9 Things Beginners Should Ignore When Starting a Newsletter

Summary

Podcast Summary: "9 Things Beginners Should Ignore When Starting a Newsletter"

Podcast: Growth In Reverse
Episode: 9 Things Beginners Should Ignore When Starting a Newsletter
Hosts: Chenell Basilio & Dylan Redekop
Release Date: October 8, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop tackle common pitfalls and distractions that new newsletter creators face, especially advice that leads to wasted time and energy. Drawing from their own experience and industry stories, they break down the things you shouldn't focus on when starting out—and often, even after you've grown past just a handful of subscribers. Their aim: save listeners from the overwhelm, help cut through the noise, and point out what really matters when you’re just getting started.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Welcome Sequence & Over-Engineering Your First Emails

• Main Idea: Don’t waste time on elaborate welcome sequences (i.e., multiple onboarding emails).
• Chenell: “The first mistake I see beginners making (and sometimes intermediate folks)—writing a welcome sequence. I just... in the early days, you probably don't even need a welcome email. Like, if you have three subscribers, you probably don't need to be focused on getting your perfect welcome email set up before you try and find subscribers.” [02:29–03:12]
• Advice: A basic “thanks for joining” works. Focus on finding and connecting with subscribers before building complex automations.

2. Promotion Over Perfection

• Main Idea: Don’t obsess over tools, landing pages, or technical details before validating your idea.
• Chenell: “Even a fancy landing page—probably don't need it at the beginning, probably don't even need a form. Go manually, find 10, 15, 20 people to sign up...I would really push back on ‘no one in my network would be interested.’ You probably do have someone.” [05:24–06:08]
• Dylan: “Figure it out first before you…buy a domain and you create a landing page...” [06:08–06:24]

3. Tool Paralysis: Picking an ESP or Platform

• Main Idea: Don’t obsess over selecting the perfect email service provider (ESP).
• Chenell: “By far the biggest question I get is, do I choose Beehive or Kit or Substack? Which one’s perfect? Doesn’t matter…Just pick something and don’t look back for six months.” [09:33–10:12]
• Dylan: “This was a hill I died on back in the day…stop wasting your time trying to pick the perfect tool. Just start writing.” [10:12–11:27]

4. List Cleaning Automation—Way Too Soon

• Main Idea: Don’t set up complex list cleaning automations with just a handful of subscribers.
• Chenell: “What's a good automation to clean my email list? …how many subscribers do you have? And they're like, 80. And I'm like, no. Stop trying to clean your email list when you have 80 people on it.” [13:08–13:55]
• Dylan: “I wonder what number of subscribers…becomes a detriment…It’s a good call out.” [13:58–14:51]

5. Advanced Automations/Funnels/Segments

• Main Idea: Don’t bother with advanced automation, funnels, or segmentation until you’ve established real traction.
• Chenell: “Fancy automations—people try and set up…super fun automation to make sure that, you know, after seven days of not opening, they'll get this email...Just focus on the thing that matters, which is finding out what content people want and finding the people who are going to continue reading.” [15:11–16:10]

6. Paid Ads — Not Needed at First

• Main Idea: Running paid ads to grow your newsletter before you have validated content or an audience is usually a waste.
• Chenell: “I am not a fan of someone starting a newsletter and immediately starting paid ads...you're wasting your money...until you find that core format for your content...there's no reason to go find people for something that you're not sure what it is yet.” [16:48–17:18]
• Dylan: Cites industry debate, “Louis Nichols from Sparkly...he’s a big proponent of the complete opposite...spending money upfront to validate, whereas you're saying, save money...” [18:36–20:43]
• Chenell, reaffirming: “Organic subscribers are a better measure of whether something's working versus paid subscribers...” [21:39–22:38]

7. Newsletter Recommendations (Swaps) — Too Early

• Main Idea: Don’t focus on getting partner recommendations or swaps when you’re just starting.
• Chenell: “You should find your first few hundred subscribers from social media or talking to friends and having them share it...newsletter recommendations...they're not as high quality as someone finding you on LinkedIn via a post and then going to find your landing page.” [23:35–24:19]

8. Analytics Obsession & Attribution

• Main Idea: Don’t obsess over attribution or set up advanced analytics when you’re just getting started.
• Chenell: “Perfect analytics or analytics in general...they're just focused on the numbers on the backend versus, like, actually pulling people in…if you can't figure out where they came from, it's okay...let's just try and get people on the list.” [24:32–26:03]
• Simple Solution: Ask new subscribers in the welcome email how they found you.

9. Viral Growth, Scale-Hacking, and Overcomplicating

• Main Idea: Seeking viral growth or scalable “hacks” is the wrong goal at the start.
• Chenell: “People focus on these huge numbers, like, how do I get 50 subscribers today? And I'm like, okay, you just got started. How can we get three?” [28:34–29:11]
• Dylan: Shares DM outreach as a practical beginner’s tactic—manually connect with people. [29:11–30:58]

10. Other Technical Overkill: Double Opt-In, “Resend to Unopens,” etc.

• Dylan: “Don’t worry about double opt in in the beginning...Just get people on your list.” (with legal caveats re: jurisdiction) [33:03–34:20]
• “Resend to unopened” feature isn’t as helpful as it promises, and can annoy readers. [34:21–35:55]

11. Content Repurposing: Leverage & Repeat

• Don’t: Be afraid to share the same ideas in multiple places (i.e., post and ghost).
• Dylan: “Repurpose your content. Remix it…the self-awareness that we're sharing the same thing is…crippling…You could literally talk about the same thing a hundred times and people are not going to remember that you said that. So everyone's not watching you like you're watching yourself.” [35:55–38:22]

---

Quick List: What Do You Actually Need to Start?

