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Discover how the best media brands and solo operators are winning at newsletter growth & monetization.
Hosted by SparkLoop's cofounder Louis Nicholls and SparkLoop's newsletter nerd, Dylan Redekop—we take you behind the scenes and share the strategies, trends, and tactics you need to know to build your email audience and revenue.
Featuring exclusive interviews with the smartest media experts and operators out there today. Including from the Hustle, Morning Brew, Workweek, The Pour Over, and more.
EP43 - Alex Brogan
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Dylan Redekop: [00:00:00] Before we dive into this episode, I wanted to take a quick 15 seconds to tell you about the Send Grow newsletter. If you love the content you get on this podcast, you'll absolutely love the Send Grow newsletter. Get newsletter deep dives, actionable tips, and resources every week. Sign up now at sparkloop.
app slash newsletter. Link is in the show notes. Now back to the episode.
Alex Brogan: I found that the ROI on time spent for cross from emotions was not worth the effort. And I think that is particularly the case in a world of organic recommendations and paid recommendations. There are just much easier pathways. To tap into other newsletters.
Dylan Redekop: Welcome to the send and grow podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Redkoff. In my day job at Sparkloop, I spent all my time analyzing how the best newsletter operators and media brands in the world grow and monetize their audiences. I get a behind the scenes look at how they're growing their newsletters and driving revenue.[00:01:00]
And there is so much to learn from their success and from their mistakes. With this podcast, you get that access too. Every week, I sit down with a different guest from industry experts to successful operators, and we go deep on the stuff that you need to know, so you can become really effective at growing and monetizing your newsletter.
Today on the Send Grow podcast, I'm chatting with Alex Brogan, the brains behind the Faster Than Normal newsletter. Faster Than Normal started out as a passion project, but has quickly grown, faster than normal, into a must read for over 70, 000 subscribers. Alex's journey is not just a story of growth, but a blueprint for newsletter success.
Navigating the challenges of scaling a newsletter, engaging with a diverse audience, and turning a free newsletter into a profitable venture. The most impressive part is he's done it twice. He co founded, launched, and sold another newsletter in under a year. It's pretty safe to call Alex a newsletter expert, and we dive in on his strategic use of social media, innovative monetization methods, and commitment to providing unparalleled value, [00:02:00] which have all set Faster Than Normal apart.
Alex, welcome to the show. To kick things off. Can you tell us about faster than normal and what inspired you to start it?
Alex Brogan: Yeah, I'd love to. So I have been in a content creation game alongside operational roles for about two years now, which has gone wildly quickly, but it's been very enjoyable and surpassed all expectations, which is awesome.
So I started writing on Twitter about two years ago and on the back of that, Had a newsletter at the time, which was called Mental Models, Concepts and Frameworks, a mouthful in a lot of ways. And that evolved or has evolved into faster than normal now. And in the past, although we will touch on some upcoming changes that has primarily targeted a self improvement type audience.
So not overly discerning with the exact target [00:03:00] reader. However, yeah, that's in the, that's in the process of changing. So we're at about 70, 000, 70, 000 subscribers currently, and it's been a, it's been quite a journey. And when did you start faster than normal? So it started in. Technically in March, 2022, but I started taking newsletters seriously at the end of 2022.
And at that point in time, change the name of my newsletter to faster than normal.
Dylan Redekop: Great. So operating as fast as normal for just over a year or so now, taking the newsletter more seriously in just over a year. So we're in February for, um, for anybody listening. So, you know, you've got 70, 000 subscribers, which is, which is an impressive feat, especially considering the length of time you've been, you know, quote unquote, taking it seriously.
Right. I'd love to first talk to you about how you went from Your original newsletter name, not really taking it super seriously to, you know, [00:04:00] fast forward, almost two years later, where you've been taking it seriously for the last year, growing it to 70, 000 plus subscribers. Um, what have you done that's, you know, caused the biggest inflection points in growth
Alex Brogan: along the way?
