Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

Get Esteban's 36k Subscriber Content Machine → growthinreverse.com/esteban/ ***Esteban Perez is the co-founder of the ADHD Weasel newsletter. Their newsletter has grown to over 36,000 subscribers and reached over 280,000 followers on Threads. But it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies. The cofounders first launched an app for food waste and discovered the hard way what happens when you don't validate your idea. Now, their newsletter is earning over $100k annually with 800+ paid subscribers. In this episode, Esteban shared how they go there, along with his most successful growth strategy - and their content strategy that allows a two-person team to post over 100 posts per week. KEY TAKEAWAYSHow a failed food waste app accidentally revealed the audience that became The ADHD WeaselThe "accidental" moment that convinced Esteban to launch a paid tierThe quiz that 6-7X'd conversions in one weekThe Threads posting system behind 4+ million viewsThe Meta ad format that worked because it didn't look like an adHow Esteban treats segments with a Substack newsletterThe platform Esteban believes has the most valuable subscribersThe weekly "bottleneck analysis" habit that everyone skipsLINKS MENTIONEDGet the 36K Subscriber Content Machine →ADHD Weasel — adhdweasel.comADHD Weasel on ThreadsEsteban's email — [email protected] ADHD Weasel Quiz (ADHD Weasel lead magnet)Publer (scheduling SOCIAL tool)FOLLOW ON SOCIALChenell: Twitter | LinkedInDylan: LinkedIn | Substack | InstagramOUR NEWSLETTERSgrowthinreverse.comgrowthcurrency.netSubscribe & Leave a Review:Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Get free access to Jay Clouse's Memberships Teardown including how he built The Lab: creatorscience.com/teardown***And you can take YOUR newsletter to the next level by joining our private community — GIR Pro >>***Jay Clouse, founder of Creator Science and The Lab, joined us live from Kit Studios in Boise. Jay pulls back the curtain on 4+ years of building one of the most enduring creator communities out there — from its origins as the Creative Companion Club to a 340-member operation with tiered access, mastermind groups, and a wait list. Jay shares what's worked, what's backfired (including the scarcity campaign that became his worst churn month ever), and what he's actively redesigning right now.KEY TAKEAWAYSWhy their highest-ever membership revenue month was followed by their worst churn monthThe difference between marketing levers that convert and the ones that serve your membersHow The Lab evolved from a 200-member cap to a tiered application modelThe "mid-boarding" gap that kills retention in most membershipsThe troubling paradox of community-led mastermind groupsThe two onboarding secrets Jay considers his unfair advantagesWhy offline events are a retention tool, not a growth toolWhat to think through before launching a membershipThe unexpected risk in scaling a community too quicklyLINKS MENTIONEDCreatorScience.com/teardownChenell on Jay's podcast: 1st Appearance || 2nd AppearanceFOLLOW ON SOCIALChenell: Twitter | LinkedInDylan: LinkedIn | Substack | InstagramOUR NEWSLETTERSgrowthinreverse.comgrowthcurrency.netSubscribe & Leave a Review:Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Stop losing subscribers with your onboarding — get Chenell's Subscriber Onboarding Course included in The Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault This episode is a live recording from the 2026 Newsletter Conference in New York City where Chenell sat down onstage with Tim Huelskamp, co-founder of 1440 — the daily digest for more than 4.7 million curious readers. Tim shares the full arc of 1440's growth: from 78 subscribers to a media company generating roughly $1M in revenue per employee, including the unconventional early tactics, the Facebook ad playbook that still runs today, and the ambitious new "Topics" platform they're building to become the Pinterest for knowledge. KEY TAKEAWAYSWhy Tim spent the first 7–8 months focused entirely on product before touching growth The counterintuitive decision to remove images from 1440 entirely The discovery that 3x'd sponsor revenue without adding a single new advertiserThe bet on their "Topics" platform: what "Pinterest for knowledge" actually looks like LINKS MENTIONED1440 Newsletter — 1440's daily digest (join1440.com)1440 Topics — 1440's new knowledge platform (1440.io/topics)WhoSponsorStuff — Newsletter sponsorship intelligence tool mentioned by Tim ("Ryan and Jesse's" tool)FOLLOW ON SOCIALChenell: Twitter | LinkedInDylan: LinkedIn | Substack | InstagramOUR NEWSLETTERSgrowthinreverse.comgrowthcurrency.netSubscribe & Leave a Review:Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Steve Kamb bought the domain for NerdFitness.com in 2007 and grew it into a 45-person, SEO-driven coaching company. But then he burned out. Badly. He demoted himself twice, and eventually stepped away from running the business entirely — all so he could do the one thing he actually loved: write. In this episode, Steve joins us to talk about his new book How to Try Again, the hard lessons from 17+ years of building Nerd Fitness, and why starting over isn't a failure — it's a skill. His PACT framework (Pause, Accept, Change, Try) offers a practical roadmap for any creator who's ever felt stuck, burned out, or tempted to quit.KEY TAKEAWAYSHow Steve built Nerd Fitness from a blog into a 45-person companyWhy he demoted himself out of his own CEO roleThe brutal reality of pandemic-era burnout and what it taught him about chasing the wrong thingsWhy "all or nothing" thinking almost always failsHis four-step PACT framework for starting over after burnout or failureThe question he asked that changed everythingWhy writing two articles a week for 10 years was the real engine behind Nerd FitnessThe danger of modeling celebrity success over relatable successHow Steve separated his personal brand from Nerd FitnessWhat success actually looks like for Steve nowLINKS MENTIONEDSteveKamb.comHow To Try Again (Steve's Book)NerdFitness.comKit — email platform used by Steve and the hostsFOLLOW ON SOCIALChenell: Twitter | LinkedInDylan: LinkedIn | Substack | InstagramOUR NEWSLETTERSgrowthinreverse.comgrowthcurrency.netSubscribe & Leave a Review:Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Check out the 30 Days of Growth: 30daysofgrowth.co/Get the Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault***Alyssa Dulin is Kit's deliverability expert. She joined us to pull back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood forces shaping newsletter success: deliverability. We sat down with her to unpack why emails land in spam, what the big Gmail and Yahoo changes really mean for individual creators, and how to build a sending reputation that lasts. From domain warmups to fake opens to bot clicks, this episode covers the stuff most newsletter creators won't learn until something goes wrong.KEY TAKEAWAYSThe custom domain mistake tanking open rates — and how to make the switchWhy your sender reputation works like a credit score, and what "starting at zero" actually means for deliverabilityThe top 3 subscriber engagement signals ranked by impactHow long you should wait before removing inactive subscribersWhat actually happens to your sender reputation if you take a break from sending Alyssa's deliverability checklist for newsletter creatorsHow to onboard Creator Network and "recommendation" subscribers without hurting deliverabilityThe uncomfortable truth about whether your open rates and click rates are even realHow AI inbox summaries are becoming the new gatekeeper between your email and your readerHow to safely increase your send frequency without triggering spam filtersLINKS MENTIONEDKit — email platform used by Alyssa and the hostsGoogle Postmaster Tools — monitor your domain reputation and complaint rates with GmailSendGauge — Alyssa's new deliverability intelligence platform (beta)Deliverability Defined Podcast — Alyssa's podcast with the deliverability back catalogKit deliverability support: [email protected] ON SOCIALChenell: Twitter | LinkedInDylan: LinkedIn | Substack | InstagramOUR NEWSLETTERSgrowthinreverse.comgrowthcurrency.netSubscribe & Leave a Review:Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.