or three- Or I guess they-... about a year and a half... they sold technically, I think, in December, but, like, it takes- Yeah... a second to get announced. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, great business. They had that same thing where, like, there's this guy, uh, Pete, who had a ton of followers on LinkedIn, and, like, a lot of their initial, uh, people came organically from LinkedIn. Mm.
So they had this really high-quality audience. They could sell advertisers to consider early. Uh, a lot of the advertisers... This is actually a cool thing that I don't, I think people take for granted.
In any kind of, like, marketing AI or, like, business-y newsletter, um, often your readers could also be advertisers. Mm.
So that was a nice, like, overlap re- reader and advertiser, same kind of, like, ICP, ideal customer profile. Much easier sell when the person's- Yeah, way easier... reading it and loves the product. Yeah, exactly.
So they were getting, like, a bunch of inbound, which is like, oh, that's, that's, like, amazing. But it's, uh, it just, it all worked.
And, uh, great, uh, great readership, great business, and kind of like, I think the reason that we, you know, we lost the deal, I mean, I-- it was, it was price. Um, I wasn't- Yeah...
gonna pay as much as, as TechnologyAdvice. But I, I think we put in a great offer. I just think it, it taught me a lot about, like, the funnel.
Like, I think TechnologyAdvice, their whole thing is they do B2B lead gen, and so they have, like, big B2B, you know, partners. I don't know who they are. Mm.
But it would be like a, like a Rippling or like a Monday or, you know, just big, like, advertising partners, and I think they make a lot of money s- selling leads, not just selling attention, which is what The Neuron does, but actually selling leads.
And so, like, can they just plug in a newsletter and, like, sell that into, like, their existing advertisers? I think that's- Mm... kinda like the thesis, and, like, you know, we couldn't do that.
Um, and so I, I think they- If, if you were, if you were going to acquire, like, let's say you had acquired it, what would you have done that's different from what they're doing now?
What, like, h- what would have been your first move after acquiring it? Yeah. So, um, I'm a huge fan of, I love it when enemies become friends. So, uh, like Austin Brier and Sam Parr- Mm-hmm...
hated each other- Morning Brew and The Hustle respectively... when Austin was running Morning Brew- Yeah... and Sam Parr was running The Hustle. Today, the, Austin is one of Sam's best friends.
Uh, Sam, Sam actually, Sam is just moving down to New York. Mm-hmm. Sam tried to look for an apartment in the same building as Austin- [laughs]... 'cause they want to raise their kids together in the same building. Yeah.
That's, that's how good of friends they are, and I just think that's, like, that's beautiful. Like, that, that's how you should want to live life.
And so my version of that for this was, um, their, one of their big competitors, or someone of the, um... I mean, I, I don't know. It was one of the other two big AI newsletters.
I'm, I'm buddies with that guy, and, uh, we, we did a lot of their, uh, some of their growth as well. And they have, um, a high-ticket community. Mm.
Uh, like, you pay $1,000, you get into this, like, AI university community thing. And so I had brokered a deal, uh, in San Francisco. We met up in person, uh, where we were gonna do a 50/50 split.
So I was going to use The Neuron to drive subscriptions to their community. It's, you know, $1,000.
Um, and I think that would've made us, you know, half a million dollars in the first year, 100% profit margin, or 50% profit margin, so a million bucks. I think we would've kept $500,000. Yeah.
Um, and it would've been amazing, right? Co- could I get, you know, 1,000 people out of 500,000? Uh, 'cause we, we do this work. We do product sales work with our clients to convert to, like, this other community.
Uh, I think, yeah. So I, that, that would've been, like, my first thing. Do you ever feel like your creator business is running you instead of the other way around?
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We, we got off track there a little while ago. Uh, one question, though, before we get more into the nuts and bolts.
I'm curious if you know approximately how many subscribers your work has driven across your whole client portfolio over- Yeah... over the last two years or year and a half you've been in business?
I think, uh, I think it's probably like between three and four million, if I had to guess, subscribers. Something, something like that. Oh, okay.
Um, going back to you, you were talking about how, uh, CPL, cost per lead, is a really poor measure of subscriber quality.
You have some bespoke systems you've come up with that, that do more accurately capture this kind of quality. Can you talk about those? Yeah. Um, oh, dude, uh, people in media don't measure shit.
Uh, even, even like the big media-- Dude, I, I-- Like I, I'll go to, I'll go to conferences, and there'll be people who... And I, I'm not trying to like rag on anybody, but- Rag away, my friend.
[laughs] Yeah, the pe- the people who are on stage who I think are awesome operators, and like we've gone and we've worked with them, and like they don't know shit about their, their data.
Like they're, they're, you know, they, they don't know the open rate or the, the click-through rate of subscribers who come from like Facebook or at the ad level.
Like they're just kinda dumping leads in for as cheap as possible and like hoping they can monetize that. And I don't know, may- maybe that, maybe that works. Like I don't, you know, I don't run a media business.
I, I look at one part, you know, of, of a newsletter media business. So I don't know. But, um, I just think, um, yeah, so, so what's the problem with like cost per lead?
Um, that's the first thing we should probably like zero in for a second. Uh, cost per lead may not have, may have like jack shit to do with like how valuable a subscriber actually is.
So I'll, I'll give you two quick examples. Yeah.
Um, for one of the big AI newsletters, w- you know, we were getting subscribers at one period of time, let's say a-around the like a dollar eighty mark per subscriber at a fairly high level of spend.
If you were to unpack that and look at like subscribers who came from like ad A versus ad B. Let's, let's say ad A was like two, you know, a dollar eighty, and ad B was like two dollars.
So like rough- roughly the same, right? Very close.
Um, ad B, the two dollar ad, might be driving subscribers who have a four or five X higher click-through rate and, you know, maybe a, a, you know, a thirty, forty percent higher open rate or something than ad A.