Chenell boils it down to four true essentials:

• An idea and a basic content template (“have an idea for what you're going to send…valuable for a specific person”)
• An ESP (any free or basic plan is fine, once you need it)
• A way to collect emails (can be as simple as a Google Sheet before an actual form)
• A basic email address to send from, not your Gmail or personal account
  [38:45–40:31]

“I want to set the record straight that you can get started with so much less than you think you need to build a successful newsletter and that kind of thing. Focus on all the crazy stuff later.” — Chenell [40:06–40:31]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dylan (on spicy takes): “I think mild salsa should be outlawed…Let's get these takes like five chili peppers or whatever spice level we need to take em up to.” [01:07–01:22]
• Chenell (on distractions): “Stop trying to clean your email list when you have 80 people on it…just try it. Like, you could literally send a personal email to each of these people and say, do you enjoy this content?” [13:08–13:55]
• Dylan: “Planning is like procrastination. You'll just drive yourself silly with planning because it's just a form of procrastination.” [32:12–32:20]
• Chenell: “If you're just getting started and you don't have all your ducks in a row…going viral is going to be the worst thing for you.” [32:20–32:53]
• Dylan: “Repurpose your content. Remix it…the self awareness…is sometimes crippling, but actually we need to really ignore that. And I'm guilty of this a lot.” [35:55–37:38]
• Chenell: “Everything else is a distraction. Just look at getting a good idea, a good piece of content that people are willing to talk about and share and that's pretty much all you need.” [41:13–41:21]

---

Segment Timestamps

• [00:00–01:07] – Episode intro and the problem: wasting time as a beginner
• [02:29–04:28] – The welcome sequence fallacy and focusing on basics
• [05:24–06:08] – Validating with your network vs. technical throttle
• [09:33–11:27] – Tool paralysis and why choosing ESP is non-essential
• [13:08–13:55] – Don’t bother cleaning a tiny list
• [15:11–16:10] – Fancy automations: skip it, focus on value
• [16:48–22:38] – Why paid ads are mostly a waste early on; organic vs. paid validation
• [23:35–24:19] – Newsletter recommendations: don't worry about swaps when brand new
• [24:32–26:03] – Analytics and attribution: keep it minimal
• [28:34–29:11] – Going viral/super-scaling: not the priority
• [32:12–32:20] – “Planning is procrastination”
• [33:03–34:20] – Double opt-in: not a concern at the start
• [35:55–38:22] – Repurposing content and overcoming mental blocks

---

Final Takeaways

1. You can start with almost nothing—don’t overinvest time or energy into platforms, automations, or analytics.
2. Get a handful of real readers first (from your network, DMs, or social posts) before building infrastructure.
3. Focus on creating and sharing valuable content for a real, specific audience.
4. Ignore the advice that leads to over-preparing, over-planning, and overcomplicating.

Dylan: “What really matters is…you need a good idea and you need to share that idea in a new and interesting way.” [40:31–41:07]

---

Useful for Listeners Who...

• Are about to launch a newsletter or are struggling with where to start
• Feel overwhelmed by conflicting beginner advice online
• Want practical, experience-based guidance on what not to focus on
• Need permission to “start messy” and get feedback early

---

Next Steps

Once you have your first subscribers and are sending actual issues, check out the rest of Growth In Reverse for deeper strategies on growth, monetization, and retention.

---

For more, visit vault.growthinverse.com for Chenell’s video vault after you're past the very basics.

Transcript

[A]

Dylan, I am fired up today.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

I am so sick of seeing people waste their time when they're getting started with their newsletter on stuff that does not matter based on advice they're seeing on the Internet. And so I just want to walk through that and clear some things up for people today.

[B]

But, Chanel, the Internet is undefeated when it comes to the best advice that everybody should listen to. So. I can't believe you're making this stance.

[A]

I know, right? It's horrible. Can't believe it.

[B]

Unreal. Unreal. I'm. I'm pumped. I'm really curious to see what you've come up with. I've come up with a small list of my own of. Of things. But you've had a lot of thoughts about this stuff, so I'm really curious to see what you have to say.

[A]

Yeah, I'm excited to just chat about it because today we're just going to talk about the things that you should not do when you're getting started. And some of these things are people that even if you have hundreds or thousands of subscribers, you shouldn't be doing them either. So I think we are just gonna, like, save people a ton of time in this. In this conversation. And really, I don't know, have some spicy takes flying around here.

[B]

I like it. I'm all for the spice. I think mild salsa should be outlawed. It should be spicy. Don't come at me with that no jalapeno crap. Let's get these takes like five chili peppers or whatever spice level we need to take em up to.

[A]

So here's what I think happens. And this topic actually came from me asking people what they need help with. Nobody actually said any of this outright, but they all asked some of these questions, and I am just ready to break the myth of all of this stuff. So I think what happens is people start a newsletter. They're researching the concept of a newsletter. They're like, okay, you know, I'm going to start an email list. I'm going to start writing about this one topic. And then you go too far in your research, and you hit this point where you start hearing all of these best practices. You get distracted. You hear about bots clicking emails and needing to clean your list every 30 days. And then you're like, oh, my God, I have three subscribers. I gotta clean my email list. And I'm like, oh, man. Like, it's just not something you should be focusing on in the beginning at all. And so I think people are wasting so much time with A lot of this stuff. And so I have a list of some of these things. I know you said you do, too. So I'm excited to dig in and help save people time and get them off the struggle bus.

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

Let's do it. Yeah. All aboard the struggle bus now. Let's all get off.

[A]

No more struggle bus.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, so I think the first one that I think you even thought was spicy when I. When I shared this one. But definitely the first mistake I see beginners making and sometimes intermediate folks writing a welcome sequence. Welcome. And like, I just.