Yeah. So I think there's probably been four or five things which have been central to my, my growth. A lot of the newsletter growth has ultimately coincided with my growth on Twitter and LinkedIn. And that journey started in 2022, first off with Twitter. I was lucky to join Twitter at a time when the algorithm was still being very favorable to, to threadmakers.
And so it got on the back of, of that bandwagon and, and grew very quickly to about 200, 000 followers in the space of less than 12 months, I think it was. So. Had a lot of growth on the back of that as many newsletter operators would have observed in the last 12 months in particular, LinkedIn has become much more fertile ground for growing social [00:05:00] media and also a newsletter on the back of that.
And Conversion also seems to be greater on LinkedIn as well. So they've been central. They've been absolutely central, specific inflection points. And I'm sure a lot of other newsletter operators would attest to this was certainly when recommendations became commonplace, like paid
Dylan Redekop: recommendations.
Alex Brogan: Paid recommendations, also organic recommendations, the combination of the two, I think when, if you're able to partner with a highly aligned newsletter and tap into that flow, really, really powerful.
And I, I've certainly tapped into that with faster than normal and with sparkly. That was an inflection point refined as well for me has been something that I've found useful from a autopilot growth perspective, given that I've been doing this as a very much a part time [00:06:00] responsibility. And so I've put a high premium on something that's low touch, similar to spark loop and other recommendation engines.
So overall social media growth. Recommendations and refined have been the central figures in the growth
Dylan Redekop: story. Okay. Awesome. So a little bit of organic work, which obviously takes more time with social media, Twitter, LinkedIn, and then a little bit of paid growth with spark loop and refined, which I know we had.
Bill Kerr on the podcast a little while back. He's from Open Source CEO. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. And, uh, he was the first person on our podcast who's ever mentioned Refind as a, a good growth source, paid growth, but a good growth source. And for a while he said he was driving really low CPAs and, uh, really getting really great quality subscribers there as well.
So, uh, were you, was that a similar experience with you for you? Definitely.
Alex Brogan: Yeah. And it's the law of the click [00:07:00] throughs, as I call it, in the sense that any new marketing channel has a very low CPA initially. And then as more people discover the channel, that will start to increase over time. And I think Refind had that sweet spot maybe for the last six months of last year.
It's starting to change a little bit as more, more people are aware of it now, but yeah, that was, uh, my, uh, A great driver for
Dylan Redekop: a period of time. We've talked a decent amount about, you know, paid recommendations from a sparkly perspective. And I don't want this to be a sparkly promotional show, but I am curious how refined works in terms of paid.
Can you, for those who don't know, can you just give us a really short, like Cole's notes on how it works? We'd
Alex Brogan: love to. I think the beauty of it is that it's completely self service. So you can sign up to the ad manager and input a link to a newsletter, a CTA. And your categories that you target, then you'll put in a cost per [00:08:00] acquisition that you'd like to target and a budget, a daily budget.
That's about all that you do aside from connecting your payment card as well. And then Refind will automatically insert you into their most relevant categories that they have. And for those that aren't aware of what Refind is, it's basically A link aggregator for specific topics. You might have mental wellness, you might have finance, you might have marketing, so on and so forth.
And they aggregate links from aggregate and curate links from across the internet and put them into a nice, short, succinct newsletter that is very readable and a good way to discover new blogs, websites, et cetera. So yeah, that's been really effective.
Dylan Redekop: Amazing. Thanks for that breakdown. I think it's the most, the most we've had it discussed on the show.
So I appreciate that. What did you find in terms of while you're experimenting with growth? What did you find that you tried that [00:09:00] didn't work as well as you thought? It would.
Alex Brogan: The one that really stands out is cross promotions. I found that the ROI on time spent for cross promotions was not worth the effort.
And I think that is particularly the case in a world of organic recommendations and paid recommendations. There are just much easier pathways to tap into other newsletters, which is a very good. Domain to be tapping into, but it takes a lot of time to go to relative websites to reach out to newsletters that want to do a cross promotion to trade the copy that you're going to include, et cetera, et cetera.