If you're just looking at ad A, the dollar eighty, right, you go, "Oh, I put all my money in there 'cause it's the cheapest people. That's amazing. Let's, let's do all that." Well, like, um, I don't know, dog.
Like what if four or five X click-through rate? You know, you know how much faster you could raise your prices for your sponsorship if you were just slamming the newsletter with all these extremely high-quality readers?
It would have a fundamentally like, uh, big impact- Mm-hmm... on the business. And the, by the way, the, the, The Neuron, um, The Neuron came to us from another a-agency that w-that was...
A-and I think everybody in this space is awesome and, and, and great. Mm. But I-- It's this importance of measuring stuff, where like that stuff wasn't being measured down funnel.
And like their sponsor program, you know, maybe six to eight months before they sold was like kinda going through a, a tough time. They were having sponsors who were churning. They were not delivering performance.
And so we made this change that now we try to do with everybody, and at the, the easiest way to do is on, on Beehiiv, so we can talk a little bit about that.
But, um, where we will look at, um, the cost per lead for every single subscriber, what ad that subscriber's coming from, and the open rate and the click-through rate of the subscriber.
And what we'll try to do is take a ratio of open rate or click-through rate, which is kind of like the, the quality metric, right? It is representative of like LTV in the same way- Mm-hmm...
that like you'd wanna look at like, um, subscription conversion rate if you're doing a subscription product or average order value if you're selling, you know, widgets, you know, on Amazon if you had an e-commerce business, versus what you paid for that person.
So quality and cost in one place. Now, we put the money where the, where the best ratio of quality to cost exists. Mm. And that had a tremendous impact.
I think we doubled the click-through rate, uh, of readers who were coming from Meta to The Neuron, and I, I don't, I don't know how much I'm allowed to say about like te-tech advice and stuff, but like I think that's had a positive impact.
Do you know... I mean, one thing maybe that you'd be able to say, do you know approximately how long it took you to, to make that doubling happen, to double the click rate? Yeah. It was, um, [clears throat]
that was within two months. But here's the, here's the problem. So if your click-through rate is like declining, declining, declining, you introduce a really high-quality source of subscribers,
you can stop the decline pretty quickly, right? But n- you have this big group of people who aren't so good, and then you have a relatively small group of people coming in who are very, very good.
So you need to push spend. You need to make that a bigger portion, right? The high-quality people who are coming in. And so it can take, you know, months to actually right the ship at the newsletter level.
We're having this happen with a, um- 'Cause it's almost less about-... what if I was supposed to say the name?
Well, it's almost less about how long it took you to do it and more about how much money was spent to do it, really. That's more the accurate measure. Yeah. W-the, the- Which you can't say. Yeah. Yeah.
The, the, the, I guess the overall point I'm trying to make is like there are no free lunches.
And like, yeah, sure, can you like introduce like kinda shitty quality subscribers and like still, still sell those people to advertisers and make a lot of money upfront? Yes.
But when you get to a part where you're declining, it becomes really hard to get out of that hole that you've dug yourself. It's a very slow process, so you, you really don't wanna get there in the first place.
And that's what I'm worried a lot of like newsletters are, are doing. So they're fine now, but like they, they shouldn't have been there in, in the first place. I think that's the, that's the dangerous part. Yeah.
Uh, your agency, your work is mostly concerned with, with meta, uh, advertising to grow newsletters, correct? Yeah. What would you say about the state of meta advertising as a newsletter growth channel?
Has it gotten on average more expensive, more difficult over the... I, I mean, you've had the agency for about a year and a half, but I think you've been messing around in this space for a little longer.
How long total have you been doing this work?We, we started on February 20th of, uh, 2024. Okay. So a- about a year and a half. Um, over that year and a half, have you seen this get more difficult or more expensive or
a- a- anything like that? I don- I don't think it's gotten more difficult. Um, what, what is tough, so a couple things are tough.
Um, newsletters should not advertise or should be really careful advertising, uh, during Black Friday- Mm... and Christmas.
Um, we saw that 'cause like y- you're competing with, like, everybody, and, uh, your monetization is the same 'cause you sell attention for a fixed price.
It's not like you're e-com, and, like, your conversion rate doubles 'cause you're-- 'cause it's Black Friday, right? Your, your monetization stays the same, and your cost just goes up.
Uh, so that you wanna be careful of. I, I think it's gotten harder over a longer time horizon. Like, if you look back at, you know, the Morning Brew or the Hustle kind of error-- era, they are frankly...
I've talked to a lot of folks from those companies. I don't think you had to do the, like, nerdy measurement stuff I was talking about just 'cause, like...
I mean, it's good if you did, but, like, you're getting subscribers for so cheap. Like, you know, a do- I think a dollar.
I think The Hustle was getting subscribers for, like, a dollar for a while, and, like, there wasn't that much competition in sponsorships.
Um, so, like, it just kinda, like, you could not measure a lot of stuff, and it'd still work out. Um, I don't think it's that way anymore. Um, I think the biggest issue is not, like, uh, the cost side.
I, I think it's, like, the quality side. I think it's really easy to bring in subscribers who are no good.
Um, the big change on Meta that everybody should be thinking about, and this isn't, like, new, new, but, um, Meta used to be like-- It used to be really important to know how to press the buttons on Meta.
You know, how do I-- who do I target? How do I do my campaign structure? Like, you know, all this stuff, and that's, like, totally a commodity skill. It's very... Uh, it's almost useless to have that skill now.
Meta now is, like, super broad. So, so instead of you choosing, like, "I want people interested in cooking in New York and in fitness," Meta doesn't need that information. Yeah. Doesn't need you to tell it that.
It will look at the creative, pair that with people, and then it'll build the targeting, who it l- goes after based on the success of the creative.
