Chenell Basilio - How to grow a newsletter empire(50K+ subscribers) on the Internet!

I think it comes back down to like putting out content that's unique or something different that people don't see every day is really going to be the thing that catapults you. Like you can run paid ads to any newsletter and you'll probably get a few subscribers, but if it's not something that people look at and they go, whoa, this is different, or whoa, this is saving me time, I think it's going to be really hard to take like the growth that you've started and really amplify that, if you will. So I really think it starts with content. I've gotten a lot of good feedback of people saying like, I read this every week, I look for this in my inbox, um, which is always a good sign. I think if you find something your audience really enjoys reading every single week, you're gonna have an easier time.

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I'm doing well. I appreciate it. Thank you, Sharath.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I first discovered your newsletter Growth in Reverse in March of this year, and I've been a big fan. You know, I'm a— that's one of the newsletters I open every week for sure, no matter what. That's how I learned about you, the way you do research, the way you give shoutouts to like the community and whatnot. So big fan of yours, and I'm very stoked to bring you on the show. Thank you. For folks who doesn't know Chanel, Chanel is She's a powerhouse of knowledge, I would say, about strategic thinking, how to, you know, about growth in general. Her incredible ability to reverse engineer the growth strategies of top creators, founders, and startups made her launch this newsletter called Growth in Reverse, which has amassed over like, what, 50,000+ subscribers? That's a massive feat right there. And she invests 20 hours each week doing research. That's a good chunk of amount of time. She's done some amazing stories. Some of the best stories I love is about Justin Welsh, Lenny Rachitsky, Dickie Bush, my good friend, shout out to him. And her thinking about doing Growth in Reverse, the name itself is so fascinating to me. And she's a writer. One of the things that you and I have common is that she started her journey as a business analyst, which I wanna unpack. You know, that's probably the first question I have, but, you know, dive in, just buckle up because this is going to be an exciting episode for all the creators out there who are writing their newsletters and how to grow strategically in a more streamlined way. But without further ado, Right off the bat, I think you and I have many commonalities. You know, you have a good studio setup. I have a fairly, you know, okay-ish studio setup. You've just moved into a new house. You know, we bought a new house as well. You're a creator. I'm a creator. I can go on and on. But one of the things that struck me when I was doing research on you is that you started your career as a business analyst in AAA, if I'm not wrong. Talk to me about that corporate experience and the transformation of you being working at a corporate job to like where you are right now as a content creator.

Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you. So I don't know that I would call it a business analyst, but it was pretty close. So I was running paid ads for AAA and it's actually really funny. I got into it because I have a degree in geography. And so, um, when I went into an interview, I was like applying to hundreds of jobs because I graduated in 2009, like at the height of the recession. Um, my mom, shout out to my mom, she was actually sending my application into like tons of places. So I didn't even realize what I was walking into when I went to AAA. Um, and so they—

We, we all need a mom like yours.

I know. She's pretty great.

Yeah.

Um, so I didn't realize what I was walking into, but I actually was getting a job in their travel department and they thought that because I had a degree in geography, it was really, you know, a good, good place for me to be. Which is fine. It worked out really well. And then I ended up moving into the marketing team at AAA. And I, you know, I had discovered this thing called SEO through Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. And so I told my boss like, oh, we should be doing this. And of course they were like, yeah, yeah, go ahead, do whatever you need to do. And then their paid ads guy left. So the guy that was running Google Ads for them left and they were like, well, Well, you know, you know how to do this organic stuff. Why don't you do the paid stuff? And I'm like, guys, I've never run a paid ad in my life. And so they put me in charge of a ton of money, um, with all these paid ads. And I was just kind of hit the ground running learning how to do that. And then I ended up, um, having a couple clients on the side. So friends, family members needed help with their own Google Ads. Uh, so I was helping them out. And then I ended up leaving AAA in 2017 to go out on my own.

Um, that's awesome.

So I've been doing that for 6 years and then, you know, in December of last year I started Growth in Reverse. So

yes, yes. Kind of random. That's where the whole trajectory hit. I don't know if you can see, there is like this, you know, it's kind of blurred out, but this is what I keep on reminding myself. This is kind of like a graph, Jack Butcher design.

Jack Butcher. Yeah. Right.

you never know where you will basically take off. And a lot of people, they just give up, right? Like, you know, like probably like 2 more steps, you know, into their trajectory and they're just like, you know what, I'm done. But I think that's where you just have to keep going. I love the fact that 2017, it's been a long time that you were on your own and, you know, so Growth in Reverse is like the thing that clicked. So Talk to me about Growth in Reverse. I feel that's the biggest topic, hot topic for this episode. I would say one of the things I'm very curious about, why newsletter? You can choose another medium like podcasts, or you can choose doing like your own podcast monologue type of a thing where you can guide people through your you know, beautiful voice and whatnot. But why, why this medium? Why, what made you choose newsletter over everything?