And so I think that overall. Whilst I'm sure it was very effective in the past when recommendations weren't as popular, I think isn't, isn't as effective now. So that has probably been the core one that stands out to me. Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: I think it's a matter of, um, [00:10:00] especially if you have the time and you don't have the budget to put into it, then cross promotions can be.
It can work out if, if you like, you're sending, you know, lots of pitches and you don't mind doing the back and forth with the other collaborator. But if you're a little more time strapped and you know, a lot of, especially at the beginning, a lot of newsletter writers are also doing a full time job quite often.
So time isn't necessarily something they have a lot of. So I could see that being definitely a bit of a draining exercise that Maybe you have, we'll have disappointing results. So it makes
Alex Brogan: sense. A hundred percent on that point, Dylan, I think it's a really good one that you make. And one of the frameworks that I love to think about when speaking to new newsletter operators is ultimately you have a set of resources that you can bring to bear on your newsletter growth.
That can be time that can be money. Or that can be skills and knowledge of a specific platform. So you might know Facebook ads [00:11:00] extremely well. You might know a LinkedIn organic growth extremely well. Deciding your growth strategy, lots of conversations around growth strategy tend to be quite prescriptive in that X and Y is the best way to grow a newsletter.
That's not the case in general. Of course, there are growth methods that can allow you to get more scale quickly, but ultimately reflecting on. Your unique resources is the most important way of approaching growth. So if you have lots of time to commit to the exercise, then organic social media is going to make sense for you.
Right. Cost promotions are going to make sense for you. Awesome. Lead magnets are going to make sense for you. If you have capital to throw at the exercise, then Facebook ads, Twitter ads. Et cetera, is going to make sense to you. And similarly, as I mentioned with, with the skills and knowledge. So it's really a matter of reflecting on your unique capabilities and the resources you can bring to bear, and then learning into those as much as possible.
Probably [00:12:00] has to
Dylan Redekop: do a little bit as well. And that's a great framework too. So thanks for sharing that Alex. And I think it depends on your goals and how quickly you want to reach them as well. Right. If you're playing a, Maybe a long time horizon kind of game where you're just, you know, you're bootstrapping this thing and you're just, you're okay with it taking a little bit longer, then yeah, you might, you might leverage your, your time.
Right. Whereas somebody who's like, no, I want to build this thing as fast as I can. Like let's build this rocket ship and let's go. Then obviously you're going to leverage more of the, uh, the paid aspect because that can go a little bit quicker.
Alex Brogan: Totally. Yeah. I think, I think it hits on a really good point and it's a, it's a meta discussion that you get into around.
Growth isn't the be all and end all. And I think as I've actually been in the newsletter space for longer, I'd very much realize that. And it's easy to optimize for the headline numbers as it is on social media. It's the vanity metrics that everyone tends to obsess about, but ultimately there are phenomenal newsletters making millions of dollars per year with 10, 000 subscribers.
And [00:13:00] if you are very thoughtful and intentional about the audience that you target and ultimately beautiful. And build something really great for them, then you'll be far better off than chasing just high headline numbers in a somewhat irrelevant or highly crowded niche. So I think that's really important to level set and be highly intentional about what you're actually optimizing for.
Dylan Redekop: Absolutely. We've had a number of operators on here who have Definitely well under, you know, 100, 000 subscribers closer to, you know, 30 to 50 and they're making 300, 500, 600, 000 a year, one close to a million. And so it definitely can happen with the right package of content, product offerings and that sort of thing too.
So definitely doesn't have to be a numbers game in terms of get the most subscribers as fast as possible because usually that isn't necessarily a winning formula all the time. Yeah,
Alex Brogan: so it's, yeah, sorry, go on. No, no, it's okay. I was going to make a [00:14:00] reference to the, the AI newsletter cries. And, uh, yes, please do.