Uh, so targeting moving from you pressing the buttons to now Meta's, like, AI does the targeting. That is important for two reasons. Number one, um, it's important to know, like, that will only be more the case.
Like, Me- Meta's literally said at one point they would love for you not even to have to make ads. Like, you wouldn't even come in- Just put in the money. Put in the money. Um- [laughs] Why is that important?
Well, if I'm Meta, like, if somebody has to come and, like, learn my tool before they spend a dollar, they're less likely to spend their first dollar on Meta. Too much friction, yeah. Yeah. You have no friction.
So they're, they're only gonna go more in that direction. What it also means is that the onus of performance is now almost entirely, not all, but, um, very heavily weighted on creative.
And so, like, as an example, I think five years ago, the, like, "Learn XYZ in five minutes a day," like- Mm... newsletter ads would work really well. There's a reason those exist still. Those still...
It's, uh, yeah, I've seen so many of those ads, dude. It's-- They're everywhere.
Um, those can still work, but it, it's way more effective if you actually do the work that, like, e-com or other niches do in their paid advertising, which is, like, segment out your readers, get way more specific for your messaging.
So, like, if you're... I'm gonna make up some stuff for AI.
Like, instead of "AI in five minutes a day," a better hook, let's say you're going after founders, would be like, you know, "Entrepreneurs are building eight-figure businesses with three employees, completely bootstrapped, uh, because they're using AI.
They're using Cursor for the coding-" Mm. "... using, you know, whatever. Like, l- l- read this newsletter to learn how to, like, build a business or be, like, an AI first founder. You know, a million other people read."
That would be a much better ad than learn how to use AI in, like, five minutes a day, and it's- Mm... more specific. You wanna think about, like, niching down. You wanna be the dog, you know, e-commerce dude.
You wanna- Yeah... you wanna niche the heck down with every single ad that you do.
One, so one thing, um, jumping on something you said a couple minutes ago, if, if Meta is veering towards more accessibility, you just put it, like, uh, you know, let's say two years from now, probably be longer than that, but let's say two years from now, the best way to approach Meta is just to put some money in, and it'll create...
It'll make the creative, and it will distribute it. Um, so, so that's democratized. And, you know, newsletter, newsletter tools are democratized. Beehiiv is super easy. You've got Substack, Kit.
Any of these, any of these tools, like, a w- a world where we're all current- still operating, um, where things become so accessible, when things become so democratized, I think, uh, the moat becomes what? Is it quality?
Is it consolidation? Is it the amount of capital you have? Like, I...
So what I'm asking is, like, in the next few years, as everything becomes more accessible, everything being the tools and the distribution, um, what's the moat? Is it quality, or is it capital or something else?
I think that it is, I think it's m- maybe one or two things.
So, one, I don't think that, I don't th- I think that, like, Facebook will have a hard time, like, totally replacing, you know, AI-ing the heck out of creative. Mm. Like, I have this, I have this buddy, Josh, uh, who he,
uh, he runs an agency that does something above $150,000 a month, and he's, like, 23.
He, he dropped out of college his, his last semester of college, and all he does is he runs around New York City doing street interview UGC ads- Mm... all day in the heat. He's in the heat.
He's actually probably in Washington Square Park right now in this moment- Ah, I don't envy him... running around with cameras. I don't envy him. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's...
It ain't easy, but it, but it works. But it pays. Um, but...
And, and, like, people, those ads are really authentic 'cause it's quite literally real people being stopped on the street, and, like, they're getting them to use the product and give their reactions.
Like, that kind of stuff I think it's hard to AI the heck out of that, and I think people will seek more authenticity in ads, mo- more authentic stuff, um, going forward in creative.
I think the other thing to think about, so I went on, um, I, I went on this, uh, uh... So I- I've been trying to, like, meet up with Alex Lieberman for, like, ages. Mm.
And, uh, I finally convinced him to hang out, and w- we did a run together. Morning Brew co-founder for any listeners who aren't aware.Yeah, yeah.
I, I assume he did that 'cause he was like, you know, uh, e- even if Nathan sucks, in the worst-case scenario, at least I ran this morning [laughs] Yeah. Uh- So it's kinda like- [laughs]...
how I, how I, how I tee that up. But, um, we were talking about this 'cause he's getting all into AI, and like- Mm...
what he wants his next business to be and stuff, and, um, we kind of agreed that, uh, w- product, especially in SaaS, is becoming less of a, I think, an important skill.
Like, like, it's gonna be really easy to spin up products. Mm. It might be really easy to spin up ads. You know, all, all this stuff is being democratized, right?
You're no longer gonna have to be, like, some subject matter expert in this stuff. AI can just do it for you. So what's really important then? I think distribution- Mm... becomes really, really important.
Brand becomes really, really important. And so I think it will... I think the way things will change is, like, for newsletters, I think that people will want to read more from people.
I don't know if the curation stuff will be as sexy anymore. I think what will be sexy is, like, maybe a little bit of what Workweek is doing, where they'll- Mm...
they'll, like, partner with, like, a subject matter expert like Nick Sharma, who's really known in e-commerce and owns b- e-commerce agency, and they, they'll do a newsletter together because people want to read other people.
Mm. Um, or- organic, you know, like, uh, uh, personal brands. I think that stuff will continue to bubble to the top. It's al- already big, but I think it will continue to be bigger.
So this is a great moment to ask you about this term that I see you use a lot in, in your newsletter, which we also have to talk about that soon. What is a media mullet? Ah, the media mullet. I... The media mullet is...
So I think a really good newsletter business is not just ad-supported. I actually think it's quite hard to have an ads, just, just selling sponsorships all day. Mm.
It's, like, kinda hard to build a big b- business doing that. Most newsletters should have low LTV sponsorship stuff plus, like, some- Lifetime value... higher ticket.