[B]

Yes, this is. I know, not a welcome email, but we're talking welcome sequence. That suggests more than one email.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Sequence. Okay. Although I think in the early days, you probably don't even need a welcome email. Like, if you have three subscribers, you probably don't need to be focused on getting your perfect welcome email set up before you try and find subscribers.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because there's like this. There's this barrier, right? Because you're trying to do all these things for people that don't even exist on your list yet. But then, like, you need to get people on the list. So it's like a chicken and egg problem. And I feel like some people spend way too much time on the technical. Which tool should I use? All this stuff versus let's go find subscribers. Let's make sure what we think is going to be a cool idea is what. Something. What people actually want. So, yes, have a welcome welcome email. That's fine. But it can literally be so basic. Like, thanks for being here. I'm gonna send you this every week. Hit reply and let me know what you need help with. Three sentences. Call it a day. Done. Right. No fancy welcome sequence. You don't need to be, like, continuously reaching out to these people when there's no one on your list.

[B]

Yeah. Yep. That's fair. So basically what you're saying is don't distract yourself with the minutia in that regard. Focus on probably writing content that people really actually want to read and sharing it publicly. So people will sign up for your newsletter.

[A]

Yeah. And probably sharing the idea publicly before writing the content. Like, until you have, like 10 subscribers. Like, let's. Let's get those people first.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And these numbers are totally arbitrary. Like, it could be 11, it could be 20, it could be whatever. But I think until you have a base group of readers, don't write an email.

[B]

Okay. So how are you promoting this newsletter?

[A]

Okay, so I think I like the. The Idea. And Tom Alder kind of did this, right. So he was writing on social media for a while to figure out what people enjoy. Now you can take that route. You can also just like, email people, you know, and be like, hey, I'm going to start this newsletter. What do you think you want to join?

[B]

Totally.

[A]

You don't. It doesn't have to come through social media. Jonathan Goodman wrote a book called the Obvious Choice, and I was reading it recently, so it's top of mind for me. But he harps on this thing of like, online business owners try and get, like, they think they can only get customers online when that's not true. Like, you can text people, you can go reach out to friends, you can ask somebody you already know to sign up. Like, I think we all think that we're just like out in this weird orbit by ourselves and we have to find these people brand new without reaching out to people we already know.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So I would love for people to simplify it. Come up with your topic, write a couple sentences about what you plan to send and just ask people if they want to join and if you can't, if everyone says no, maybe it's not the right ones. Yeah, find different people. Yeah, but I think we get so caught up on like, and like, I have more on this list. But like, even a fancy landing page, like, probably don't need it at the beginning, probably don't even need a form. Like, go manually, find 10, 15, 20 people to sign up to your email list. Maybe you're finding these people on LinkedIn. If you don't have anyone that you think would be interested. But I, I, I would really push back on that and say that you probably do have someone in your network that would be interested in the topic you're writing about.

[B]

Yeah, that's a really good way to validate whether or not people want to read it. Like, figure that out first before you. Definitely before you buy a domain and you create a landing page with a form and connect it to your ESP and all that sort of stuff or embedded whatever you might do. I think the point you're making is like, make sure this, this newsletter has legs, the topic has legs that people are interested in and that you can get somebody who you're going to send the first edition to. Somebody's like multiple people would be ideal. Get three, five, you know, 20 friends or colleagues or people in your space on this email list so that when you do actually hit send on the first edition, you'll have like that instant Feedback and, and maybe it will be great, maybe it will be, but you won't know until you do. And I think what you mentioned, Tom alder, he got 5,000 people on his email list just by posting on LinkedIn pretty much every day. And it turned out to be a really great move because he knew that the content he was posting on LinkedIn was resonating with people they were signing up because he just added that call to action on his LinkedIn posts. And he had a simple landing page. He wasn't sending any emails, I'm not sure honestly if he was sending out any kind of like welcome email to those people when they did sign up. But he wasn't sending out email additions. So he had about 5,000 people on his list before he actually did.

[A]

And that's a total outer. Like Tom was writing for like six to nine months I think before he started his newsletter. I don't think we all necessarily have that luxury of time of like, I have this full time job, I can do this on the side. If you do, that's awesome. I think that's a great path to go down. But don't take that number as like I have to have 5,000 or I have to have 500, like you can have 55. I don't know. A smaller number does not mean it's a bad newsletter. I think it's just a matter of like he was posting on LinkedIn. The first things he was, was writing about are not what he ended up creating a newsletter about. So I think that's the important point of that story is like he started writing about, I think it was like crypto and finance and all this stuff and he just ended up back in the, hey, I write about strategy for business, like for B2B. So that's what his newsletter is about, is about strategy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I think that's a big lesson of just like, I don't know, iterate, you can, you can do that kind of thing. But I liked his because he didn't have a newsletter in the beginning. So I think that's a, an interesting example for people to see.

[B]

And the nice thing with that too is that you don't have to commit to, let's say Tom didn't wait and he just started publishing about crypto and finance and that sort of thing. Then he's committed to that. He's got the sun cost fallacy, the, you know, buying the domain or whatever, starting up the newsletter, the landing page, all that stuff, getting people on a list and then all of a sudden being like, ah, actually, I'm going to write about, you know, business strategy instead. And then you put up. Or he wants to, but he's wasted all this time and that sort of thing and got all these people on his list who are expecting something different. So this is a really good way to not, I guess, your time and energy into something that you're not for sure committed to or settled on. So, yeah, I think, I think this is. Yeah, I'm coming around to this idea. I'm coming around to this idea. I was a little bit like, oh, man, Chanel's lost it. She's. She's lost her marbles here a bit. But I, I get your. I get your point.