The only thing that really mattered was whether you were the largest, the world's largest AI newsletter. Yes. But anyway, that's a, that's a different story.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I mean, and I'm talking about a crowded marketplace and it was a bit of a. First to market kind of, um, race, right? Like who, who could kind of build the, the biggest, best AI newsletter?
Well, I'm not even necessarily best. The biggest AI newsletter, the fastest. And, you know, we're, we're going to start seeing the fallout of that, I think in the next little while here. But, uh, it was, it was definitely interesting to watch that whole sector explode. You know, it, it did a lot for the newsletter world as well, because there was a lot more.
There's a lot more going on. I should say with newsletters, people are leveraging that for sure as a medium to, to capitalize on, you know, chat, GVT and Dolly and all this stuff that was coming out. That was really exciting. So it was interesting to see, but you definitely saw that, uh, big spend and big push to grow these huge AI newsletters.
So, uh, there are some winners, but many [00:15:00] losers in that game. Absolutely. So I want to know, Just lastly, on this growth topic, what do you think more newsletters should be doing from a growth standpoint, or, or maybe what's the biggest mistake you see a lot of newsletters making? You can answer either or both of those questions if
Alex Brogan: you want.
I think the framework that I like the most is actually from the startup world, which is around optimizing for product market fit first and being very sure on The value that you're providing the job to be done, so to speak that your newsletter is actually fulfilling and whether you're doing that in the most effective way possible.
Ultimately, when it comes down to it, adding new subscribers into a leaky bucket or An unengaged product is going to be pouring money down the drain, so the higher the engagement in your list, the more advertisers will want to work with you, the more clicks you will be [00:16:00] getting, the more affiliate option is you have, the more digital course option is you have, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But none of optimizing the product first. And I think way too many newsletters Start obsessing over growth too early. And in the startup world, I think there's a much better understanding and approach to this, which is that anything before product market fit is basically irrelevant. You're not spending time on customer acquisition outside of, of course, customer validation.
You're not spending time on Intense company building or optimizing your profitability model or things like that. Yeah. It's just been hyper focused on, on the product itself, getting feedback from your early subscribers and iterating quickly on, on the product such that when you do pull the growth whether it's money or time into the growth leaders, you can be sure that that time [00:17:00] spent is actually going to produce a high ROI.
And I think a lot of people similar to the thread of. Optimizing for vanity metrics, get obsessed with growth too early and don't actually optimize the product and really understand who it is they're building for and how they're fulfilling a need for them. So that would be the, that would be the biggest one there.
Dylan Redekop: That's a great, a really great point. And we just had Chanel Basilio on the podcast who writes the growth and reverse newsletter. And she kind of took The approach you just mentioned, she really doubled down on quality, focused on in depth research on all of the deep dives she was writing. And she did do some, you know, she didn't do any paid growth.
Everything was organic, like being active on social media, but she, She wasn't, you know, going viral every day and growing her, her newsletter with tens and if not hundreds of thousands of followers. It was just that her content was so good. It naturally was like everybody was sharing it and saying, wow, I can't believe, I can't believe, [00:18:00] you know, this a newsletter is being written and it's free and it's like, this is amazing.
So I wholeheartedly agree. I think that is something that We're actually probably going to see more of in the next year. I think a lot of the, because when, when we get a very saturated newsletter market in all types of topics, the niche doesn't necessarily even matter. Just you can only read so many newsletters in your inbox.
You're going to start ignoring or unsubscribing the ones that just don't. Do the job for you. Uh, what have that job might be, whether it's to inform, entertain, educate, whatever it is. And so I think it's really going to come down to the really high qualities. Those are going to rise to the surface and they're going to, they're probably going to, you know, win at least in the short term.
So. I think focusing on quality is something I think is ultra important and should be the number one focus. So very, very good point. I want to talk about the intelligence age and you started the intelligence age, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you co, was it [00:19:00] a co founded, co founded it? And you know, we were just talking about AI newsletters.
