How Nathan Grew His Newsletter Agency From $65K to $80K in Just 2 Months

So my first business I ever had, I was 15 actually. I was super young and I actually, I left the game for a bit. I think I shouldn't have. It was this super nerdy thing. We built custom Minecraft Maps, famous YouTubers, and it was how I made my first hundred grand. I was like 15 years old and I made my mom open up a Robin Hood account and I felt like, you know, I felt like the man, you know?

What's going on, guys? Andre Hagel Jr. Here from client Ascension and welcome back to the channel. I haven't actually spoken to my audience in a long time. I've just been ripping these case study interviews for students in Client Ascension and right before this interview went live, I actually went back on the channel and looked. We've been doing these for over two years now. The first one was posted in November of 2022. And so we've just been behind the scenes running our coaching program, Client Ascension and working with students like Nick Palazz, who was that first student success story, and now Nathan, who's the latest I have here with me today. First interview of 2025. How's it going, bro?

I'm doing good, man. I'm excited. Q1 is off to a good start. Yeah, we're good. How are you?

Let's go, dude. Let's go, dude. I'm good. I'm good. We had a strong Q4, which is surprising for our business because we're in the lead gen space and typically things slow down. But we just decided to really push it and see if it was a limiting belief, which we found out that it was. We always slowed down towards the end of the year because we just assumed Legion business is slow this time of year. But we found out that that didn't have to be true. And so we had a really strong end of year and it just goes right into our busy season or our best season, which is Q1 because now everyone's looking to get started with a new Legion initiative. So, yeah, it's been non stop busyness, but we're having fun, so. And I'm looking forward to this interview, bro, because you've been doing some really cool things and you run a really specialized business and helping people monetize or even start their newsletters. And you've worked with some really big names in the space as well that are just really impressive. So if you could just give us a quick intro of who you are and then tell us as well where you started in terms of like your revenue before you joined the Client ascension program and kind of where you're at now. And then we'll blow it wide open into hearing the full journey from there.

Yeah, good stuff. So name's Nathan, I'm from Ohio. That's. That's relevant. Our company's called the Feed Media and we basically work with newsletters. So we help grow newsletters and we help convert readers into revenue. And so it kind of looks like maybe like two ICPs. So one are more like personal brands newsletters. We work with like Tyler Dank who runs Beehive, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Puji who's a really cool buddy, good entrepreneur, and then a lot of like what I call like newsletter native media brands like that we're the newsletters of the product. So we work with like the large CI newsletters and a lot of like B2B newsletters. That's our space, that's what we do.

Dude, did you say Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Yeah, dude. He's a man, he's cool. His team actually is also like wild and stacked. It's basically a bunch of jack guys. And then you know, like me, the like little Internet nerd who gets on these.

Dude, that's so cool, man. You know, I've kind of found that out in regards like these, these guys that operate at a really high level, they're really good at hiring people that they can like lead in a sense where like these people want to be like the leader of the company. So like these guys that join Arnold's company probably want to get fit and jacked or they already are fit and jacked and so they're naturally like wanting to work for someone like Arnold. I experienced that going to Patrick Bet David events. These guys are all like suited up super professional, super like, you know, loudly spoken, like all into the politics and like the overall state of the country. Like not just business. They just all are replicas of pbd. And I'm like that. That to me is like the biggest sign of a really good leader because PBD is just like, you know, he's inspiring other people to want to be like him and they are becoming like him and then that builds a really, you know, successful business. So I was really impressed by that. I just felt I was surrounded by like 100 pbds when I went to his event.

I dig that. Yeah, I think it's. I can see what you're. I think, I think it's very self selecting. Like, you know, if you're on Arnold's team for like, you know, a year or two, and you're not like, at least a little big. You gotta. Gotta get. All right, man. I don't know what I'm doing here.

I gotta.

I gotta work this stuff.

Yeah. That's awesome, bro. So you. You have a lot of experience, and I know for the most part, almost all these clients were people you were working with before you joined Client Ascension. So this is a very different type of case study interview because most of the students that join the program either start at zero or close to it. You're one of the guys that came in at a much higher revenue level with much more experience, and so you must have been looking for something very specific. So kind of talk on, like, where were you at when you joined the program and why did you join?