[A]

So. Well, I'm glad you're coming out to it. So, okay, so no welcome sequence. I think the fancy landing page. Don't. It's not worth it. Unless you've been building websites for 20 years and you could do this in like an hour. Fine. If you feel that way. I'm that kind of person where I'm like, It'll take me 45 minutes to.

[B]

Set this all up.

[A]

Go for it. Not necessary. I think one of the other things that people get stuck on is, like, the perfect tool. By far the biggest question I get is, do I choose beehive or kit or substack? Which one is best? Which one's perfect? Doesn't matter. I know. Spoiler alert. Honestly, the tool is not going to be the reason that you're successful. A tool can help, but honestly, it's not until you have a larger newsletter or, I mean, some tools just resonate better with other people. So I think we'll do a whole episode on. On the tool side of things. But don't get stuck on a tool. Just pick something. Just pick something and don't look back for six months. Like, keep going.

[B]

This was a hill I died on. Back in the day when I really was starting to write a lot about newsletters is there's this big battle between, oh, should I use convert back? It was convert kit. Should I use. What was Twitter's. Twitter bought that review. Review. Should I use review? Should I use mailchimp? And then Beehive came on the block and, you know, all these other. There's so many sps. And it's like, stop wasting your time. Your time trying to pick the perfect tool. Just start writing and publishing or start growing your list. That matters way more. And yeah, it's. You can't grow. I. I understand. You can't grow. A list necessarily without a place to, you know, add those email addresses. But the whole point is like, just find one that does that and use it until you've maxed out the potential that it can do for you. Then find, spend a little bit more time. Once you've validated your idea, once you've got people on your list, once they're reading and you're like, oh, this tool doesn't actually do what I need it to do anymore. Let me find the right one then, then it makes sense. Then it's worth investing that time and that energy into and maybe some money into a tool and an ESP platform that'll work for you. But in the beginning it does. I, I just don't, I still stand on this, on this hill and will die on it that it doesn't matter in the beginning. Just pick one and start.

[A]

Yes, definitely. So don't get stuck on that either. Again, like you, if you Google like how to get started with a newsletter, like all these things are going to come up right? Pick the right tool, build a landing page, add a form to it, write a welcome sequence. Like, you just don't, you don't need it necessarily. It's not necessary. Especially when you haven't proven the case for your newsletter or decided if you actually like writing about this topic. Like, there's no point in trying to do all these things if you're gonna end up quitting in three months or six months or whatever because you don't enjoy the topic. Save those for later. Let yourself delete that whole to do list that you have and just like get started.

[B]

I'm asking ChatGPT what the first things I should do to start a newsletter are.

[A]

Oh, nice.

[B]

Because I'm, I'm really curious. Just like on the spot testing here. Like, what are somebody who doesn't know, who hasn't followed you or I or all of the names in the newsletter space, what advice they're going to be getting from like AI or even from Google. I want to start a newsletter. What are the first. What are the most important things I should do right away? I don't know if that's the right prompt, but you know, off the top of my head, it's not too bad.

[A]

It's probably what someone would type in. Yeah, it's great.

[B]

Second thing, choose the right platform. Second thing. Nope, you don't need to do that. You can find the right platform. You don't have to choose it right away. Get clear on purpose. And audience is the first one. So I Agree. Actually getting clear on the purpose of your newsletter and who you're writing to is probably the most important thing or one of the top most important things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But choosing the right platform is number.

[A]

Two, the next one on my list. As we just keep going down this list is. I kind of alluded to this before, but a way to clean your email list. People look for this. They're like, what's a good automation to clean my email list? And I'm like, all right, cool. How many subscribers do you have? And they're like, 80. And I'm like, no, back away. Stop trying to clean your email list when you have 80 people on it. Just try it. Like, you could literally send a personal email to each of these people and say, do you enjoy this content? How is it going? What could I do better? What are you struggling with? Instead of trying to get, like, unsubscribe people because they're potentially not opening, like, try and figure out a way to reel them in that's like your. Your core audience of people that you want to be focusing on. So please don't delete those people just because they might not have opened in the last three weeks.

[B]

I wonder what. What.

[A]

I see people getting stuck on that.

[B]

Yeah. I wonder what number of. Where the number of subscribers you have and that you're sending to, say, cold subscribers becomes a detriment. Where it actually is impactful to your. To your sender reputation and inbox placement and all that sort of things. Because I would think, yeah, if you have 80 subscribers and 40 are opening and 40 aren't, probably not a big issue. But once you get to, say, a thousand or five thousand or fifty thousand, then if you're sending to a bunch of inboxes that are either bouncing or are immediately unsubscribing or are, who knows, flagging your newsletter, then. Then that's where. Cleaning your list. I. And I know you weren't suggesting that. No, nobody ever cleaned their list ever. But I'm just curious where that. Where that threshold might be where somebody should actually start considering that it's a good question.

[A]

I don't know, but it's definitely not 80 or 100 or maybe even.

[B]

I don't even a thousand. Like, unless you're getting 20% open rates or lower or even maybe 30, it would be a good benchmark. Like 30% open rates are lower, then maybe it's time to clean your list. And I think maybe that's the rate that you should. Or there should be a rate that you're Considering less than, more so than numbers. But yeah, it's a good, it's a good call out.