Yeah, so when I was helping clients with paid ads, I would see some of them be able to grow their email list and send an email and overnight make $10,000, $20,000 just from selling a course or a product. And I always thought that was fascinating. And then in about November of last year, I found Mario Gabrieli of The Generalist and

Yeah,

for sure. I realized that in his first 12 months of writing his newsletter, he made over $300,000 and I was like, whoa, this is a little crazy. And I was like, how did he grow this? Like, how did he do that? And I wanted to figure it out. So that ended up being the first deep dive I ever wrote. Um, but email is just super powerful. Like you, if you have a podcast, if you're selling a course, if you have a service, like you can promote that through your newsletter, through your email list. So I think a lot of people really, you know, sleep on that, but, um, it's a very powerful tool.

I'm one of them. I don't have like an email list. I think after talking to you, probably I'll start one in 2024. Yeah, 100%. I just have this— I think partly because I don't have a newsletter is I have this limiting belief which triggers me back and forth saying that you are not a writer. Only writers or people who have the ability to write long form deserves to have a newsletter, which is in a way BS, right? Like, you know, there are so many formats of newsletters that are popular, like 3-2-1 by James Clear, so on and so forth. Like Sean Puri, he has a short and crisp newsletter as well. Tim Ferriss has this, you know, 5—

Yeah, 5-Bullet Friday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 5-Bullet Friday and whatnot. But You're giving me push, Chanel. Like, you know, hopefully like I'll get it started. But yeah, so talk to me about— I think you're one of those folks who are in a way profiling creators and founders, but particularly to, you know, growth. So why that particular topic? You can choose anything that you want, like people who are just getting started, like how to get first 1,000 users, that can be a niche. What made you become fascinated about growth in general?

I think after finding Mario and learning more about his story, I went super deep into the topic and I realized that newsletters can span so many different areas, right? So you have a James Clear or you have a Ryan Holiday who's talking about stoicism. There's just so many different areas and I'm really just interested in so many different things. So it just really made sense for me to profile those different creators. I mean, startups are not really something I'm passionate about, but through this research, I've become super passionate about newsletters and how you grow an audience and build on top of that and have creators build a business for themselves that they can kind of live off of, which is really fascinating.

And have you ever thought like, I want to definitely dive into a lot about your research. You know, how do you do, what does your day-to-day look like? What is the processes and frameworks and whatnot? But have you ever thought about being more of like a, I wouldn't say imposter, or have you ever thought of like, you know what, I'm studying these amazing folks, but I'm not there yet. So there is 2 ways to that coin. One is that motivates you, which I think it did, but I'm also curious about the other things. you know what, man, this is super tough, or this requires a lot of time. Do I have everything in my ability to achieve that? So have you ever faced that self-doubt when you do research and how do you overcome it as a writer?

Yeah, I mean, all the time. I think it was a lot more prevalent in the beginning of my journey because I'm like, who am I? I know nothing about email and newsletters and that kind of thing. And it's still like every week I still face this. I'm like, oh, is this good enough? Am I doing this creator justice through my research? And so it's just, it is just something that I think I'll always have to live with. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely not uncommon for me to experience that. But I think at the end of the day, it's just really— and the reason I really like what I'm doing is I'm taking something someone else has done. So like, I'm a, I'm an extreme introvert. So being able to just share somebody else's story versus my own is a lot easier for me.

Mm-hmm.

People ask about my story all the time, and I have, I actually did post a couple weeks ago, I did like kind of my own deep dive of how I got to 24,000 subscribers in 11 months. And so that did really well and it got the most feedback of all of the things that I've done, but it's easier for me to just profile other people at the end of the day.

So, and what is a— okay, I think let's get into the topic. So I think you just also mentioned that you're an extreme introvert. You're talking to another fellow introvert here. We should join, we should start a club. Probably that's a new starter we should aim for. Like, you know, hey introverts, join. Let's feel like a safe space. Uh, let's, you know, let's, let's move that discussion to another, another day. But, uh, when you do research, uh, talk to me about the, the most comfortable phases of research and the most uncomfortable phases of research.

Yeah, I don't know that there's uncomfortable ones. It's more of just like Challenging. So I will essentially, the first thing I do when I find a creator I wanna reverse engineer is I will, you know, kind of get a good understanding of their story and make sure there's something for my audience to learn from their story.

Mm-hmm.

So I've actually, you know, there have been times where I've, you know, canned a deep dive that I had scheduled or that I would plan to do, but usually I'll make sure there's a story there and then I go out and I find all of the interviews they've ever done. So I'll go through Spotify and make a really long playlist.

Mm-hmm.