It was an AI newsletter and you did recently sell it just within the last month. So, I'm really curious about that journey. Let's start off maybe with the question of, did you start the intelligence age to, with the intention to sell it or, or was it just something out of, uh, curiosity
Alex Brogan: and interest? Yeah.
Interesting. So we were, I was founded the intelligence age with my cousin. Uh, Casey and a close friend Isaac as well. And Isaac and Casey both have spent a large portion of their careers in AI building ML algorithms for cardiovascular imaging and various, various things quite, quite deep in the space, which obviously isn't my world.
And so the initial idea was actually to With with much of a longer term time horizon about what we were interested in doing in the space, and that was likely to start, which my cousin Casey is now actually working [00:20:00] on a I automation agency, and we thought that having a distribution lever would be very added to that plan, and ultimately, when we combine sort of my year or 15 months of learnings on faster than normal and Casey and Isaac's knowledge of AI.
It made a lot of sense given that, you know, so much attention was, was being given to the space and we could really justify going on that journey. So no, we, we didn't intend to, to sell it. And as is often the case, it's very much just, uh, priorities changing scenario and ultimately, yeah, we were, we're happy with the offer that we got in the end and it made sense.
So yeah, it was, it was quite a journey, but in the end, glad we did it. We learned a lot during the process as well, and, you know, got to take something from, from zero to, to acquired as well, which is, [00:21:00] uh, which is a good experience.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, no kidding. What were some of the biggest learnings you had in that, uh,
Alex Brogan: in that journey?
I think one of the most interesting ones from a growth perspective is And this happens across all of media and is a really fundamental law or principle of media. And that is.
Dylan Redekop: We'll be right back to this conversation after a quick word from our sponsor. At SparkLube, newsletter operators are always asking us for recommendations with questions like who creates the best content on building a newsletter?
Which social ads agency should I work with to grow my newsletter? Who can help me figure out how to sell more newsletter ads? So, we created the ultimate resource for newsletter operators, our Certified Experts Directory. We found the best, most trusted media and service providers in the newsletter space, and we put them all in one directory for you to use.
Take your newsletter to the next level. with our free [00:22:00] certified experts directory. Check it out at the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode. What were some of the biggest learnings you had in that, uh, in that journey?
Alex Brogan: I think one of the most interesting ones from a growth perspective is And this happens across all of media and is a really fundamental law or principle of media.
And that is once you've built a media asset, it becomes much easier to bootstrap and launch and successfully launch. New media properties, and you've seen this across multiple different spaces, whether it be morning brew launching with their business newsletter first and then expanding to different categories, whether it be Harry Stebbings releasing 20 BC expanding into different categories of time.
There are countless examples. You've seen it in the AI newsletter space with folks like Zain [00:23:00] Khan leveraging his existing audience to grow superhuman extremely quickly. And ultimately, we were able to leverage my existing audience very successfully and also faster than normal as well as a newsletter from a recommendation standpoint.
Okay. And overall that meant the assets we could bring to bear, so to speak, on growing that newsletter very quickly was a lot more than we otherwise would have had. So I think that's the first point. I think the second point is compounding and compounding in the sense that when you start to have learnings in a space as As I probably had in, in newsletters by, by that point in time, you just don't realize how much easier it becomes.
And I think so often you can get 12 months into something and it can feel like This is too hard. I'm not seeing the traction that I want to say, et cetera, et cetera. [00:24:00] And then it's only in those next two, three months that things really start to take over and compound. And this is, it's the classic type of advice that you hear, which is, which you can know intellectually.
But you don't feel it viscerally and live by it. And I think bridging the gap between that intellectual knowledge of the idea of compounding being a good thing and actually doing it, the quicker you can bridge that gap. I live by it. The faster your results in, in general will be, um, the more long term success that you can have.
And I think it's, it's quite ironic that the AI news that occurs is probably the best possible example of this shiny, shiny object sort of syndrome that, that, that folks have. And, um, You know, there's a chance that we might have fallen into that category, but there's also the argument that we're able to execute on that opportunity quite well, given the learnings that we [00:25:00] had.