[A]

I think going along with this, the next one that I had on my list was fancy automations people try and set up. I mean I've seen so many people like, oh, you know, I'm on kit and I'm trying to set up this super fun automation to make sure that, you know, after seven days of not opening they'll get this email and then they don't get this email. I'm like, just like grow your lit. Like just focus on the thing that matters, which is finding out what content people want and finding the people who are going to continue reading that and like where you enjoy creating and just like just sit there, just sit at that level until you get to Escape Velocity where people are sharing your content without you asking them to and that kind of thing. Like until you hit that point, don't focus on some of this stuff unless you have like a hundred hours a week, which, whatever. But I still think if you spent that time more on growth and talking to people and finding the right fit for your newsletter, then you're going to be way better off than just like having these automation set up.

[B]

Yeah, I think if you're obsessed with creating the best content you possibly can, then all this stuff should fall by the wayside and everything, everything else will be better. Your open rates will be better, your engagement will be, will be better, your growth will be faster, your unsubscribe rate will be lower. I it all, it always comes back to insanely valuable content to me. And I think we should talk about that soon someday on the podcast a little bit more. But, but really the. I think that's the point you're getting at, right?

[A]

Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I guess I'm talking about growing your newsletter and all that, but I think the other thing that people focus on way too early is paid ads.

[B]

Ooh.

[A]

So I have said this before. I am not a fan of someone starting a newsletter and immediately starting paid ads. I think you are wasting your money. I think you're wasting your effort and your time because until you find that core format for your content and what you're going to be sending, what you're going to be talking about every week or every day or whatever, there's no reason to go find people for something that you're not sure what it is yet. So I think people start with paid ads way too early.

[B]

What if, you know, I'm play devil's advocate here, what if you know what your newsletter is going to be about and you've maybe been writing about this online, but you haven't started a newsletter yet, so you've been writing on social media. Maybe even you have a podcast or some other form of content, a YouTube, a YouTube channel that might not be super popular, but it's like, you know, it's grown, it's grown some steam. The idea has been validated. Would you then consider investing in paid ads if you still had, say, zero newsletter subscribers, but you had like a valid concept for content delivery in the form of a newsletter?

[A]

I would say, I would say go to, if you have an audience elsewhere, even if it's small, try and get them on the newsletter first. And if they're not signing up, but they're the, they're your core audience, there's a mismatch there. So, I mean, you hear this all the time with like YouTube versus Instagram. You can't post the same thing on both platforms because they're different.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so a newsletter is not the same thing as a LinkedIn audience either. They're close, but they're not the same. So if you're getting, you know, replies and engagement on LinkedIn but not getting people to sign up for the newsletter, I have to wonder if there's like either the messaging's wrong, which is a huge part of paid ads. So if you can't get the messaging for people to sign up right, then that's a big problem too.

[B]

No, that's totally true. I think that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing that paid ads could possibly even help you with is figuring out like your key messaging and hooks that work, that drive people lead magnets, that sort of thing. If you have money to kind of just throw away, of course, because that's probably what you'll be doing at, at first. But I think it does really put that constraint on you to like succinctly share what your newsletter is, who it helps, who it's for, and the problem itself. So kind of the, the who it's for, what problem it solves, and how it solves that problem. I think those are the, the key things that you need to make very clear for somebody to subscribe to newsletter, especially when it's coming from a paid ad. I wanted to share with you quickly some of our, some of our fellow newsletter compatriots who put out a, an episode that said, would you ever pay to acquire your, would you ever pay to acquire your first 1,000 subscribers and the argument between the two people was one person said no, and the other one said yes. So Louis Nichols from Sparkly posted on LinkedIn, Would you ever pay to acquire your first 1000 subscribers? And his co host on their podcast, Tyler, said no. And Lou said, well, maybe sometimes. And I, I responded, I said, well, if your main revenue strategy was, you know, ads and sponsorships, wouldn't you want those first 1,000 subscribers to be your validation that people actually want to read and open your newsletter? You know, it's like your proof of concept. And then Louis said, in that situation, you'd have three priorities. One would be like, how quickly can I grow to enough subscribers that I can test whether I'll be able to make money from selling ads and sponsorships? Number two, does the growth channel I plan on using to scale drive quality subscribers like opens and clicks in this case? And number three, will brands spend on ads, sponsorships with me and can I drive results? So he's a big proponent of the complete opposite of what you're saying. He's like, I want to get like super quick proof of concept on this newsletter before I, you know, sink a bunch of time into it. So, um, Lou's all for spending money upfront to validate, whereas you're saying, save money, spend your time to validate.

[A]

Yeah. And I, I still stand behind that. I understand where he's coming from, but I think that when you are just getting started, you actually would do better to organically grow that core audience to be able to figure out, hey, is this newsletter format right? Or if people don't like it, then go for another one. But I think organic subscribers are a better measure of whether something's working versus paid subscribers. I've seen so many people sink thousands of dollars into paid ads to grow an email list of 5, 10,000 subscribers, and they can't get anyone to reply or open click or anything. And I'm like, unless your Facebook ads are completely dialed in perfectly, you have the right audience, which again, like, that's going to depend on your content. So it's like, hard thing to figure out in the beginning. I really think you're, you're wasting your money until you hit like a few hundred, at least a thousand subscribers.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And those and organically grown subscribers in that case. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that, yeah, most people listening who have a newsletter would probably agree that the people that are seeing your content online, say on social media or elsewhere, whether it's through like a podcast or something else or YouTube, and then subscribe because they like that content. They are going to be the ones who stick around. They'll. They'll actually be more likely to open your newsletter. They'll be more likely to reply to your newsletter because they've already maybe interfaced with you on those platforms. Whereas somebody who's coming in really cold from a maybe really good Facebook ad that got them to click and subscribe, those people are not nearly as invested in you. They don't really know like and trust you. You haven't built up space in their head yet when they think about a problem to come to you. So I think that paid ads have their place for sure. But most people that I don't think I agree with you. I don't think it's the right place to be spending your time and money in the beginning.