Of all of the things they've been on. So it's usually podcasts. I'll check YouTube for YouTube videos. I Google to see if there's any text-based interviews, and then I start listening. So I'll go on these really long walks and I'll just listen to all of the interviews they've done. And then I start looking for patterns and things that they say frequently or that they say infrequently. And you always find like a little gold nugget in everyone. But yeah, so that's kind of like the main piece of it. And it takes up a lot of time for some people. Like I did research on Sahil Bloom and he has like tons of interviews. interviews he's done. Uh, Justin Walsh was the same way. I know you had him on. Mm-hmm. Um, and it was just like, he's been on like 50+ podcasts, so it's listening to, and sometimes I can't go through them all, so I'll try and, you know, go make a list of like which ones I think will be most beneficial. But that is the most time-consuming part is listening and, uh, reading all their interviews.

And, uh, That's so fascinating. I think I should do this too. I feel— I think not just you, I think someone else I recently had a talk about research, I think Polina, she also mentioned the same thing, which is taking— dedicating an unwavering time into research is really essential. Basically, it's not sitting on your desk and doing, you know, general stuff like Googling and all, but I think detaching from your workstation and really putting yourself in a different position, like walking, like taking long walks. I think probably I should do it as well, but that's a great tip right there. And when you do these profiles and when you find these patterns, what is one thing that you find super common? You've done so many profiles so far last December. closing on 1 year. So congrats on that.

Thank you.

But what is a common pattern in your observation that all these newsletter writers, creators, founders, startups, you know, be put in any bucket that have one in common?

Are you asking about like a growth strategy or something that I just— okay.

Something that you really felt like, you know, this is like one thing that I that keep on coming back when I do these profiles?

Yeah, I would say the one thing— oh, it's hard to pick. I would say they have amazing content. So it's whether it's something super unique, they're doing a bunch of research on something, they're interviewing multiple people and combining all of that data into one piece. It's just good content. And I know that sounds really bland, but If you don't have good content, people aren't gonna share it. People aren't gonna remember that you are still writing or creating what you're creating. So if your content is lackluster, it's gonna be very hard to grow.

And I think good content, in my opinion, is definitely value. I would say if you ask me what is definition of good content, in my opinion, it's like 90% pure value that is going to help other people achieve. But if there is this 10% bit, I think it deserves credit for creators to package them in a way that's so consumable, right? So talk to me about your definition of good content, or how should one achieve when they're starting, or for listeners who are already in the bucket of having a newsletter and growing?

Yeah. I mean, if you already have a newsletter, the ways that I see people creating better content than others is creating different visuals like that Jack Butcher one you're referring to. His visuals stand out. You can definitely tell that it's something he created. And so that's one way. The other way is just combining multiple different ideas together. So you think of, I don't know, Miss Excel, Kat Norton. She started on TikTok and she was dancing with Excel tips floating above her head. It's just really unique. Or you have a Lenny Rachitsky who has deep experience in the product space and he's able to pull that experience and his connections together and kind of create different content. You have other people who they accept anonymous tips from people. So in the journalism world, I think that's called a scoop. Yeah. You get an exclusive story from someone. So like Gergely Orosz. I don't know if I'm saying his name right, but I did a deep dive on him and he has like essentially an anonymous form that you can fill out and say like, hey, this tech company is gonna lay off 500 people. And so like he gets those, those stories before anyone else. And it's just super fascinating to think of that way. Or then there's like Dan from TL;DR is a curated newsletter and his, you know, it's, you could look at it and say it's not great, but the way he curates and the stories he curates are really interesting and people love that. So it's not just another bucket of links that people are sending out. He's actually doing a really good job doing that.

I love what you mentioned about this, hear it for the first time type of stories, right, which are never heard before, as well as curation, which is a big piece of majority of you know, people's newsletters. They just curate in a better way. So better curators in a way are better creators. In your opinion, if you were to start, would you start— so profiling in a way is not curation, but you're also kind of adding your own touch to it, your own flavor, your own element. So if you were to like start again, would you do the same or would you do something different? probably start curating different profiles. What would your mindset be like?

Yeah, that's a good question, and it's hard to answer for everyone, but I think for me, I really enjoy going super deep on a topic or a person or a creator, and then the next week starting again with something different. That really lends itself well to my strengths. But some people are really good at Scouring the internet and finding good stories that link together. Um, one of my favorite creators right now is a guy named Billy Oppenheimer. He actually works under Ryan Holiday. Yeah. Yeah. And so he, he essentially picks a theme for a week and he'll find 6 stories or quotes from like celebrities or, or well-known people and he kind of like weaves them together. Super fascinating. I love reading that one.

That's a great plug right there. I love his Twitter threads. Every time I learn something new. Billy's a great guy. So one of the things I also want to unpack is about, have you— at this point, you have so many strategies in your mind because of profiling people. And what are some strategies that you implemented in your newsletter growth, like 50,000+ subscribers less than a year. What are some things that really worked for you? And if you want to mention whose strategies are those that you imitated, who are they?