LTV, lifetime value, for any listeners who aren't aware. Yeah, exa- exactly, exactly.
And then high lifetime value, stuff that's expensive, stuff that people pay for over a long period of time, stuff like events or communities or paid subscriptions, that kind of stuff.
And so the, the media mullet is the best media business, has the ad-supported stuff in the front, and then you... And it's, you know, it's all, it's all kept up.
[laughs] And you got this myriad, you got this crazy party in the back of all these, all these communities and different stuff. I think that's what starts to make a better business.
It's less this like, "Oh, how do I get leads for as cheap as possible?" It's more, "How do I stack? How do I make my users, you know, 5, 10 times, 20 times as valuable?"
Um, I think that's where, where things are gonna go. Tell me about one of the most impressive versions of this you've seen. So there's this company called Red Ventures. Mm-hmm.
And, uh, i- it's this guy, the guy who founded it is this guy Rick Elias, and this guy is fascinating. He basically bootstraps a multi-billion dollar company, um, over, you know, the last 20, 25 years.
He's, he's quiet, you know. He's, he's not a loud guy. And they own all, all these internet brands like Bankrate and The Points Guy, if you like points and miles, all this different stuff.
Um, they're, like, crazy stacked marketers, and they have this huge campus, um, in, I think, North Carolina. There's just... It's a cra- crazy company, crazy profitable company.
And, um, what they do for The Points Guy is they make money every single time you open an Amex card, like an American Express card, or a Chase Sapphire Reserve. And they make a lot of money when you open those cards.
Um, and, like, they've created, you know... I don't, I don't know exactly how much The Points Card, Bankrate does, but, like, I think those are big assets within their portfolio.
So I assume they do hundreds of millions of dollars just creating content that gets other people to take out loans or open up credit cards. And their whole thing is, like, we teach you everything you need.
Like, I used, I used to be a consultant- Yeah...
when I, when I first got out of school, and so, like, your whole thing is, like, you get to go to these fancy meals and fancy hotels, and you get to fly around to clients in, like, first class, all this fancy stuff.
Then you, you work like 80 hours a week. That's, like, the trade-off. But you get obsessed with points and miles, and I, I loved The Points Guy. I built, like, a model based off of how- [laughs]...
The Points Guy told me the points were valued, and it was just like, it's like, it's like twen- Consultant to the core. [laughs] Dude, it's crazy.
When, when you're, when you're a first-year consultant, at least back in the day, you, I think you'd make, like, $100,000 your first year out of college. But the p- value of the points was, like, 20 or $30,000.
That, that's how, that's how important, like, the points were. Um, so I love their content, and they're so good at, like, actually giving you valuable information, adding value to your life.
So they deserve to, uh, to get paid a lot. But wait, how are they making the money? They have a deal with the bank? Like the credit card companies?
Yeah, so they, so, like, they, so they have a deal with, like, a, a, like American Express- Yeah... where American Express, they all track how many cards The Points Guy is driving. Mm.
And basically, um, The Points Guy is, like, the holder of that relationship. So, like, a- a, pretty much anybody else who has some deal with American Express, they don't actually talk to American Express.
They gotta go through Red Ventures. Wow. That's how powerful Re- Uh, there's this other thing. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this. I, I think it's public, but, like, um, we can always cut it if it's not.
They have some deal with I think, like, the Postal Service where they do s- they update your address in the mailing system anytime you move.
And so they literally own, like, every front end, uh, like, uh, Postal Service site, and they have, like, all the emails and all the information about, like, everybody's moving data in the entire country.
So, like, when I get, like, credit, like, credit card offers in the mail, it's because of them. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know if they're allowed to, like, do those kind of offers, but it's, like, I, I think it's crazy.
Like, anybody who moves, like, you go to some site that's technically owned by Red Ventures- Wow... and I don't think the Postal Service actually owns it. It's, like, like, the Red Ventures', like, IP.
Like, they're just in all these places you never think of, and they're, they're massive. And Rick's story, by the way, so Rick was on, um, Rick was on the flight that crashed into the Hudson River.
Oh, the, the Miracle on the Hudson. He was one of those passengers. Yeah, yeah.
The Miracle on the Hudson, and survived that flight, so his whole outlook on life is just, um, is, is, he's just an incredible person, and they're an incredible company, and they're a huge... It's g- Every angle- Mm...
like monetization and just, like-Kind of going against the grain and building a campus out in like, you know, North Carolina, not like a big city. It...
like to his story and his view on life, uh, they j- they're just, they're awesome. They're so cool. Do you ever feel like your creator business is running you instead of the other way around?
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Join the waitlist now at creatormasterminds.co to get early access and first dibs on our special founding members rate. That is creatormasterminds.co. Uh, tell me about your newsletter.
So I'll, I'll, I'll intro it quick. Uh, it's called Newsletter Growth Memo. One of my favorites. You added me when we started working with you, when Creator Spotlight started working with you, um, to grow our audience.
And what was cool about that is it was invite only. And I think that might have changed a bit. You can tell me about that. But one cool thing too is you join, uh, and it's pretty simple.
It's not really like a designed newsletter. It's not like a visually rich newsletter, but it's straight to the point, useful stuff.
Basically, things you've learned in, in, i- in those [chuckles] 65 hours of, of work each week about newsletter growth, about, you know, something from clients.
Uh, but, um, at the top, it's like, I forget who you frame it.
It's like new this week, and you'll list like two to four names of people and the role they have at which company, and it's always names or companies, names of people or names of companies that I recognize, and it, it really gives it this like intimate quality feel that, that very quickly, for me, built trust with, with the product you were putting out, and with you and with your business, right?
So it's very smart. Um, tell me about this newsletter, why it was private, if it's still private, what it means for your business. Yeah.