And so it made a lot of sense, given that we were continuing to compound, and I think just too often people jump ship or impatient before they actually see results. And ultimately, anything can work so long as you're willing to put in the time and. Be patient. Yeah, that makes,
Dylan Redekop: you know, patience is a, is a true virtue, especially when it comes to something like building a newsletter.
You weren't looking to, you didn't start the newsletter looking to sell it, the intelligence age. Uh, so did an offer come to you or was it something that you reached out to a potential buyers?
Alex Brogan: Yeah, correct. So we didn't start it with the intention of selling it. We got to a point late last year where we started to become open to the idea.
I think with these things, it's often never a let's sell it type moment. It's more a gradual progression. And for us, that was a matter of our priorities changing and it becoming clear that if we were to get a, get an offer that was, feasible, then we would, we would [00:26:00] explain it. And what that looked like was first actually thinking about who the best types of buyers for the asset would be.
And what I mean by that is, and this may be some of my sort of investment banking background coming into it, but ultimately you can have different types of buyers and the value of the newsletter can be different to those types of buyers. So. If you were to sell directly to a newsletter, for example, the newsletter itself would be valued on a subscriber basis.
If you were to sell it to a AI SaaS company or a AI consultancy, for example, they would think about that asset in a very different way, mostly from a lead generation perspective. And so for us getting clear on, Where most of the value or who would be most valuable to first was, was quite, quite important.
And then starting to, [00:27:00] to reach out in a mostly a, Hey, we're considering what it would look like to sell X. Do you know anyone that would be interested? And that was really what, yeah, where we started and it delved out from there. We started conversations with a number of groups. got a few offers along the way, started conversations with the Neuron in probably January and chatted over the course of about two months, it was, and yeah, ultimately we were able to come to terms on something that made sense to both of us and hit go.
So it was relative to what a sales process can be and particularly given Pete and Noah had a bit of experience buying other Newsletter assets in the not so distant past, it was a pretty painless process.
Dylan Redekop: So you guys were acquired by the Neuron, which is another AI newsletter, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great.
And so for research for this interview, I was just [00:28:00] looking back at your latest post on the intelligence age. The newsletter that you sold to the neuron, and it looks like they have kind of sent out a final email about a week ago under the intelligence age brand to subscribers, basically letting them know it's going to be kind of wrapped into the neuron and the next newsletter they'll see is, is from them.
How does it feel as somebody who's like, kind of, you know, put a, put a little bit of blood, sweat and tears into a brand and a, and a list and all that to see it just kind of, I mean, you get the revenue from the sale, but at the same time, it's like, I'm curious because for me that would feel like a little bit like you're sending your your child off to college but them not necessarily coming back kind of thing.
Uh, did you have any interesting feelings over that?
Alex Brogan: A few things. I think the first one would be we felt the asset itself was going to be in much better hands with Peter Noah. They have, I think, been the definition of anyone in, in the space putting blood, sweat and thoughtfully about [00:29:00] brand. More so than pure top line numbers.
And I think that they're being handsomely rewarded for that. And that will play out over, over a period of time as well. So that's the first thing ultimately we didn't feel that we could. Maximize the utility for subscribers, given our time commitment to it, I think it was always a side project for us as well.
It wasn't a full time focus. And so, yeah, it didn't quite feel like a baby. Obviously, it was something that we put It's a fair amount of time into, but I didn't quite feel like a baby. Um, so yeah, it was, it was pretty comfortable and, and painless in the end and it just made sense. It felt like the right move.
So yeah, overall, very
Dylan Redekop: happy. Okay. Very good. Let's get into Just for sake of time, I got some other, I had some other questions about the sale, but let's get into some revenue because obviously, you know, selling a newsletter, there's got to be quite often, there's got to be a little bit of revenue tied to it.
But in terms of [00:30:00] faster than normal, how did you start monetizing with faster than normal? And then what was like maybe your first form of revenue? And then how are you currently monetizing it?