Sure. So one of the main ones that I started copying, essentially this guy named Ali Abulatta, I think is his last name.

He writes—

yeah. He writes a newsletter called First 1,000. Mm-hmm. And he had this referral program where he was essentially, um, if you referred a certain number of people to his newsletter, he would shout you out in the newsletter, which is exactly what I do now. Um, and it works pretty well. So that is where I got my referral program from. Um, he's since changed it to be a different, like giveaway every month. So if you get 20 referrals that month, you get the pitch deck from Uber or whatnot. But it, it really lends itself well to his audience because they're all people trying to create a startup. Mm-hmm. were founders and that kind of thing. But I've just stuck with the referral program that he started with. So that was one of the big ones.

And anything that you didn't apply to yourself, but you found it really fascinating that you recommend other newsletter writers?

Yeah, I mean, there's a ton that I haven't done because it's just, I mean, every week I learn something new. From these people, which is really fascinating. But I mean, if you think of a Sahil Bloom, he'll come up with these different topics every week and he writes his own personal piece about them and kind of does it that way, where I haven't done that because although I want to, I would love to do multiple issues a week to be able to put out more content. But at this point, I just haven't done that. But it works well. And then you end up getting more spots for sponsorships and just engaging with your audience more frequently has been really well— been doing really well for people.

Yeah. Talk to me about your— oh, for sure. I think more content is always like something that everybody wish they want to do. Even I want to. So my podcast is a weekly podcast. I started as a biweekly, and then I realized, you know what, quickly is where people can remember. they have that attention span that they can give. And I hope they come back again week over week for a new persona and introducing to a new creator, founder, et cetera. But at the same time, I wish I had like a daily podcast. That's a lot of

work.

That's a lot of work. So more is always A lot of work. And so, yeah, one of the things when you research, right, talk to me about your note-taking process. I know you said about long walks, registering some of the ideas, and you probably come back. So note-taking is such an important piece. You find these angles, patterns. How do you compose your notes in a way that that converts into a weekly edition?

Yeah, good question. So when I'm walking, it can be challenging to type with your fingers on your phone while you're moving. So I usually do the voice-to-text thing and I'll just speak out what I'm thinking or what I just heard. And then I'll include a little timestamp so I can go back to that if I need to. But honestly, at the end of the day, A lot of the notes end up getting scrapped or they don't get included. And I think it's just that me, for me going through and, and actually taking the notes is, is where the, the value really is. It's not necessarily going back to the notes. Um, just the act of actually writing them down or, or speaking them, um, helps me put that together and kind of start writing the deep dive. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I mean, the deep dive, it's, it's pretty formulaic. Like it's not necessarily a template, but it's got the same sections so that people know what to expect every week, which also makes it a little easier to write. write because I know what to include. But yeah, a lot of the notes don't even get included in the final piece.

What would you do with that? Like, I'm curious, like the things that didn't end up in the newsletter, you must have so much material. How are you thinking? What are you doing with that? You're sitting on a gold mine, in my opinion.

Yeah, I agree. And actually I've been struggling to be consistent on Twitter and LinkedIn, and this past week I did a A deep dive on Austin Belsack, and he's, he has like over 1.3 million followers on LinkedIn. Um, but his process on LinkedIn.

Yeah. I thought you were gonna say Twitter, but whoa, who's this guy? My God.

Yeah. So he talks about, you know, getting jobs and changing careers and that kind of thing. So it's actually really beneficial and it, it meshes well with the LinkedIn audience. So I think that's why he got so big, but Um, he's actually close friends with Justin Walsh. Um, but yeah, so he actually talks, he told Jay Klaus of Creator Science that, uh, he tried to get started on LinkedIn 3 or 4 times and it never stuck. And what got him to finally be consistent, like ongoing, was that he put together 30 to 40 pieces of content that he had in a backlog. Mm-hmm. So he created all of these posts before actually sharing them on LinkedIn. So then he was able to kind of you know, have this backlog of content to fall back on if he couldn't think of anything to write that morning. So I think I'm gonna try and do that with all of those notes that I have that haven't gotten used.

Yeah. Volume. So even, you know, when I started my journey on Twitter, I had like 200, even less than, you know, followers. The only thing that got me going is I used to post like 40 to 50 tweets per day. I'm not doing now. Wow. in the beginning, I used to go ballistic. Like, I have a full— I definitely, you know, back then I had like a full-time job in my, you know, corporate setup. And you know how corporate usually works, right? Like, it's not time-consuming, but it's really boring. So I took up on a challenge that every time I feel bored, I used to like literally go on Twitter, like, you know, just document, document, document any thought that comes to my mind. Like, just this guy Billy put me pick the theme, I still pick a certain topic I'm very fascinated about, either I learn or know about, right? That really actually helped get people's mind registered on me as an individual. And it also gave me a way to express because there is no filtration. You just put it out and it helped me become more vulnerable, transparent, and build up that persona as an introvert. that persona would have never existed if I would have never documented. So please do it. Like, you know, it really helps. Forget about followers, that count, that's separate. But I had intangible benefits of just documenting, you know, on an ongoing basis. So volume there really works. Shout out to Jay Close, good friend. He's on the podcast too. Okay, man, we have— we live in a very small world, right?