Um, I think a news- this newsletter is probably, so a big part of how I built the business, and I think that, um,
I think if you are a founder and you do not have a newsletter for your ICP, I think you are being financially irresponsible. Um, every single founder should have a newsletter.
I th- I think we've generated hundreds of thousands, if not, you know, at least a million dollars from having this newsletter, and it's kind of like, it's kind of like a dumb ne- news...
Like, it's not, like you said, like it's, like not visually rich. It's like visually poor. It's [chuckles] like very visually- Well, but it's really- There's no- It's very concentrated value. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
So I, I spent a lot... But it's like an email from like Nathan ba- basically. Yeah. Like there's no, you know, design or anything like that. Um, I started it because I liked the idea of, well, okay, if, uh...
there's not that many people that I need to meet to like, to, to work with. Like there's not like ten thousand newsletter operators.
Like I wanted to work with like the largest newsletter operators, and there's like, you know, maybe two people from each company who might make the decision to, you know, work with us, so that, well, can I, can I just go invite the top two people from every newsletter company?
That seems like a, not a gigantic task. Yeah. I can go to LinkedIn, and I can invite those people. And so I started this private newsletter.
Um, basically how I would get the subscribers is I would go to LinkedIn, and I would say, "Hey, you should join this thing. I write a private newsletter.
It's about like growth and monetization, and here are two or three people that you know who also read the newsletter." That's smart. It's a little social proof thing.
And so like, so like Sean Griffey, uh, who, uh, started Industry Dive, like, like joined, like, like 'cause of like that, and I've got all these...
You know, Robert Dipple, who runs, uh, Morning Brew and the Hustle people and, you know, all these different folks. Um- Francis Zierer for example. Fr- Francis, yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs] Got, yeah, yeah.
Dude, I got EJ, and I got Tyler. I got the whole Beehive. Oh. I get, I get everybody. Um, I got people from the, the ESP that shall not be named. I got, I got, I got them all. [laughs] I got them all. Um, [chuckles]
uh, and so I wasn't sure if it was gonna work, and for a long time it really didn't drive any business, so I think it's important to like you wanna be long-term about this.
But, and I just did the like, "Here's who joined," 'cause I thought it was kinda cute. It's like, oh, people appreciate that.
Like, I want it to be kinda elevated in status and, you know, feel that way and kinda feel informal so that people get to know me as well as us talking about exactly what is working, real numbers for like product launches, for paid ads.
Like I want it to be as tactical as we possibly could, but only for people who were already making ideally high six, seven, eight figure people. I wante- I wanted all the cool, you know, people on there.
By you, people who could feasibly spend money with you. Yeah. E- exactly. Yeah.
That's the idea, and that's my whole thing, man, is like I, you know, like we launched this accelerator together, Beehive, and like, you know, uh, financially, uh, it is probably a pretty dumb decision in the short term for me, 'cause I spent a bunch of money creating content, a ton of my time, and like, we just made it free.
[chuckles] You know, like, but I'm a huge fan of this idea of like I want... I think, I think our free s- free stuff is better than everybody else's paid stuff. Mm.
And I'm a huge proponent that if we just continue to put free things out into the world that are tactical, that are exactly what we do, like not a part of what we do, are literally exactly what we do, I think there's a small group of people who will be like, "Amazing, I love that.
I don't wanna do it myself. I'm just gonna call Nathan."
And there's tons of people who sit, who will be on our list or read LinkedIn or, you know, anything, who will get a thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of value who will never buy anything from us. Mm-hmm.
Um, and I'm okay with that. I'm, I'm cool.
Well, this, I mean, it goes back to your spiel earlier about, um, about how cost per lead is a poor measurement of a good newsletter subscriber, and you need to look at all these other things.
It's not about like just simply how much money does this thing cost to produce, but it's, it's not even like it's that deep, but it's just like, well, what are a few layers of how this could affect me?
What's the, the LTV of, of this, of this product, even if it's like, you know, it costs money to make up front and there's no direct, um, you know, instant, like people aren't paying for it.
It's not monetized through ads. Um, but like it's not a far jump to see, oh, well, then this person actually wants to take a call with me and maybe hire me to, to grow their list. Yeah. It i- it's, um...
If anybody wants to do this, by the way, like I think it's, I think it would work in so many other niches.
Like the idea of like just inviting people on LinkedIn, nobody like-Well, and specifically inviting them to a private newsletter. I- if you're gonna, like- Yeah...
if you're just gonna invite me to whatever newsletter, like sure, that might work, but like the idea that it's private, I'm like, "Oh." Yeah, private. It's with your peers. So any kind of B2B- Yeah... newsletter.
And it works 'cause nobody's doing it. I think that-that's like part of it. Like if- Yeah...
everybody was inviting people to private newsletters, like it's like how, um, like direct mail in e-commerce now is like kind of sexy again 'cause nobody- Mm...
is really sending direct mail, and now it's like this really official, uh, efficient, um, channel. The pendulum swings, my friend. [laughs] The pendulum swings.
And at first it seemed like it wasn't gonna do anything, and then after a while it, it was great and we would, people would reach out to us inbound. I could email people, and they would get on calls with us.
And like the, uh, so like we did this accelerator with, with you guys with Beehive. Um, it's like a five-week thing. We teach all about starting, growing, monetizing a newsletter.
We got some stuff that's like, um, high value, uh, if you're already doing seven or eight, nine figures.
And we got I think most of the major newsletter and media companies signed up for that before we even publicly announced it, within like 10 days.
And I think 45 of the 50 people, uh, 50 companies who signed up literally just came from me emailing US News, and Connie Nash, and Dotdash, Meredith, and The Hustle, and all these companies, people who are on the newsletter, just going, "Hey, would you like to do this thing?"
Yeah. Um, and most of them had already been reading for like six to eight months, and so it, it worked.
