I built a product for newsletter writers with no-code and earned >$35k, AMA

Thanks Mahmoud. In my opinion, Mailbrew is the best tool for automatic curation and I use it for my newsletter SaaS Investing Digest. It pulls information from a myriad of sources including Twitter, Reddit, Google Alerts and more.

If you want to create something that is high signal there is no running away from hand-curation though. I read a ton of articles and check out many tools before selecting the best for my newsletter.

For a B2B newsletter it's important to have the latest news so make sure you are following the people / publications that are in the know, and filter the news for accuracy, as well as share tips that are relevant to the industry

• Shared it with my friends
• Had a tweet go viral and attached it on the back of that tweet
• Shared it on Indie Hackers

Thank you Harry, the love goes both ways!

Yes my sales' largest spikes were on:

• Pre-sale day (Twitter)
• Launch day (Twitter)
• Product Hunt launch day

I'm trying to drop it into places where the conversations veer towards people who are interested in starting, growing and/or monetizing a newsletter. I was very busy in March and my sales suffered because of that.

My customers seriously have been doing an amazing job at promoting my product, because I get a sale on average a day, even when I don't talk about it.

Active ways I've promoted it:

• Wrote threads about newsletters
• Done AMAs in different paid communities (mostly to give back to them or share about my journey, not so much for self-promotion haha)
• Have it on my newsletters' landing page
• I've taken out ads on a few newsletters before

1. I've been thinking about this but the nature of taxation & profit sharing does my head in! It is a good idea though and I know some people who have successfully done it. Are you planning on something like this?

2. Now I spend about 2h/week on average, between AMA appearances and tweeting about it / sharing about it and fielding emails. When I launched I spent way more time obsessing over copy, landing page and stuff.

3. I retweet their stuff if they share on Twitter that they've built their newsletter off Newsletter OS. Plus I try to be approachable and supportive of their work & side projects (giving shoutouts in my newsletter). I also try to keep my product updated, for free! This generates goodwill that makes them excited and happy to share.

Thanks Vidya, you've been such a huge supporter and I'm grateful.

Woo love the different challenge framing - way to take a different spin on things!

What resources would I have liked?

• Newsletter OS. That's why I built it. A guide / blueprint to help me grow.
• An understanding of where I can go to promote my newsletter and how to grow my Twitter account (since it IS a driver of newsletter growth)

My challenges:

1. Being too scared to actively promote my newsletter. I seriously wrote to 25ish people for 13 weeks before I exploded.
2. Not knowing how to leverage Twitter & communities to promote my newsletter
3. Sticking on my first ESP for too long and not wanting to promote my newsletter because I wanted to change ESPs and was afraid I'd lose people when I switched! After going through the switch, I would say it's really not a big deal if you're under 1k subscribers, so don't worry too much about ESPs.

Thanks Michael! Appreciate your help, support and friendship these past few months!

Hey there! Thank you!

1. I would first do no-code work on my own as a freelancer and figure out what kind of clients I enjoy working with, and want to target. I would also niche down on a few tools to begin with. It's not fun to be a no-code agency specializing in everything... because everything is boring.

I would become embedded in no-code communities (there is a LOT of work floating around in the communities I'm in, like On Deck No-Code). I would create a good portfolio of projects to show what I'm good at, and set up an intro call to explain how I can add value to someone's project.

The way I roll personally means I'd like to learn at least the basics of any tool / service I would offer, then I might find people who are subject matter experts in different areas / tool and bring them onboard. I'm not into 100% outsourcing. (But this is all hypothetical anyway as I don't have a no-code agency and neither do I have plans to run one)

2. I would first build a free list and grow it by creating tremendous value, then try to convert some of the free subscribers to paid. To be successful in any niche, you need credibility + visibility. Start building that + an audience in that niche first before you think of a paid newsletter! This is just one way of doing it.

Another way is to try to get subscribers through paid acquisition but that requires heavy investment. I prefer the long + value-add route.

Hey Daniel! Thanks for coming onto Indie Hackers to ask this question! I love it.

Three things.

1. I used to think that my product was tailored more towards beginner-intermediate level writers, and that advanced newsletter writers (with huge 5-figure audiences or advanced writing expertise) would not find value in it. I was wrong. Products created by "the little creator" can be useful for "bigger creators". In Newsletter OS' case, it was the "getting organized" aspect that was a huge draw for the more advanced newsletter writers/

2. You don't need to be an expert in a niche in order to be able to create products to support other creators. You do need some level of credibility, and have to exhibit a lot of passion, but you really don't have to be an expert if you have the correct partners. This is the case for me when I co-created Podcast OS with Josh.

3. My third observation is an insight I've gotten from my job at On Deck No-Code and my interactions with various communities including Indie Hackers. Creators want community. There are many brilliant minds who are amazing at creating stuff, but they can truly accelerate their journeys when they make connections with others who are doing the same in a positive-sum way.