Yes.

And you also mentioned, so my favorite scoop of growth in reverse is, I literally wrote it. I can show you, like Kat Norton.

Oh yeah.

She's like the, you know, she runs Miss Excel on YouTube and she's what, like $2 million per year? I'm sure she has grown.

Yeah. It might be even more at this point. Yes.

At this point. What's your favorite scoop of growth in reverse? Like, you know, who's your all-time favorite? If you wanna mention?

Hmm. That's a good question. I always come back to the Justin Welsh. I don't know, but Jack Butcher's up there too. So I just love Justin's story. Like he, it's so straightforward, like the way he does it, he shares all of his systems and it's really just, you know, be consistent, create something every week, post on LinkedIn and Twitter every day. And like his, his It's very formulaic and it's so straightforward. And I just really love the way he puts out content and actually helps people and cares about the people he's interacting with. He's not just, you know, out there to make money or, you know, do the creator thing cuz it's fancy or fun or whatnot. But, um, right. But then Jack Butcher at the same time, like he's completely changed, I think that the way creators think about content because it's typically you're thinking of like a podcast or writing and he's Come in and he completely changed it with visuals and it's everything's visual. And if you can figure out a way to add visuals to your content, it just becomes so much more powerful. So his story is really fascinating to me too. Even though he's kind of like gone in the NFT route now, but

yeah, big shout out to both. Jack is the first guest on my podcast. I'm so fortunate to kickstart with Jack. He's a, you know, he's an amazing, amazing, amazing creator. I know he's kind of in his own world right now with all the NFTs, but he's still one of the best. Justin, of course, quick fun story. I've told this many times. Justin is the one who helped me learn about sales when I was building this product called ShoutOut. I never sold anything. I'm an introvert. I had no clue I can build a great product, I can do all that, understand people and all that, but never had this ability to sell. But he gave— he brought me— he removed that self-doubt in a way that he shared some of the stories with him that happened when he was doing consulting and before even building that million-dollar business. That really helped me. Like, you know what? This is the framework. You can use authenticity to sell. Like very few people realize that. So a big shout out to Justin as well. So let's switch gears a little bit about reverse engineering. So doing research can be linear. You start from A, you end up point B, and there are so many takeaways, patterns like you mentioned, but your niche that you're excelling or succeeding is going back and reverse engineering it and teaching in a way that other people can replicate, you know, others' playbook. So how does the process of reverse engineering work and what is— what does it teach you about growth strategies?

Yeah, it teaches me a lot. But reverse engineering, like what I was talking about, talking to you about before, I start with all those interviews and then I kind of pull out Okay, here are the 3 things they did in the beginning. And then I try, I go and try and find the examples. So I will go to their website or I'll use a tool called the Wayback Machine, which is like my favorite tool on the internet.

So essentially it'll take— All the weird screenshots there.

Oh man, it's great. So, you know, if like a Dickie Bush says he did something a long time ago and now it's gone off the internet, I'll go back and see if I can't find it in the Wayback Machine, um, just to be able to give my audience like a screenshot of what he had done in the past. Right. And because most people don't really take the time to do that, it's pretty powerful. Or like a Drew Riley from trends.vc. Yeah. He actually is very into A/B testing and optimizing his website. So I found like 17 iterations of his homepage just by going through every snapshot of the Wayback Machine. So then I shared all of those on my my deep dive of his business.

Wow, Drew. Yeah, man, we— Chanel, we have so many, you know, we know so many people in common. Drew is a good friend.

Before I was going through your podcast list and I was like, oh, this is awesome.

I know Drew before Drew started Trends. So I've collaborated with him a couple of projects. We had this small mastermind he's part of. Amazing, you know. He's a great, incredible guy. Uh, I love the fact— Super nice guy. Yeah, super nice guy, super straightforward guy. No bullshitting around him. He's just, you know, no sugarcoating, nothing. He's just, you know, give it to you.

Yes.

And what a great hack. I have— I know Wayback Machine, uh, but I never used it for research. That It's so— that's the biggest takeaway for me. I should use it. Probably I'll tweet it up after this. But one of the things about reverse engineering, right, like, what's the most surprising thing you've learned from reverse engineering, you know, doing this research on these top, you know, creators?