And so it, in the short term it looked kinda like this eh thing, um, but I, I think it's gonna have been a, a really good idea- Mm... in the long term. Okay.
So another thing I wanna talk about, uh, bear with me for a second, is this podcast that, uh, that you're working on that's about to release. Um, we're recording this episode July 15th.
This will be out, uh, I think a week from today, actually, July 22nd. So still, I think, a week or two before your podcast comes out.
Um, but, uh, my question here is like to do a newsletter, I've seen your decks too, right? And like you are a former consultant.
A lot of being a consultant is about like taking data and things and, and forming this really cohesive, convincing narrative. So that's writing, right? A podcast is a different matter entirely.
Some podcasts are just writing. Yours is an interview podcast just like this. Uh, I know for me, this is like episode 68 or something I've done of these. Um, and it's been a learning curve.
Th- this one is much better than the first one I did. I've learned a lot. Um, I say all of this to say it is much harder to start a quality podcast than it is to start a quality newsletter. Your newsletter, great.
Um, why take on this burden, uh, of starting a podcast, this medium that's totally new to you? I mean, I think part of the real answer is like, uh, I think I'm like deeply insecure and I want people to like me.
[laughs] And I think it's like [laughs] Yeah. It's like kinda cool if like, I think more people would like me if I do this. You know? Like, more people hear about me. Like I, yeah, I'm, I'm really, uh,
really thankful for like this first group of guests we got. Mm.
And, you know, I feel good about like we didn't, you know, I didn't have to like call on my, like, uh, like, like Daddy Tyler Dank or anybody to like get these cool guests.
Like I g- like Little Link kind of got- Cold email did it. Yeah, not even cold email for most of them. I mean, like, like Jesse Pujji was a, is, is a buddy, is a mentor. Mm-hmm.
Sam Parr, um, you know, I know this guy Isaac French, who's this awesome, amazing dude and like, you know, Isaac was a, v- very kind to make an intro to, to Sam.
Um, and that's most of how, by the way, like I also grew my business, then we can get back to the podcast thing, was this guy Jesse Pujji who bootstrapped an agency, Amp Push, to $30 million a year, and now he runs other bootstrap businesses that do tens of millions of dollars.
And the wh- his whole playbook is like mutual introductions. Just try to get intros from people who- Mm... know you to people who you don't know, and that's kind of like, uh, had influences on how I do my newsletter.
It's e- everything of how we grow our business to Tom getting the guests, and so I'm just, you know, really thankful we got the guests we did. Um, yeah, why did I do it outside of that? Um, I'm,
I mean, I'm a solo founder and, uh, being a solo founder is like really lonely and, um, I think this year b- specifically because the acquisition didn't work out at The Neurom- Mm... I have to figure out
another big bet and I want more of my big bets to be like with people. You know, I don't want, I s- I wanna stop doing as many things like alone. I wanna do things like w- with cool people.
I wanna spend all my time hanging out with cool people. And so the podcast is with Beehive and I like that support. I mean, it's, you know, it's at an arm's length, right?
We kind of have creative control on these things. Mm-hmm. But it is like kind of together.
Um, and the worst case scenario is that I get to hang out with like Sam and Justin Walsh and all these kinda cool people that I think are like these like kinda internet nerdy people that I like to hang with.
That's the most fun thing about podcasting. I mean, we've been hanging out- Yeah... here for an hour. It's, it's very fun. Yeah. So to me, the downside is not, there's no, there's no downside.
The worst case scenario is actually like pretty good. Mm.
And I think the best case scenario is like, um, you know, in some crazy world is this becomes similar to like the, the Hustle, you know, My First Million, HubSpot thing. I don't know. It's pretty unlikely.
But, um- Yeah... I don't think I... Lots of stuff is unlikely.
I don't think I would've thought, you know, two years ago that I would have this kind of business or hang out with a, a kid who runs around New York City s- filming street interview ads in like 90-degree weather.
You know? Mm-hmm. That's, that's life, baby. You know? That's, that's how it works out. Yeah.
What's the, what do you, what for you has been the biggest challenge the, or like unex- most unexpected challenge about producing a podcast? Like the, the hardest thing about podcasting as a medium for you?
That's a good question. Um, I think the hardest part is yet to come. I think the, I think the easy part is having cool conversations- Mm-hmm... and like, you know, spending time with people.
I think the hard part is growing a podcast. Um, that's really challenging and I'm gonna have to like figure that out. Um, nobody's gonna do that for me.
You guys are very nice to do it in collaboration and repost it, but like it's my job- But you're a growth guy, though... to figure that part out. I'm a growth guy, but it's not, you know, it's not paid growth, right?
I, I- Yeah... have to find out different ways and I've, I've spent some time with people who are really into like clipping and like, you know, guesting on other podcasts.
So I, I have an idea of what I think the playbook will be. Um, but it's, it's gonna be hard. I think that's been the most, uh, the most challenging part. And there's like stuff like,
I don't know, stuff that probably isn't that important, but like theLike the name of the podcast and stuff, like coming up with that stuff and feeling it's this like big decision. Did we...
I don't know if this will make it in the final edit with the, with the Sam Parr podcast, but I thought it was kind of funny. I was asking Sam about the name of the...
So the name of the podcast as of the time we record this, we might change it, is His Owned Audience, and the whole concept is like, I want to talk to baller founders who either have audience-based businesses, so like- Mm-hmm...
Tim, he, uh, Hill Scamp who runs Fourteen40, or like, um, Sam Parr who now runs like Hampton, or people that have used audiences to launch really big businesses.
So Jesse Pujji has made millions of dollars for Growth Assistant, one of his companies, from like tweeting. And I think that's, as a concept, awesome.
But I was talking to Sam about the, the name, and I was like, "What do you think about this? I'm not sure about it." And he goes, um, "Uh, I think it's fine. I think it's just fine."