[A]

And I think if you get a thousand subscribers from paid ads and a thousand subscribers from social media or some other organic form, the quality is just so starkly different that like you're not going to get as good quality of information from those paid folks that you will from organic. So I think like the organic people, like you said, they, they know like and trust you. They're probably willing to share your content if it's good. Whereas someone who came from a paid ad, they're like, I don't even remember signing up for this. Maybe like, did Facebook automatically enter my email address? I don't even remember hitting that button. And then they're like, who's this person? You're probably going to get some spam complaints. Like that happens with every channel. Like even organic stuff. I'm not going to sit here and say it doesn't. But I still think that going the paid route first is not a good move.

[B]

And that actually calls. That reminds me of paid recommendations or just newsletter recommendations in general. Do you have a spicy take on those?

[A]

I. Yeah, I. Again, I don't think you should be trying to find newsletter recommendation partners this early on. I think you should find your first few hundred subscribers from social media or talking to friends and having them share it or maybe a cross promotion or something that's more like meaty versus someone just like clicking a button and there they are on your email list. Like I don't think that's the way to go either. That's actually on my list of things people. Oh no, I'm sorry, it's on too early too. No, it's good. I'm glad you brought it up.

[B]

Cool. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, I think recommendations are just, they're not higher Quality. They're not as high quality as, like, someone finding you on LinkedIn via a post and then going to find your, your landing page in, then subscribing. Like, that's a higher quality person because they've jumped through a few pieces of friction.

[B]

Yep. So didn't we talk about adding friction once?

[A]

We totally do. We'll link that video up as well. Or in the show notes too.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[A]

But yeah.

[B]

Okay, what do you got next?

[A]

And paid ads just kind of remove the friction too. So on the same, Same level. The next one is perfect. Analytics or analytics in general. I hear people all the time like, ooh, I'm, you know, I set up this, this Instagram post and I wanted to see exactly who came from that one post. So I used a UTM parameter on my link and then it didn't work. And like, they're just focused on the numbers on the backend versus, like, actually pulling people in. Like, you got 10 subscribers yesterday. Awesome. Like, if you can't figure out where they came from, it's okay. Like, you still got 10. Like, I think, I think people get too in the weeds with like, UTM parameters and all that stuff way too soon. And then they're focused on looking at, oh, I got six impressions versus seven impressions yesterday. Uh, it's like, okay, but really, like, let's just try and get people on the list. Get people reading and consuming your content and then focus on attribution and all this stuff. And it's funny because in my corporate days when I worked at aaa, I remember we were doing paid ads, and if the attributes attribution wasn't correct, like, perfect. Like, oh, this ad drove exactly the right number of signups, even though we knew there was some, like, mistake and it could have come from a different area, but wasn't through that direct link. It was like, well, that ad didn't work. And I'm like, that's not really, you know, it's not the company I worked for either. It's like every large business, like, they get so focused on these numbers that they miss, like, the big picture.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah, I could see that being a problem. Marketing is so much more holistic, though. It's like, you know, you have to look at the bigger picture. How many times did that person actually see your brand or your face or your name or your posts before they actually went and subscribed? Attribution is so fickle. And I think there's a, there's a time and place for it for sure. Because it does help guide where you should be spending your time or where you should be posting or the types of posts. If you, if you can see that, like, oh, people are really resonating with my video posts. I'm getting tons of subscribers with my Instagram videos. I'm not getting many subscribers with, you know, static posts or LinkedIn or a different platform altogether. Then you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not looking into that a little bit more. But I do agree that, like, you definitely don't need to fine tune and attribute every single subscriber that you get, especially in the beginning when they're probably coming from all different places.

[A]

I say this one because I think people would just get so hung up in the early days of, like, oh, I got a subscriber. I have to know where they came from. And it's like, well, what did you do yesterday? Like, maybe that drove your subscriber and you can just, like, keep going. Like, just don't focus on, like, what's already happened. Like, keep moving in the same direction. It's clearly working or it's not working and then you just, you know, do something different. But I think if you give each channel enough time, then you can, you know, it'll, it'll eventually fit. You'll figure it out. But I just, I see people getting so hung up on like, UTM parameters and like, having the perfect, like, Google Analytics set up. And I'm like, okay, cool. But, like, you have five subscribers. Like, let's get to a number where you know, you're consistently putting out content on a discovery platform like jclass calls it. And then you're able to continuously write this newsletter, get replies, and learn from your subscribers versus just figuring out where they came from. And I think one of the best ways to circumvent this is just ask them in your welcome email. Like, where did you find the newsletter? Done. That's your analytics for the first six months. I love it. Don't focus on too many, like, specific tools or numbers or that kind of thing.

[B]

And you're killing two birds with one stone there. Because as we just talked about in our last episode, getting replies is huge, especially in the beginning. And if you are writing a welcome email, which Chanel just said, don't write a welcome email in the beginning. But if you are, definitely include a question.

[A]

Caveats. I know. Yeah, yeah, yes, you need a welcome email. I'm not saying don't have a welcome email, but I think people focus on it, like, way too soon, like perfecting it way too soon.

[B]

Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.

[A]

And then the last couple that I have on here are scalable growth strategies, like recommendations, that kind of thing. And then going viral, which kind of go hand in hand. I think people just focus on these huge numbers, like, how do I get 50 subscribers today? And I'm like, okay, you just got started. How can we get three? Like, can you manually DM people on LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever your platform is and say like, hey, I really enjoyed this content. Like, start a conversation, tell them you have a newsletter if they want to sign up. Great. You could also, like, just tell them about the newsletter and say, can I have your email address? I'll add you to the list. You don't even need a form. Like, it could be that simple.