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple. I think the first one is that everyone starts out like a little nervous about it. Like if you go back and listen to like the first interviews everyone's done, it's like, well, I didn't really know if this was gonna work, but I just went out, went ahead and tried it. And so I always tell a lot of people who come to me and ask like, what's your biggest piece of advice? I'm like, just get started. Like you could, it might change a year down the road, but you can just start now and see if you can't figure it out. Um, like Packy McCormick started and he didn't see, I think, I don't even think he hit 1,000 subscribers for like the first year he was writing.

Mm-hmm.

So it's just like now he's, a huge name in the creator space, but it took him a long time to get there. So there's a lot of stories where you see these shiny, you know, oh, this newsletter hit 60,000 subscribers in 5 months. And it's like, well, that's not the norm. Like most people, it takes time. And the sustainable newsletters that I think will be around for a while actually do take a little time to grow.

And I think starting is such an important piece. I just wanna add piggyback off what you said. I think the best way to start is start small. Even don't even think about comparing yourself with your heroes in that position, because I think a lot many people just stop there because they didn't do a good job of what Chanel is doing in November 2023 because they just are getting started, right?

Yep.

I think everybody should really go to their V1 versions if they're, you know, Matching with themselves, with others.

Yeah. It's so easy to get overwhelmed when you're looking at someone who has a podcast and a newsletter and a YouTube channel. And it's like, well, yeah, but it's probably, they've been doing this for 6 years. Like you can start small, start with a newsletter or start with one content medium and then grow from there. Like you don't have to do everything at once.

And I think the second biggest motivation, at least that worked for me is doing for yourself.

Yes.

I do this podcast. It's been over a year. I do this purely for myself so that I can learn from people like you, ambitious people, creators who are making a ripple. I would have never started this if I were doing— if I have this ambition, not an ambition, but like this expectation of how do I bring or deliver content to X number of listeners? Because that's pressure right there. Yeah. So it's already hard to start. So on top of it, if you put expectations that you want to deliver value for X reasons, you're never going to start. I think that really worked for me. Do it for yourself. Genuinely have that curiosity. What can I learn from this person? whether it is podcasting or even newsletter. I think that's how you started as well. Mario's case study or profile really triggered, okay, there is something there. What if I keep on repeating that something? Right. I think that's how you ended up gathering like more than 50,000 people because you're the first subscriber to your newsletter.

Yeah. And with Mario's deep dive, I was actually doing the research before I had the idea to create the newsletter. So I was kind of just reverse engineering his story to figure it out for myself. And then after a while I was like, wait, I'm putting a lot of energy into this and I couldn't find anyone else doing something like Growth in Reverse is now. So I was like, let me see if somebody else wants to read this. So I just made it into like an easier to read blog post and then started a newsletter around it. So it did start for me.

Yeah. I'm curious now that I shared my kind of, you know, my tidbit about when I started. What was going on your mind when you just started? What was your expectation like? Were you doing this for fun, for a living? When did you take it like, okay, you know what, I can make a living out of it? What was those initial days look like for you?

Yeah, I mean, the first few posts, I didn't even realize if this was going to be like a thing that I continued to do or if it was just I was excited about it for 3 weeks and then I was gonna drop off. Mm-hmm. Because I have a tendency to do that with things I get excited about. Um, so it's, it's just really interesting to kind of understand and, and learn as you go. And then I realized, um, after probably 4 or 5 issues, I was like, whoa, there's something here. Um, and people are really, really enjoying this. So I just kept going. But I mean, I still have 2, 1 or 2 clients left Doing paid ads. But I do plan to kind of phase them out here shortly. So this will become my full-time thing in probably a month or

2. What is your moment of this is pointless in the last 1 year? When did you feel like, oh my God, this is really ridiculous. I should do something else.

That's an interesting question. I don't think I've had that yet, which is really fascinating. I've been lucky enough that since the early days, people are just really interested in this and they're sharing it. I even get messages from the people I'm doing the deep dive on saying, this is really fascinating. So at this point, I haven't had that yet. So hopefully my growth trajectory is still ahead of us here. But yeah, I mean, it's just it's been the most fun I've had in business ever, so I'm gonna keep going with it.

Yeah, let's hope you won't feel the heat or the self-doubt. You're killing it. I love your newsletter. Like I said in the beginning, that's one thing I open for sure every time. And when it comes to these profiles, how do you pick? What's your selection criteria? Do you look up for someone who was like you, or do you look like, okay, let's actually completely go in a different route, pick some random person who has an interesting story. What is your criteria?

It's a good question. At this point, I have a list of people that I might potentially do deep dives on that I'll go through like every Monday. I'll go through and I'll kind of pick which one I do for that week, or I'll try and pick one and then start researching and be like, I'm not really feeling that one this week, so pick a different one. But the criteria is really They have more than 50,000 subscribers, and I like to do non-AI newsletters at this point. I did one on Zain Khan of Superhuman, but I think, I don't know, I just, I feel like I enjoy the more sustainable type of newsletters, like someone who's been doing this for 3 or more years, just because, I don't know, I feel like they're not just jumping into something just to sell it and get out real quick. So it's more fascinating. But yeah, it's really just what I feel drawn to that week. There's not really, I don't have a schedule going forward or anything. So yeah, that's kind of—

Why, why, why 50K as a mark? Why, why do you think, is that, is that where you feel like growth will happen automatically or why, why pick $50,000?

