$100K MRR from a Newsletter

Hey y’all — this is a celebratory issue 🎉

Two years ago I left my venture-backed startup to build a newsletter (this one you’re reading).

I put $10,000 into a bank account and told myself if it hit $0 I’d find a new plan.

Going from a 28 person team to being a solo founder again was bittersweet.

But I’d started Launch House solo too with only $25k and we hit $100K MRR after just over 2 years, so I figured I could do it again.

Turns out this time, even fully bootstrapped, it was slightly faster.

I never like to take too much time to celebrate but, for today, here’s how it happened:

$100K MRR from a Newsletter

Wait, Really???

I know, it sounds crazy to me too! Especially when you consider that it doesn’t include sponsorship revenue, our case study membership, or one of our two revenue streams within Megaphone.

When I started this newsletter I was at one of my lowest points — my last company had just failed and been folded into our venture fund.

I only knew a few things for certain:

1. I wasn’t going to get a job

2. I didn’t want my next company to be venture-backed (more on why below)

3. I was sending emails to this small list and people seemed to like it

Candidly, I was still reeling from the failure and building up the newsletter seemed like a good way to put one foot in front of the other while I figured out what to do next.

But I soon realized there was actually more happening here…

The newsletter renaissance was still early — beehiiv was an upstart seed-stage startup and Substack was still the dominant player (my thoughts on why that changed are here).

And I had built up a decent audience across X and LinkedIn, but there were early signs of the risks of relying on social media.

Newsfeed algorithms seemed primed to dramatically improve due to LLMs, meaning that more distance would be put between you and your already rented audience of followers.

It was the imminent TikTokification of all platforms.

And newsletters were the answer.

Instead of trying to convert people to pay for things through social media where they could scroll past your offer, now there was an intermediate lower-commitment step you could offer them.

All you had to do was give them a reason to share their email with you, and then remind them you exist each week by giving them something valuable and building up trust over time.

While email newsletters were hardly new in 2023, remarkably few people and startups were setting up their funnels this way at the time.

These days we’re seeing more and more startups (and founders building a personal brand, too) doing this — if you want me to set it up for you, tell me here.

Where’s the $100K MRR Coming From?

Here’s how my business is structured:

• 2 newsletters

• 1 membership

• 1 marketplace SaaS platform

• 1 agency

• A few other smaller revenue streams (like my founder advisory)

The newsletters (this one, and another called Viral Examples where I break down viral posts and make templates for readers) sit at the top of our owned-funnel.

People enter by subscribing to one, either from conversion ads we run on social media, or by cold emailing lead magnets to them that they need to opt-into the newsletter to get access to. Sometimes they also find us through organic social content, or referrals from existing readers.

The newsletters bring in sponsorship revenue but, equally importantly, give us the opportunity to (hopefully not intrusively) mention the other things we do.

Viral Examples is all about growing on social media, so we mention our content agency and how Megaphone can help users grow and send high-quality posts viral.

Founding Journey is for founders, so we mention:

• Our founder membership + case study library

• Advising options with me

• Services we get nothing out of like our fundraising support service

• And our content agency, since most startups should do content marketing

It’s a simple but effective approach — and one that I’d recommend to the vast majority of founders.

If you’re building an email list but not using it to stay top of mind for your current and potential customers, you’re missing out on a lot of revenue.

People get inundated with information every day — you have to remind them you exist… often.

What’s Next?

$1M ARR is the traditional benchmark for raising a Series A.

But this business is neither (1) venture-backable nor (2) something I’d want to give up equity in.

There are startups, like Crowdsurf, that let you invest directly in creators and their businesses.

But I’m enjoying full ownership, extreme flexibility, and the pressure of not having millions of venture dollars to fall back on.

Basically, I’m loving building a Silicon Valley Small Business.

With our content agency in particular, I assumed I wouldn’t be as excited about building an agency after doing a venture-backed business but the opportunity is too clear to pass up on even if the margins aren’t as sweet as software.

It’s currently doing slightly over $50K MRR, and we can likely hit $1M ARR for it on its own this spring.

But this year we have a few priorities:

1. Scale up our content agency

2. Expand Megaphone to include private groups, scheduling, and creator partnerships

3. Double our active and engaged email list

4. Return to social media (YouTube and LinkedIn, primarily)

5. Resist the temptation to start anything else new for as long as possible

When Launch House failed, I was mad. Mostly at myself for not trusting my gut about key things, and I was left feeling like 2.5 years had just gone down the drain.

But I’d actually rather be in the position I’m in now than be 2 years further down the road on that business.

Turning $10,000 into a profitable $1.2 million ARR business that’s growing the fastest it has yet and that you own 100% of in just 2 years feels pretty good.

Quick Shoutouts!

Allow me to do some necessary shoutouts here.

Bootstrapping is not a one-man job.

First, a shoutout to the friends who showed me the ropes of a newsletter and creator-led business in the first place:

• Matt McGarry

• Tyler Denk

• Jasper Polak

• Sahil Bloom

• Lenny Rachitsky

• And many more folks too

And, of course, lastly a huge shoutout to my entire team.

There are some incredible folks behind the scenes who y’all never hear from or see, but who make this whole thing go.

How We Can Help

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