Alex Brogan: Absolutely. So sponsored, uh, newsletters, main advertisements started probably at around 10, 000 subscribers, give or take started getting inbound at that point.
And how it's evolved is to add on newsletter affiliates, been recommendations as well. So using sparkly and, and those, um, Other affiliate products and services within newsletter. And I've recently, or as of about three months ago, I released some digital products as well. So that is starting to, to play out too.
So yeah, a few, a few layers there.
Dylan Redekop: Cool. And, uh, we'll talk about your digital projects really soon. Uh, before we do, I'm curious, is there, can you give like a approximate, like revenue sort of pie chart on. Yeah. On a percentage [00:31:00] of, you know, ads to affiliates to recommendations kind of thing? Yeah, totally. So I think For digital products?
I
Alex Brogan: think ads would be at least 60%. Okay. Digital products, 20 to 25. Okay. And then, um, the remaining, yeah, affiliates. Okay. Between newsletters and products. So
Dylan Redekop: the remaining 15 ish percent Yeah. Affiliates and Okay. Okay, cool. Um, and, you know, I'm curious, since you sold one newsletter already and seem to have a pretty, uh, Good experience doing that.
Are you planning on selling faster than normal at some point? Definitely not. No.
Alex Brogan: Okay. Yeah. I, I see this. More so as my baby relative to the intelligence age, I think given that it's been my sole project and something that I have spent, you know, a lot of time on and, and also it's a community that I've engaged with, you know, a lot more.
And so I feel quite a close connection to it. I think the other point being that where I'm looking to go personally in, in my career, uh, I list. [00:32:00] And having a inbuilt community is a very healthy thing. And I think more people are becoming aware of this, you know, relative to having a social media audience, actually having a list, irrespective of what you're doing in business, but it's certainly.
allows you to go faster in, in different areas, get feedback to hire, raise money if you need to. Obviously, it's another income stream. There's lots of, lots of benefits to having a good size list. And yeah, ultimately I find it really enjoyable. I'm writing about things that I'm interested in as well. And that.
To me, it feels like a infinite game. So I don't plan to sell it.
Dylan Redekop: I love it. I love it. And one thing too with, uh, you know, email list versus the, versus a social media audience, which, which is helpful for growth, of course, but, um, you kind of de risk a lot of your effort when you're, you're also building a list simultaneously, right?
Because though you don't, you don't have to. necessarily own, I guess your, your email because, you know, Gmail maybe [00:33:00] could shut down or whatever ESP you're using could technically shut down. But at the same time you, you do own the distribution to that list, right? So you can stay in communication. If all of a sudden Twitter turns to X and then it turns to something that doesn't exist anymore, because who knows what Elon might've done, you know, you at least have that list to fall back on.
So very good strategy to. a monetize and to to kind of de risk your your time and um, in time investment really on growing these audiences. I wanted to ask you just to close out here. You've had a successful newsletter exit. You've seen, you know, lots of success growing faster than normal. Uh, so you've had A lot of experience building profitable newsletters and now selling them.
And you've recently launched the digital product that you alluded to earlier, a course called newsletter mastery. Can you tell us a little bit more about newsletter mastery? Because I think, you know, people listening to this right now could probably benefit from it. So yeah, enlighten us.
Alex Brogan: Yeah, I would love to know.
Thanks. Thanks Dylan. Yeah. The course itself wasn't something [00:34:00] I planned on doing initially, actually, but it became clear through a lot of the conversations I was having with folks In the early stages of starting their newsletters that there wasn't necessarily a one stop shop for zero to one and then to scale for newsletters and really having that delivered in a succinct and very actionable way.
And. Frankly, a lot of the, a lot of the playbooks that I was able to include in the course, ultimately were things that I spent a lot of time working on and had sort of readily available to a leverage to, to put into the course. That's the first thing. And, and actually further on that, I was, I was lucky to actually partner with Navigary who has been responsible for the growth of a lot of awesome newsletters, including, uh, Milk Road.
and several others. He was happy to produce the growth [00:35:00] units in that or pay growth units, the very least. So that's awesome. And then demand curve actually included a short module on deliverability aspects, which is a little bit more technical and complex in that job. So it was really happy to partner with those guys who got a lot of relevant experience in, in those areas.