I think it's big enough that it stands out. Um, and it's also, to me in the beginning, it felt like a point where if someone made it to 50,000 subscribers, they were gonna stick with that thing. Mm-hmm. Like now I feel like with paid ads and stuff, like a lot of people get there faster and I'm not sure that they're gonna stick with it, so I probably won't profile them. But, um, for a, a solo creator, if they hit 50,000, it's like a big deal. And I feel like they've done, they've tried enough things, they've done enough, um, They've had enough experiences that it's worth going back and reverse engineering their story.

I think what you're saying is it's something that's achievable, but it's at the same time, you know, there is a growth hack that kicks off to reach that number. That's good. Do you— I know you already kind of, you know, expressed how you grew to like 26K subscribers for Growth in Reverse, but What are some things that you didn't cover in that? We will definitely like plug that edition, but what is something that you didn't cover that you want to probably like, now that you're talking, expressing like in real time, how would you do a scoop on yourself, like zero to where you are right now?

Yeah, I think I've covered most of it in that post because I actually gave a talk at a conference in October, and so I had to like kind of go back through and figure out how I did it. So I really spent a lot of time researching what I did and going back through. But again, I think it comes back down to like putting out content that's unique or something different that people don't see every day is really going to be the thing that catapults you. Like you can run paid ads to any newsletter and you'll probably get a few subscribers, but if it's not something that people look at and they go, whoa, this is different, or whoa, this is saving me time, I think it's going to be really hard to take the growth that you've started and really amplify that, if you will. So I really think it starts with content. I've gotten a lot of good feedback of people saying, I read this every week. I look for this in my inbox, which is always a good sign. I think if you find something your audience really enjoys reading every single week, you're going to have an easier time. Mm-hmm. And that just makes everything else easier. So Because I spend so much time and people can see that I'm passionate about this, they'll refer other people to me or they want to share recommendations and I'll recommend their newsletter. They recommend mine. Those kinds of things work well. Cross-promotions also. So it's really content and then building relationships with other creators, I think, are the two that really have a big impact.

Value and network. I think that's the two biggest ingredients. that will set up for success. One of the things, if I may deep dive into your— not a deep dive, but more of like dissecting how you write your newsletter. One of the things I really observed, 2 things. One is you don't put the content in the newsletter. You make sure that people click so that they end up on your website, right? So you hyperlink it, number one. I want to understand why. And did you do like an A/B testing there versus like you writing the content, you know, putting copy pasting everything there versus hyperlink? A. Number 2 is you have a very interesting way of introducing a deep dive. Even that, or even like, you know, if you want to give a shout out to some creator, most of the times you don't mention their name. It actually is really like, you know what, let me click this so that— who is this? You kind of entice people. So if you can talk to me about a little bit more about both of those points, at least that's my observation. The Juicy Reads, even in that, you don't really say that, hey, this is the person wrote this. You have like an enticing takeaway that you mentioned in that. So talk to me about both of those.

Yeah. So the first one, um, why I don't put the full deep dive in an email, um, it actually was kind of accidental. Um, I just started realizing that because these were like 3,000+ words long on a regular basis, like it was gonna get cut off halfway through anyway. So somebody would have to click over to the website. Um, and it also, I have a little bit of a design background, uh, very small. Um, and it just looks better on a webpage in my opinion. Mm-hmm. But also I think a lot of the things that I talk about, like, could— this is totally, there's no data to back this up, but I think some of the words that I use in my deep dives could trigger a spam filter. Like, I don't know, the way this person made $1 million or that kind of thing. I think it could trigger a spam filter. I have no data to back that up though. So I just, I use the link to send people to the website just because they're too long anyway. Got it. And the images that I include would be too heavy, if you will. They'd have to click over anyway. And then because— oh, so why I don't say their name before I introduce the link to the deep dive. I think a lot of people, myself included, when you hear a name of a creator that you know, there comes an inherent bias that you have in your mind. Even with Austin Belsack, he has 1.3 million LinkedIn followers and It just, you know, sometimes you feel this like pang of like, eh, I don't really wanna learn from this guy. He just, it's too far outta reach. Like, I'm not gonna, there's nothing in there that's relatable for me. Interesting. So by teasing it out and having someone click through, I feel like there's more of a chance that they'll actually read through the whole thing and learn something. But it also just makes for a good, not necessarily clickbait title, but gets people enticed and clicking through to learn more.

