Creating a Newsletter for Your Design Group

Start a newsletter. Acquire subscribers organically. Send a welcome email and offer free advice, not a paid course. Clean your list every 7 days. Host a local meetup in your home. Shake some hands, make a toast. Ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, give them a pen and paper. Send a thoughtful follow-up email to those who attended, thanking them personally. Share a story about the meetup in your next newsletter; make it warm and human. Print business cards, but only hand them out to people who genuinely ask. Keep the design simple—just your name, your newsletter, and a single sentence that captures its essence. Invite a guest to co-write an edition of your newsletter, someone whose perspective contrasts or complements your own. Interview them over coffee, not Zoom, and include a photo from your meeting in the email. Give away something unexpected—a playlist, a handwritten postcard, or a favorite recipe. Celebrate milestones, like your 100th subscriber, by sharing what you’ve learned so far. Host a virtual meetup, but make it quirky. No slides. Just a casual Q&A, or a live demo of something you’ve mentioned in your newsletter. Let it feel unscripted, imperfect, real. Ask your readers what they need, not what you want to sell them. Run a survey, not to mine data but to spark ideas. When you write about their feedback, give credit to individuals by name. Print out your newsletter, fold it neatly, and mail it to your friends with a handwritten note that says, “Pass this along to someone you think would enjoy it.”

I’m at my favourite cafe, sipping my first americano, and it hit me, launching a newsletter is stupidly easy. Might as well write a LinkedIn post about it. (Damn, what’s in this americano?) Here’s how to launch a newsletter that won’t die in 3 weeks, and won’t burn you out. (Note: I do this for a living. Built 47 newsletters. This is my exact 90-day blueprint.) 1) Weeks 1-2: Don't touch Beehiiv just yet. Instead: - Subscribe to 15-20 newsletters in your space - Screenshot what made you open each email - Note which ones you actually finish reading - Write down 5 things you loved + 5 things that sucked Best research you’ll ever do. 2) Week 3: This week, create one Google Doc with: - Who you're writing for ("30-year-old SaaS founders who hate writing" not "entrepreneurs") - Your unique angle - Newsletter length - Section structure (I use: Story → Lesson → Action) Most people skip this. 3) Week 4: - Design like you mean it - Then make it pretty - Spend 80% of your design time on the signup page 4) Weeks 5-6: - Now you write your first 2 issues. Here's a secret: - Write like it costs you nothing - Edit like every word costs $50 - Have trusted friends read it, ask them where they got bored - Delete those bits 5) Weeks 7-12: Experiment like a mad scientist! Launch with your 2 perfect issues. Then run 1-2 experiments every week for 6 weeks: - Week 7: Test subject lines - Week 8: Try different send times - Week 9: Change your intro style - Week 10: Add/remove sections - Week 11: Test newsletter length - Week 12: Experiment with CTAs Wait 6 issues before making big changes. Most "overnight success" newsletters spent 3 months in the lab first. Fin. P.S. What's stopping you from starting your newsletter? (genuinely curious)

The worst way to build a newsletter is to plan for it to be perfect. Instead, it should simply be authentic and valuable. Start small, stay consistent, and create value for your readers. ^This is one of the many practical tips I learned from Laura Krantz McNeill in her session for The Growth Tribe. The rest are too good not to share: Here’s how to get started: 1. Define your purpose (are you building thought leadership, generating leads, or creating a community?) 2. Start small (launch an MVP, and refine it later) 3. Identify your audience (set out to solve their problems, not yours) 4. Choose key metrics (and don't get hung up on the rest) Then, pick the right platform for your goals: → Substack: For simple, social, interactive emails → Beehiiv: For monetization & referral growth → ConvertKit: For product sales & advanced automations Throughout the process, keep to these best practices: → Keep it concise — deliver value in digestible chunks (ex. event reflections, FAQs, quick tips) → Include polls, Q&A, or user-generated content (to go from a monologue to a dialogue) → Stay consistent by choosing a sustainable frequency (a monthly cadence often suffices) Once you’re ready to grow, use these tactics: → Leverage LinkedIn → Share it in relevant communities → Collaborate with other newsletter authors And if you’re ever stuck on content ideas: → Focus on specific, narrow topics ("one-inch picture frames") → Dive into personal stories — authenticity wins every time → Keep it low-effort — curated links, article summaries or interesting stats are always valuable - I hope these tips help!! Thank you Laura Krantz McNeill for making newsletters feel far less intimidating than they seem. If you’ve been thinking about starting a newsletter, what’s been holding you back?

Newsletter operators are lonely (apparently). A guy analyzed 16,271 Reddit posts on newsletters, and community/support was the biggest pain point. Here’s how to build a community of friends you can build alongside: When you hit a wall, the wrong question to ask is “What’s the answer?” The right question is “Who’s the answer?” Every big leap I’ve made in newsletters came from a person, not a blog post. Here’s how I’ve built that kind of network (and how you can copy it): 1. Be a “reply guy” Pick 20 operators you respect. Turn on notifications for them. For 2 months, reply thoughtfully to everything they post. Then DM them. Tell them you love their content and want to jam/trade notes. That’s how I met my buddy Wouter Teunissen. In 2023, I launched a crypto newsletter (Nifty Nest) that I eventually sold to The Milk Road newsletter. Wouter had sold over a million dollars in ads for Milk Road - I thought who better to learn ad sales from? Our first call - Jan 23, 2024 - was 20 minutes and completely changed how I sold Nifty’s ad inventory. That one chat turned into trading playbooks, warm intros, and a cool friendship. 2. Build a content diet Train your algorithm to feed you the skill you want to build. For 60 days, only like, comment, and share newsletter content. Result: your feed starts showing you tactics, case studies, and people you should know. You’ll learn faster and spot opportunities you’d otherwise miss. 3. Join the right rooms If you’re a beginner, the beehiiv community is a great place to get unstuck fast. If you have >1,000 subs, join the Growth in Reverse Pro community (run by Chenell Basilio - she’s awesome!); you’ll meet operators who push your execution. 4. Show up where operators gather IRL There are great newsletter/operator events year-round: one in May, another in October, plus a strong Austin scene. The Newsletter Conference by Ryan Sager and Jesse Watkins is where I met a lot of my closest newsletter friends. Go. Have hallway chats. One good conversation can save you six months of trial-and-error. 5. Create regular in-person or live touchpoints If your city has operators: DM 10 people, pick a café/co-working spot, and work together for 1 hour a day. Share wins, swap subject lines, and debug funnels. If it doesn’t: run a remote daily hour (Zoom + silent work + quick debrief). I do stuff like this for my biz - I joined some fancy gym that IMO sucks, but I love the group of guys I get to hang out with there. Worth it! Takeaway: Keep the flywheel spinning (online → DM → call → Slack → IRL) Architect your time so everything compounds: • Content diet: your feeds teach you newsletters. • Reply cadence: Comments earn you DMs. • DMs → calls: calls turn into Slack groups. • Slack → IRL: IRL turns peers into friends. • Friends → leverage: warm intros, shared templates, faster decisions. That’s the game. Surround yourself with awesome people and you’ll engineer your own luck.