Growing a newsletter and a website to 35K subscribers and 100K visitors per month in 2 years. AMA 👇

@tnorthcutt Thank you so much, Travis! I really appreciate it :)

@arielvardi Thanks so much, Ariel! It's so nice to hear from you after all this time — the times when we worked together when I was still at Google feel like another era! And yes, I'm even able to pay other people to help manage the newsletter. Our main sources of revenue are sponsored interviews (I need to update that page) and the paid membership with a great community of like-minded people, all interested in mindful productivity, creativity, knowledge management, and mental health. I sometimes do 1:1 coaching but that's not a main source of revenue, and it's more of a way to keep the door open for people who want to pick my brains. I could stop coaching tomorrow without impacting my revenue in any way I would notice.

@anthilemoon Google was indeed a while ago, but we remember that time very fondly on our side! Awesome to see you succeed on your own, and super interesting to read about the newsletter business model!

@richard_chu Hi Richard, thanks so much! To me, the most surprising thing was the number of people who asked me to raise the price for the paid community. When I said that wasn't the plan, quite a few members started gifting memberships to other people. That has been really amazing to witness. In terms of strategies, I have a section in my weekly newsletter where I mention any events or interesting conversations we are having in the community, and I also talk about the community from time to time on Twitter. I should probably do more, but I'm fine with the slow growth, I feel like it may be more sustainable.

@itsjeremiahs Wow, Jeremiah - so nice to see a long-time subscriber on here :) All of my freelance writers are from Upwork! It took a bit of time to find the right ones, but I'm super happy now — instead of writing articles from scratch, I now spend most of my "writing time" reading research papers, briefing the freelance writers, and editing their drafts, which frees up a lot of time to work "on" the business rather than "in" the business :)

@anthilemoon Thanks for sharing!

@forestlinden Hi Forest! Thank you so much, it means a lot :) I think "strategy" would be an overstatement, but I did try to be systematic and consistent in the way I created and promoted content. When I launched the newsletter, I committed to write 5 articles a week until I reached 100 articles. I'm a bit fan of learning in public, so I documented the process on Twitter, and shared each article on HackerNews. Some articles went semi-viral, which immensely helped in growing the newsletter, but I think most people joined because they enjoyed following my journey. I tried cross-promotion a couple of times with other newsletters, but it never really worked. I've never done any paid ad. Nowadays, most of our traffic comes from Twitter and search engines. So it's almost entirely organic marketing - please let me know if there's anything you'd like to hear more about!

@csoakley It's not a very structured process, but I basically take notes all the time and maintain a list of topics I find interesting and would love to write about in the future. I never feel like I have zero potential topic to write about, it's more a matter of selecting something from my ever-growing list, and the selection is mostly driven by inspiration. Sometimes I feel like exploring a complex topic I don't know much about; sometimes I read a book about something that I now understand pretty well, and I feel excited to share that newly acquired knowledge with Ness Labs readers. And sometimes I'm feeling pretty lazy so I pick something helpful that I'm very comfortable with, so I know it's not going to take too long to write but will still deliver value to our readers!

@adirajgupta Thank you, Adiraj! The two main ways we monetize are (1) sponsored interviews; (2) the paid community. I also sometimes do 1:1 coaching but that's a negligible part of our revenue.

@andydentperth1 Thank you, Andy! It's okay, the community is not going anywhere :)

@new_user_ff684a94d3 Thanks so much, Vladimir!

@v1mg1rl1 Thank you so much, I'm so glad you find the newsletter helpful! I have missed three or four editions since I launched the newsletter. All of them were planned breaks as I was on holiday, except for one when I learned that my grandma passed away as I was typing the introduction to the newsletter. I try to practice flexible consistency, mostly sticking to the schedule, but not beating myself up when life happens — or, in this case, death.

@shashcoffe I'm not an expert, but I'd start by defining your goals. What do you want to achieve? Do you want to learn from other people, promote your work, establish your expertise - or maybe a mix? Then, I'd try to figure out who "your people" are - in my case, it's knowledge workers who are prone to burning out. It means they are a bit geeky, curious, love trying new things, and also ambitious, driven, and could definitely benefit from taking care of their mental health. What about your tribe? Finally, you just need to consistently engage with your people :) Contribute helpful thoughts under their tweets, re-share anything interesting they have posted, and add to the intellectual wealth of your tribe by sharing your own thoughts, asking questions, etc. Do this for long enough and you'll have more than an audience: you'll have a tribe.

@anthilemoon Thank you so much, Anne-Laure. I can’t thank you enough. 🙏 These are really cool questions. I wrote it down, and I'm going to answer.

@modernafflatus Hi Ash, so good to hear from you! I'm glad you're enjoying the YouTube channel despite the obvious fact that I am way out of my comfort zone when it comes to recording videos :) Regarding your question: I'm a bit biased, because the Ness Labs community is genuinely one of the kindest, most generous ones I have ever had the chance to be a part of. This is probably due to the topics we explore together, such as mental health, mindfulness, creativity, etc. I think the two key ways to build a community that supports each other are (1) attracting members that feel joy when helping other people; (2) actively highlighting the benefits of contributing to the community. For example, we let any member of our community host workshops and talks around topics of their choice. What's in it for them? Well, for most of them, it's the very first time they'll have the opportunity to give a talk. They'll get constructive yet kind feedback from the community, as well as practice time and the ability to say they gave a talk at Ness Labs, which can be great for their career. And the rest of the community can learn from their expertise. Everyone wins :)

@jamesberges1 Hi James! We're in the same boat, I also have lots of different interests :) If you want to build a business, I think your can either (1) explore as many topics as you want as long as they are loosely related. For instance, with Ness Labs, I explore topics across education, mental health, productivity, creativity, and more; (2) explore two very different topics and create your own unique niche. For instance, "mindful productivity" is at the intersection of mindfulness and productivity. Another example: you could create a website that explores knitting and mental health. If you have lots of different topics that have nothing to do with each other, it may be better to write about these on your personal as it will be hard to build a brand and articulate the value of your content to potential readers. I hope that helps!

@eleanorkonik Hi Eleanor! I had around 2K subscribers when I launched the Maker Mind newsletter on Product Hunt. I think 1K subscribers is a good number that would allow you to benefit from a snowball effect and make the most of a launch on Product Hunt. That's because (1) even though people on Product Hunt tend to be early adopters, it's much easier to sign up for something that feels validated; (2) you'd have enough readers to collect some great testimonials; (3) your existing readers can support your launch and even help answer questions in the comments section.

@anthilemoon Thanks! That jives with my sense of things, so I'm glad I'm not wildly off base on how I'm understanding this space :D

@wilmerlin_p Thank you! :)

@anu_das1 Thank you, Leah!

@daniellenewnham Hi Danielle! When I left Google, I started a personal newsletter to stay in touch with my former colleagues. The launch of Maker Mind was actually a pivot of that earlier newsletter, which had accumulated around 300 subscribers in two years (you can tell I wasn't promoting it). I actually think most people could easily get to 100 subscribers by reaching out to people in their industry or (respectfully) promoting their newsletter in relevant professional groups.