[B]

Yep, absolutely. That's how I grew my newsletter on Twitter back in the day when I was first starting. This is like back when Twitter wasn't what it is now. And you could, you could reach out to people and dm, I mean, you still can do that, but you could reach out to like decent people and DM them and. And I grew. I mean, I manually reached out to people. I kind of copy and pasted the same sort of message, but I would actually replace like their first name and kind of tweak it a little bit or call out like, hey, thanks for engaging with a post if they had. And that's how I got like 50 subscribers, I think, in a month just by doing that few a day. And, you know, probably about 1 in 5, 2 out of 5, would actually reply and say, yeah, sure, that sounds great. And I wasn't even doing the thing where it's like, send me your email address, I'll sign you up. I would send them to a landing page, but I think there's probably a better chance of conversion if you just say, hey, I'll take your email address now and sign you up myself. Some people might not be comfortable with that, but I think that is proven to be a better strategy in some ways because we had Gan and Meyer in the Growth Reverse Pro community and he showed us how basically you can use manychat on Instagram and keep your subscriber, your new subscriber, or your follower, I guess, on Instagram, keep them in Instagram while asking them, hey, I'm going to send you this free thing. It was a lead magnet strategy, but I'm going to send you this free thing. And instead of sending those people to a landing page to get the lead magnet, he would just say, if you're interested, can I get your email address? And then so you. They would share the email address and that would automatically sync right through to Kit and boom, you had a new subscriber without having to take them off platform and get them to fill out a form themselves. So the conversion rates are much higher for stuff like that. So if you can do that in DMs, I think you're gonna be further ahead too. I hadn't honestly thought of that. So that's smart.

[A]

Yeah. Again, like simplify. Don't try and go viral. And like just focus on one thing at a time. Like you don't need to for it to take three months to start a newsletter. Like you could start next week if you just come up with a good idea and concept for your newsletter and just figure out who you want to talk to and then just go, go where those people are, ask them for their email address and sign them up yourself. Like, you don't need a landing page, you don't need an ESP even in the beginning. Until you get like 10 subscribers. Five, like whatever the number is. Like, I think if you can get that core group of folks first, you probably could start with just like Gmail. Saving these email addresses in a Google sheet, but save them in a Google sheet. And then once you get hit 10, sign up for Beehive or Kid or whatever on their free plan and just start sending an email and be like, hey, thanks for signing up last week, here's the first edition or whatever it ends up being totally. But I think we just over complicate this stuff so much. And I, I get emails from people all the time that are like, oh, I'm starting my newsletter next month or two months from now. I'm like, why are you waiting? Just do it. Just start. There is a point where you're just, you're, you're waiting too long to start. And I think you're going to learn so much more just by getting going and taking action than you will from thinking about it and researching.

[B]

Planning is like procrastination. You'll just drive yourself silly with planning because it's just a form of procrastination.

[A]

I think people focus on going viral too early. And honestly, if you're just getting started and you don't have all your ducks in a row and everything's not perfect, going viral is going to be the worst thing for you. Oh yeah, because you're going to lose the potential trust you could have gained from getting seen by 500, a thousand, 25,000 people. And they're like, wait, why is this, why does this look like this? It's not what I wanted. And then they're not going to come back. So if you can start slow, go organically, sustainably, and start growing that way, I think it's a much better trajectory for you than trying to get a million subscribers at once.

[B]

Yep, yep. Million subscribers at once is not good. Probably not good. Yeah, no, no, I got a few. If you have. Unless you have a few more that you want to share.

[A]

No, go for it.

[B]

Okay, so let's start with maybe the spiciest, although we've talked about this before, so it's not super sexy. So this is more technical as well. Don't worry about double opt in. In the beginning. I would, I would say just get people on your list. Don't worry about them confirming their subscription. Of course, there are some countries that you have to use double opt in. I know Germany is one where they're really strict on that. So just make sure you're doing things above board. However, if you can avoid doing the double opt in, which is where somebody signs up for your newsletter, you, your ESP sends them a email that says, please confirm your subscription. You have to click on that in your inbox and then you'll be subscribed or confirmed. So you have the option to turn that off in Kit. And I believe in most ESPs you do. Now, we are fans of using a false double opt in. We won't get into the details of that, but it's essentially sort of doing the same thing. But you send the email yourself from your esp, they're automatically subscribed and it's just a way of kind of hedging that somebody misses that first email because you can always send them again. So that's one. Don't worry about double opt ins.

[A]

I like it.

[B]

My next one is. This isn't talked about a ton, but it is a feature that I've. I've dabbled with and I've seen people dabble with. And that's resend to unopened. Have you heard of this feature, Chanel? So Kit has a feature that you can resend your newsletter to people who didn't open it, which sounds like, hey, that's awesome. They didn't open it. They maybe they missed it. I want to make sure that they've seen it. And so I did a test back almost a year ago last November, where I was resending to an opens for I Think five editions in a row. And the results, I don't have them right in front of me, but basically the long and short of it was the results weren't great. The resend to unopens did not actually really increase my overall open rate and I think it caused more harm than good. I'll have to surface those results and maybe share them publicly because I remember coming away from it thinking like, oh, this is not, this is not the feature. I think it is meant to be and it isn't doing me really any good. And it's probably just annoying people more than anything, getting another email reminder in their inbox.

[A]

I like that one. I, I don't use that. I think I've used it twice, maybe because, you know, I might have sent an email that had like the subject line had like a spam trigger word or some reason that it didn't get opened. So that's when I've used it. But I don't use that. I've heard way too many horror stories of like, you know, you get way more spam complaints. You get all kinds of things because people are like, no, I actually did open the first one. I just didn't want you to know that I opened. Yeah, so stop sending this to me.