[laughs] So then I was like, "Ah, shit. All right." [laughs] I'm like- Easy for Mr. My First Million to say. Yeah. Well, that's the thing is like, yeah, I mean, My First... You know, he, he...
And he hates the My First Million name by the way. Like Sean and him have like talked about that. Mm. Um, 'cause they think it sounds too like guru, like make money, you know, stuff. Well, but that works for him, so...
It, it works, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's incredible. God, the product of that podcast is... I listen to that podcast. I, I listen to Sean like more than I hear like my, my family. [laughs] You know what I mean?
Like that thing's in my ear like- Yeah... all the time, dude. Um, so I don't know. But that, that stuff we gotta... Those things feel big, and maybe in the end they won't matter at all. But they, uh, they feel important.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. What's, um, one or two of the, your favorite things you've learned from your guests? I think you've done at least half a dozen recordings so far. Two or...
One or two favorite things you've learned from your guests. I really liked Sam's, you know, approach to life. Um, Sam is not really running Hampton to be this mega profitable thing. It's, it's a big business.
He's already rich. He's already rich [laughs], yeah, yeah. Um, but uh, I like that I think Sam, and Sean actually as well, I think they are, I think they lead amazing lives.
Like if you really spent a day with them, I think they are obviously very wealthy and they, you know, they don't have to worry about money.
I think that they get to spend a great amount of the time with each other hanging out with cool people, and they get to work as play, you know, for them with that podcast. And I think that, um, I, they just...
I, I think their value's in the right place. They don't wanna kind of like take over the world. Mm.
They wanna be moderately financially successful and live an incredible life and spend time with their kids, and I think that's a really great way to look at life.
There was just this, um, live stream that Sean did, Sean Perry, on, uh, Twitter of him playing piano, uh, like live streaming on Twitter, and that's kinda like silly at the end of the day. Mm.
But I, I wrote this, uh, text to my, my buddy Walter and, um, I said like, "I think that is such a typifying example of the way to live life." So it's a bit... A couple things. Three things.
One, that he has like the, the, the playfulness and the time to like learn piano, actually think about what are the things I actually wanna do beyond business and crushing it? Let me learn piano.
And then to have the confidence, right, the surety in yourself to live stream it. And Sean, like he's not that great at piano. He's like fine at piano. He's, he's not like amazing.
You have to have that level of confidence with yourself. Mm. And then to have the respect, the admiration of so many people that 4,000 people tune into that live stream to watch him play piano like seven out of 10.
That to me is, um, that's a great life. It is. That's a great life. Uh, okay. We're gonna do a little, a little bit of rapid fire here. Um, close it out, close it out a little bit. Uh, okay.
What are you most optimistic about with regards to the newsletter industry? I'm really optimistic that the newsletter industry is gonna get really big.
I think it's gonna be like one of those things where, um, uh, ki- kind of like where like e-com- e-commerce maybe is a better example. Mm. Like so many...
Beehiiv and companies like Beehiiv are gonna pull people into the market. Um, every founder, like I said, should have a newsletter. I think there could be more people who approach it as, you know, standalone businesses.
I think more creators are gonna have newsletters. I think that, um, more people... It's, you know, it's just easy now.
If you wanna have a newsletter you send to your workplace and you never monetize it, it's just a thing you send around the office, you can spin that up in 10 minutes on Beehiiv, and I think that's, I think that's pretty cool.
I, I'm pretty bullish on the number of newsletters.
Sort of a flip side of that, if it's gonna become more competitive, uh, what would you urge our listeners to be most cautious about in, uh, listeners who are specifically working with newsletters? Yeah.
Um, I think it's gonna get a lot harder to sell ads. Um, I don't wanna be like, uh,
you know, alarmist, but, um, I think Beehiiv is doing this incredible thing in like creating the ad network, um, where like you can sign up to Beehiiv and you really, you don't have to find your own sponsors.
Like HubSpot can just sponsor your newsletter.
But I think that begs an important question and like, is HubSpot gonna go sponsor a bunch of standalone newsletters and pay 5 to 10X the price versus what they're paying on Beehiiv? Like, probably not.
And so technically the Beehiiv ad network actually competes with a lot of newsletters. Mm. And I think if you look at that and you're like negative about that, I think that's the wrong orientation.
That's just the market getting more sophisticated, and if your stuff is not worth 30, 40, $50 CPMs, too bad. It, it's, it's not worth it.
So like that, that's what should happen, and you should get pushed to do things that maybe create more value, like actually generating leads and launching communities and events in your own, you know, kind of own businesses where you continue to own your audience, and that's, you know, that's just how the cookie crumbles.
Do you think there is something in the newsletter industry or the broad- broader creator economy that you are particularly obsessed with right now that you don't think other people are really paying attention to?
I think people pairing up with like B2B creators and launching newsletters together, um, isIs an under-tapped idea.
Work Week has done it, but they raised a bunch of money to do it, and I don't know that much about their business to say if that's gonna be good or not.
I think there's a really cool bootstrap version of that that is even more specific, 'cause Work Street ha- does like they do healthcare and like fintech and e-com.
But could you do like a portfolio of newsletters that is just within e-com?
And one is about like logistics and like inventory, and one is about like moving from retail from e-commerce, and one is about marketing, and one is about like CRO and landing page and funnel conversion rate.
And you have creators who are specialists in all those things, and could you build like a really big business?
'Cause, you know, all these SaaS that's in e-com, like, you know, Parker, you know, all these folks would just pay you a bunch of money to be in that portfolio. Um, I think that's a, I think that's a very doable thing.
Mm-hmm. Uh, if you were starting from scratch, you had 50K, you had to make a newsletter business, uh, and y- you know, spin up as big as you can, what would be the niche that you would focus on right now?