That's very fascinating. I think there's like a psychological thing as well. You said about bias, once you know someone, you either, like you said, you know what, they're doing interesting stuff, but what I need is something that I can take away immediately. I think that takeaway itself can be a trigger. That's amazing. And going back to your other thing, Do you think, in your opinion, friction is good when it comes to newsletter? So adding a hyperlink is friction, right? They're not getting their— the first— you're asking to do one more step. Opening an email is step 1, reading through the first few lines step 2, clicking on the URL step 3, and then they get Basically, there is like a step-to-step friction. Do you think friction works in newsletter? If not, or even in your research, right? You've done so many people's deep dives. What is your opinion on friction?

I think both ways could work. I think it really depends on your content, your audience, that kind of thing. I don't do it to necessarily introduce friction, but it doesn't hurt that people have to click through to read the deep dive because Open rates these days are kind of questionable anyway, so a click is maybe more reliable as a metric for you to understand if people are actually interested in your content.

That's interesting.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, friction could work, but I don't do it just for the sake of adding friction. But I think, yeah, I mean, if I was writing shorter pieces, I probably would just put the whole thing in the newsletter.

The reason I asked that question is generally, you know, there is a big shift in terms of offering friction versus not offering friction, just in general, even in products, which I, you know, I used to think a lot about not offering friction because the more easy it is, the more conversions, like, you know, if you're building a product users being using free to like paid and whatnot. But lately, if you realize, that's what at least my realization is, the more friction you add, the more serious buyers you're encouraging. Like people who go through those steps, that means they can, they're really taking the pain, but they're because they're very interested in whatever you're doing, right? So that's why I asked, like, you know, will that work for content as well? The more friction you add, that means you have like a serious reader, like 24K, whoever is clicking. That's interesting too, like click rate versus open rate, right? So I want to ask you, I think, you know, we're at the end of the time, but how do you measure the success of Growth in Reverse? Like, what are your key metrics that you follow?

I mean, number of subscribers is great, but it doesn't really tell the whole story at the end of the day. For me right now, success is when I get replies to the newsletter or someone DMs me on Twitter and says, oh my God, I read this one this week and I had 4 takeaways that I just gave 2 to my VA that I'm going to implement this week. That to me is the whole reason this is so much fun is just learning, helping other people grow. And then those people come back and they're like, hey, I tried this and it didn't work. So then I I learn through that as well? So it's really just building a sense of community and helping other people with their own newsletters. I think a lot of this content creation and audience game is, it gets more challenging as time goes on. And I think that if you can help someone have their content do it just a little bit better, then you're on the right path.

Awesome. One last question before we wrap up. I'm very curious about What's next for Chanel and growth in the verse? Like, what are you exploring right now? What is an ambitious thing you are doing in 2024 now that we are entering into a new year? Will you keep on— of course you will keep on writing about profiles. Any interesting projects that you're thinking about?

Yeah, I'm getting ready to put out a course around what I've learned so you can read all the deep dives and you get Some takeaways, but I'm trying to share how people use a specific growth tactic throughout, not just one person's story. It's like how these 6 people did it and here are the top 5 takeaways and have videos explaining how they've done that. And then it's also just how I've been able to grow my newsletter. So I'm kind of combining both of those things into one course. So that should be out later this year actually. That's the biggest thing right now. Yeah,

yeah, I'm looking forward for that. I think the biggest thing I'm manifesting for you is, you know, I think you should write a book and the title should be Growth in Reverse, period. You know, it's so—

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I would, I would love to, you know, I would be your first buyer because I, I would love to implement. The thing about growth is, the beautiful thing about growth is it applies to everything, but in its own way, right? Like, you know, I build products. I do this content piece as well as a creator, but some of the things you write about friction, like for example, you know what, maybe friction can be introduced in product too. So I feel that that's the angle that I look forward to. Like, you know, many people have different angles. They purely are growing their newsletters, reading Growth in Reverse. But it would be an awesome feat if you probably, like, you know, bundle up with writing a book. So manifesting for that, Chanel.

I appreciate that. My friend Kat keeps telling me the same thing every time I see her, so might have to listen to you guys here soon.

That's it. Yeah, we say for a reason. So, but any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

I don't think so. I think it all just comes back to getting started. No matter what you're doing, it's just taking that first step is the really big thing here. So

I love that. And hopefully we'll get a deep dive about how you built your studio. I'm so kind of in awe. Like, you know, it looks so good, so beautiful. But on that note, like, that's it, guys. Like, start. That's the best way. And to achieve any dreams of yours, but just do in a very small way. Go micro before you go macro.

Definitely.

That really helps to move faster. It's so underappreciated, but if you do it, you'll know the power. And stay tuned, guys. We have some awesome creators, founders, VCs like Chanel joining the show. Stay tuned for more episodes, and I'm so grateful for your attention, your time giving to us, and we do this for you. Hopefully you get— you learn something new today, and stay tuned for the next episode. Cheers.

Thanks.