[B]

Absolutely. Like, you, like if you turn images off, for example, then the pixel isn't picked up and it looks like the esp. The ESP is like, oh, they didn't actually open it when they, they very well may have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do one more. And this is more on kind of the content strategy, sort of end of things. Not necessarily super newsletter focused, but I would recommend people to not post and ghost or send and forget and use the content from your newsletter in social media. Because I, I think a lot of us are of the mindset of like, well, I sent this out, everybody's now seen it. I don't have to talk about this again. I don't want to like bug people with this message again or I don't want to make people think I'm just regurgitating the same stuff or that I have nothing else to talk about. The onus is on us to ensure that our message, if we're proud of the content we're sharing, that our message is getting spread. And just because you sent it out to a subscriber doesn't mean that they opened it, doesn't mean that they saw it. And people like, I see Nicholas Cole, he's talked about the same thing for almost 10 years. He still Keeps talking about it just from different ways. Right. I think we should shamelessly reshare the content that we're already sending and vice versa. If you've written about it on social media and it got some traction, that doesn't mean you shouldn't write about it in your newsletter. So I guess my whole point is repurpose your content. Remix it. The self awareness that we have that we're sharing the same thing is like sometimes crippling, but I think it actually, I think we need to really ignore that. And I'm guilty of this a lot. So I guess this is more me just kind of airing my dirty laundry here and be like, hey, don't be like me. Do this more.

[A]

I feel like you're just subconsciously putting this in the episode so I start posting more about this. Maybe because I'm the worst at this.

[B]

Oh, you.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, me. I know, I know. Every week I'm like, dylan, I already shared that. I'm not sharing it again. And you're like, but you should share it again.

[B]

Share it more. Maybe we're both guilty of it then.

[A]

Yes, totally.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Um, no, that's a good one. Yeah. People get too hung up on talking about the same thing over and over and over again. When you look at the most popular businesses, the most popular creators, and that's all they do is talk about the same thing over and over again. It's obviously from a different angle, but you could literally talk about the same thing a hundred times and people are not going to remember that you said that. So everyone's not watching you like you're watching yourself.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Just remember that.

[B]

Exactly. They don't probably care much, sadly, but.

[A]

Truly, oh, so good. I'm excited to have this episode. To be able to send to people who email me with questions like this to be like, actually go here first and just actually here. Let's, let's end this with one thing because I could put together a quick list of things that you probably should have when you start.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So I think the four things that you need. You ready? An idea and a content template. Okay, so I, we already talked about this. Like, have an idea for what you're going to send. Have a template of like, okay, every week I'm going to send this one thing. Whether it's a deep dive, whether it's curating the news in a really interesting way, whether it's whatever your content template is. Right. Make sure it's valuable for a specific person. So that's like the one, the first Thing. The second one is an esp. So you're not sending from Gmail or whatever. But again, you could technically start with that one. If you just save emails in a list. Maybe you go to a trade show and you capture 25 emails and then you go start your newsletter, whatever it is. The third one was a form to collect emails. But honestly that's debatable. Don't even think you need it if you are just getting started. And an email address to send from. So Chanel reverse.com or DylanRrowthcurrency.net, like that specific thing so that you're not sending from Gmail because that can cause all kinds of issues from if you're using an ESP and that kind of thing. So I think that's really it. Like an idea, an audience member, a form or a way to collect emails. Again, it could just be handwritten.

[B]

Yeah. Copy paste and then.

[A]

Yeah. And an email address to send emails from.

[B]

I like it.

[A]

So super basic. Don't try and go build the most beautiful website in the world. If you don't have a website. You can start with Beehive. They'll build you one as you write your newsletter. You don't even need one. To be honest, in the beginning, I think people overcomplicate it and just. I want it to set the record straight that you can get started with so much less than you think. You need to build a successful newsletter and that kind of thing. Focus on all the crazy stuff later.

[B]

Yeah. I think what really matters is that. And we're seeing this more and more with the proliferation of newsletters and people writing them is you need a good idea and you need to share that idea in a new and interesting way. I think that that is really the thing that's going to separate people the wheat from the chaff, as they say. Because I mean, there's so much content. There's AI content. Content is a commodity. You just have to have a. A really good or really unique or really entertaining way of creating and sharing that content so that you can get people's attention and have them coming back for more.

[A]

Love it. Perfect. I think that's the. The end of this one. I think we've harped on some of these things.

[B]

I think so. I think so.

[A]

Everything else is a distraction. Just look at getting a good idea, a good piece of content that people are willing to talk about and share and that's pretty much all you need.

[B]

And then once you've done that and you've got a few subscribers you should check out Chanel's Growth Vault, which is full of stuff that she has not talked about in this episode, because it's not for somebody who is, like, not even sending their first edition. But once you're up and running, you should go to vault growthinverse.com and check out the Growth Vault, where there's, what, several dozen, if not, what, 50ish videos on what you can do to grow your newsletter, retain subscribers, and monetize. So there's your plug.

[A]

Look at you. I didn't even know you were going to say that. Thank you.

[B]

Oh, we don't have a sponsor.

[A]

We know I won't. Plus so you're going to do it for me.

[B]

I'm your hype girl.

[A]

Thank you. Thanks, Dylan.

[B]

Yeah, no problem.

[A]

All right, so once you do have subscribers, though, you should go check out some of our other videos and podcast episodes and let us know what you think in the comments. We are here to respond and create more content for you. So excited to keep doing that.

[B]

And if you strongly disagree with Chanel's stance here of not having a welcome sequence or a newsletter form, please let us know. We'd love to hear.

[A]

Yes, I love it. Please do. All right, we'll talk to you next time. Bye.