I would do one of two things. I would go do something super unsexy that's really niche B2B. Like, you know, there's a couple newsletters in like freight or like space.
You know, I, I have this buddy at a hedge fund who like- Mm-hmm... uh, did all these like deals with like the companies that create packaging for like, you know, e-commerce and stuff.
And like, oh my God, it's so boring, but I bet that's a great niche.
The thing that I think would overlap with my skill set that I think more people should be thinking about is newsletters are the best businesses when they're paired with a service- Mm-hmm... like my newsletter is, right?
My customers might be worth fifty thousand. I have customers that are worth half a million dollars plus.
Um, every, especially every B2B business should have some type of newsletter, and I think the mistake most of those businesses are making, I, I know a couple, is like they have some content marketer write the newsletter, and I think that's such a missed opportunity.
Your leverage as a founder, writing your newsletter in person in your voice when you have high LTV products, so the people who buy from you are reading you and build trust with you, that is something that only you can do.
I think it's one of the most high leverage ways to use your time, and I think founders who do that will, um, will, will make a lot of money. Mm-hmm.
Um, a lot of the people that you are interviewing on your podcast, these are people with, with large businesses, multi-million dollar businesses.
Uh, I'm really interested-- A lot of people I interview too are more, I would say, more creator middle class, people who might be making fifty to two hundred thousand dollars annually from their, from their newsletter or creator business.
Do you think that, that there's room for that creator middle class to grow and that this is sort of a sustainable segment, or do you think it becomes more winner takes all with the more higher market, um, larger business creators take...
like, kind of taking that audience and not leaving as much on the table? No, I think there's a huge room for like a creator middle class. Um, I think it is much easier if you're in B2B.
You know, like there's a, there's an agency called Creator Buzz founded by this guy Vin Matano- Mm-hmm... who used to be like a LinkedIn guy. Yes, I've met him. He's great, man.
I mean, I, I think he's like thirty, thirty-one. He's a young guy. They did over four hundred thousand dollars the past quarter. They're a year old. I saw that post today. So one point- Yeah...
one point six million dollar run rate, and their whole thing is B2B influencer campaigns.
So this whole like w- what's gonna happen with AI is like I think people are l- like how COVID kind of ricocheted and people really cared about in-person experiences, I think AI will also contribute to that.
But I also think people will care a lot more about hearing their information from individuals that they can point to, pe- people. Um, and so I, I think B2B creators- Mm-hmm... uh, are gonna do quite well.
Smooth Media- Uh-huh... uh, which just does, does sponsorships for B2B creators, I think that's a really good business. I think businesses like that will thrive. Uh, just a couple more questions.
So one, in kind of the way you're talking about Vin, um, one of the definitions of creator I like sometimes is that a creator is basically just a freelance marketer, which is a certain type of creator. Uh, but I, I...
You, you almost got away in this episode without me asking how you define creator. Uh, so how do you define creator? People who make like cool shit online, I guess. [laughs] That works, that works for me. Does that do?
[laughs] No, that's good. I bleep a lot of stuff out in this, this, this, uh, this episode. [chuckles] No, not at all. Um, okay. Okay. Last thing.
Uh, sometimes when I invite people on the pod or, you know, when I'm asking people about something w- while they're on the pod and they won't answer, um, they say something to the extent of like, "I don't really wanna give away the sauce, so I don't really wanna expose this."
But my hot take is that that's... it doesn't matter. Like you can, you can give away the sauce. You can talk about your tactics. You can talk about your strategy.
Um, and it's not gonna matter, 'cause if, if your moat is just this specific thing, it's probably already a commodity, and it's not really a moat.
The real moat is you and your ability to execute and like the intangibles of like your network or whatever. Um, so my hot take is that, uh, the sauce is not a moat. The sauce is, is the individual and the execution.
What do you think? Yeah, man. O- open up the kimono. [laughs] Like, uh, maybe a, a more PC version of that is like give away the secrets- Mm-hmm... sell the execution. Um, people- Mm-hmm...
most people do not act on information. O- otherwise, like we would all- Yes... be like billionaires with abs. I think I've heard that like quote somewhere.
The fact that we live in a world where Alex Hormozi, who's made, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, is publishing two or three-hour long YouTube videos teaching you everything he knows about sales and paid acquisition is wild to me.
Y- you, you realize like there are people like Jesse Pujji, all these folks who like if they, they could be best friends with Alex Hormozi, they would never get that level of information from him because it's just not possible to sit down at dinner with somebody and have that kind of access.
Mm-hmm. But because Alex can reach millions of people with his content, the incentive is there to curate that information and put it all together in one place.
Um, we've never been in an era where that has been, it has been so democratized to create a business. That's why I spend all my time with these like twenty-one, twenty-two-year-olds who make millions of dollars a year.
They've all been watching these people who have just made the business. They've just taken action. Mm-hmm.
So most people watch this content, and they do what, um, uh, Jesse likes to tell people this, and we might have to bleep it out, but they basically mentally masturbate. Yeah.
The, the, the act of watching the content feels like progress. Yes. But that is not progress until you actually take action. No, it's just entertainment. So I wouldn't worry about giving away your stuff.
Most people aren't gonna do anything with it. They're never gonna do anything with it. Um, so I wouldn't worry about that at all.
What, what it does actually is build an incredible amount of trust and surety that you are the person to do these things.
You know, either build a bunch of brand equity of people and they'll like you, or if you sell something, if you sell the implementation, that is what people buy. People buy implementation.
They buy packaging that content up in one place. And that's the Feed media, folks. Uh, Nathan, thank you for coming out. This was super fun. Yeah. Appreciate you, man. There's a spoiler. I, um- Awesome... I dig it.
That's the- Hell yeah... pod? Is that the pod? That's the pod. Listeners, we'll see you next week. That's the pod. That's the pod.
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