Newsletter Explosive 💥
☕ Good Morning!
Welcome back, everyone! Newsletters are exploding, no doubt about it. Over the last few days, both protocol.com and Harry Stebbings interviewed Chris Best, Co-founder & CEO of Substack. And on top of that, Maker & NoCoder KP launched a new project, letterdrop.io. Let’s see what’s happening.
Source: Unsplash, Austin Distel
🚀 Maker News
Many use Subtsack to publish their thoughts, news and insights. Since March, readership and writership on the platform have doubled. Some big names from journalism have joined to build and own their audiences. Chris Best describes a newsletter subscription as a "Social Contract". The beginning of an ongoing trusted relationship between the reader and the writer. For new writers, the open rate after a couple of months will show how valuable their newsletter is. Although, much also depends on good subject lines and sending at the right time. Topics for (paid) newsletters cover politics, religion, sports, comedy, poetry, music and comics. Chris believes that newsletters, like podcasts, are here to stay. It allows readers to connect with and support the writers they trust. There is no social media algorithm, deciding what you see. Read the full interview written by Biz Carson.
Following on from above, Chris also speaks with Harry Stebbings on discovery vs trust. Their discussion also revolves around the decline of traditional media, the effect of Substack on public news, micro-payments vs subscriptions and incentive design. As mentioned in the interview above, the direct relationship between writers and their readers will be a core driver for trust. The problem of discovery will still need to be solved. With the signal to noise ratio growing, readers will want to find the right valuable content they are looking for. Listen to podcast.
Newsletter Discovery
Last Thursday, KP sent out a tweet. He offered to help young newsletters gain more visibility by retweeting them. The response was massive. Then on Friday, he launched his new project LetterDrop, a Product Hunt for newsletters. The aim is to solve the problem of discovery, which was just discussed in Harry Stebbings Podcast above. KP aims to make it easier for readers to find high-quality, well recommended and curated newsletters. And we are still at an early stage, with many outside the newsletter bubble just learning about Subtsack or Revue. Therefore, the need for such a service will only continue to grow! Signup here to stay in the loop.
High Impact Writing
Below, Harry Dry from Marketing Examples, gives some great pointers on high impact writing. If you want to learn more, read David Perell's Business Writing 101 which inspired this tweet.
Orders of Magnitude Growth
An insightful thread by Adam Ceresko, who recommends thinking through user acquisition from your first to your 1000 customer before beginning to build. This will help you understand each growth step and will give you clarity on what your MVP requires at each stage. As he says "if you can’t get 10 users, don’t build for 100 or 1000 yet. It’s a waste of your time." Read thread.
🖥️ NoCode & Automate
Everyone in the NoCode space knows Ben Tossell and Makerpad. In this piece by Dani Díez, he speaks about his previous project newCo. In the beginning, Ben launched many ideas on Product Hunt, but with no financial success. He did realise though, there was interest in how he built these projects using NoCode tools. So he began to make and sell video tutorials. The business began to grow, but he also faced some challenges, especially that videos need a lot of work. Moreover, he built his platform for scale far too early instead of listening to what his users wanted. What would he do differently today? Build the site himself using NoCode and be conscious of what you're trying to achieve. Don't think you have to launch big to succeed A $20k per month business managed by one, would be a great place to be. But most importantly, find out what you enjoy and focus on it. Read the full interview.
💰 Funding
Tyler Tringas announces that he has made his first LP investment into a fund by Collab Capital, who are creating a new capital stack for Black innovators and entrepreneurs. Learn more.
💭 Afterthought
To finish off the day, four critical insights by KP for anyone building a product or service: Ship it, iterate, build community and help others. Take care of each other and see you tomorrow!
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