And the course, I think someone at all stages could get something out of it. Maybe if you're already a hundred thousand subscribers and heavily monetized, you, you won't, but if you're starting off, it goes through everything from finding a profitable niche, which we spoke about at the beginning of the conversation, the importance of building a brand, really understanding your job to be done, setting up your newsletter.
design wise, et cetera, and how to think about growth, the framework I mentioned, and then all the growth channels you can actually be considering, um, which ones are worth your time [00:36:00] and how to think about setting those up and actually executing them. And then In the monetization section, it goes into all the different ways you can monetize a newsletter, which ones are suited to specific newsletters the most and how to execute those as well.
So I didn't hold back as far as putting in everything that I had had learned and also resources and things like that. All sorts of stuff. And yeah, the early feedback has, has been really good. Um, had some early success stories from, from newsletter mastery and yeah, really excited for what that can do for, for more folks
Dylan Redekop: going forward.
Very cool. And just for people listening. If they are interested by how you've explained it, if it sounds like it's something they're interested in, you have a 50 percent discount code, correct? Yeah.
Alex Brogan: Yeah. So 15 percent discount, uh, the code is newsletter mastery. And if you head to my website, faster than normal.
co You should be able to find it and then just plug that [00:37:00] code in and
Dylan Redekop: check out sweet. And this would be a very good opportunity to go into our show notes to find that code because we will, um, we'll include the link and the code in there. So thank you for sharing that with the audience, Alex. That's awesome.
One last thing before we close out. We're two months into 2024. I'm curious. We've talked a little bit about newsletter mastery and digital products, but if we had you back on this podcast in what year, what would you hope you'd be talking about or what would you love to be talking about? Two things.
Alex Brogan: One is a successful transition to version 3.
0 of Faster Than Normal. And that will be very much aligning with my What I consider infinite game and long term interests, uh, which is very much entrepreneurship. So I'd like to serve CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs as best as possible. And the initial way that I'm planning on doing that is in a profile Manor of prolific [00:38:00] people and companies and really doing deep dives into those people and sharing their stories and also what we can learn from them along the journey.
So that's been an interesting exercise and I've got some good early feedback so far from folks who have seen some of the content and Yeah, I'd like to keep growing, but growing purposefully and growing with the right audience and those that are really going to resonate with, with the content as well.
So yeah, hoping that that goes as well as possible and excited to continue compounding the learnings.
Dylan Redekop: Good note to end on, purposeful, uh, maybe intentional growth as opposed to just, you know, growth for growth's sake. So that's a great point to end it on. So Alex, it's been awesome having you on, uh, maybe quickly share on social media where people can find you.
Yeah. So Twitter
Alex Brogan: at underscore Alex Brogan still haven't been able to get the Alex Brogan username, but hopefully that's possible at some point. Alex Brogan on, on LinkedIn as well. Great.
Dylan Redekop: And we'll link those too. So when you're going to [00:39:00] grab the link and the discount code, you can check those out too.
Alex, it's been great having you on. Thank you. Maybe we'll have to have you back in a year's time to see if we are talking about, uh, purposeful, intentional growth and stories. So let's do it. Um, all the best to you in 2024 and uh, we will be watching. Thanks for having me
Alex Brogan: Dylan. Thanks man. Been a pleasure.
Dylan Redekop: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Send and Grow podcast. If you like what you heard, here are three quick ways that you can show your support. Number one, leave us a five star rating and review in the podcast app of your choice. Number two, email or DM me with some feedback with your questions or with suggestions for future episodes.
And finally, number three, share your favorite quote from the episode on social media and tag both me and our guest. All of the links for that are available in the show notes. And whatever option you choose, I am really grateful for your support. Thanks, and see you next [00:40:00] week.