Yeah, so I think we were probably around, like, 65amonth when I joined, something like that. And we're a little under 80 now, like, maybe in the program for, like, two months. So we've been for a little bit. I think the main reason I joined was I have found that, like, I think community is such an important thing. And I, like, I've been in, like, on Dano's email list and stuff for super, super long time. But, like, as I've done more of this and I've gotten to just meet more cool people that I look up to and I think are really awesome. I've just seen, like, thematically, just how much being in a group of people who are trying to do the same thing helps. Right. You see that, like, we were just talking about before we hit record, like, down in Miami. Right. There's, like, Mason and Ben and Jimmy, and, like, I think, you know, Oliver Picado is down there. Like, we've got these guys who just. They're all in it and, like, they're just living in it. And so it's very, I think, difficult. Almost like the Arnold thing we're talking about, you'd be in a group of people who all want the same thing and not, you know, go towards that thing.

Yeah.

And so I have a couple places where I feel like I get that energy. And, you know, CA is definitely one.

That's awesome, bro. And I love that. It's like you're looking for communities that almost keep you focused on the goal. Right. And that's really hard to do if you don't come from that background. Like, I even myself grew up in a really small town in upstate New York, and I'm actually back here now, but for the past three years, I was down in Tampa, similar to the Miami situation. And I was surrounded by people in Client Ascension, even my business partners. And we're all just living and breathing business. And that does so much to like the subconscious into like the way you go about your life. It's just like you prioritize those things and it just becomes norm. Right when I come back to like my hometown and around the holidays, I start to realize like how not normal what I do is. But when you're in Tampa or Miami or you're in a community like Client Ascension, it feels so normal.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Two things came in mind. You were saying that. So one is I. I think one of the reasons why I've enjoyed CA and a couple other groups I'm in is like I didn't grow up with a lot, but I ended up going to like a very like traditional college that a lot of like Wall street people and like consultants come out of that. And I feel similar to that in the way that like those who are all very, and I was for a long time super risk averse. Like nobody's like starting businesses. There's a very clear. You go to banking for two years and then you go to private equity for two years, you go to this MBA and you know, you do this thing and it's all very, it's all very linear. And so it's been super helpful to just be thrown into other folks who are just bootstrapping really cool businesses. And the other thing is making think about. I was grabbing dinner last night actually with these two agency guys. And I was thinking about, there's this young guy who's with us. He, I think he just turned 20 and he runs this agency. It's doing I think 40 or 50k a month. And he basically all he does are street interviews like UGC in New York, 20 years old. And so like all of his friends are like, you know, either working a job immediately after high school or like just into college. And he's in a completely different like lifestyle. You know, it's. It's like, it's like if Daniel had like a kid, you know what I mean? Like his life, he'd be in such a different phase. And so anyway, I think that's cool and I think that's why it's really important to find people who are doing what you're trying to do.

I love that, bro. I love that. And so more about like your business and the specific challenges you're facing now or even at the start of the program, like you're at 65. You're scaling towards 80 at this point, I guess. What is the goal and what's the current challenges you're facing or even some of the challenges you've recently faced, like when you first joined that you solved that help you to unlock another, you know, phase of growth?

Yeah, I think my goal was like, so a good buddy of mine is you guys are a good mentor, man. This guy Jesse Coogee, who ran a really large agency and then sold it. And I think one thing he and I have talked a lot about is he. So he worked like a dog in that business. He worked tremendous hours for years and years and years. And he's always kind of thought of a good rule of thumb as like, a business that you own is sort of like a job and it's more of a liability than it is an asset, roughly until like maybe let's call it $5 million a year in revenue, which at agency margins is when you could hire proper, you know, operators. You could get yourself fairly out of the business if you wanted to. You could sell the business that. That starts to become mildly interesting to strategic buyers or private equity or whatever at like, at that point. And so I think that that's like a good goal, you know, because I want to be able to do things that aren't just the business. Right. I want to have flexibility. So I think that's like a good, like, arbitrary one. And then I think I getting more out of like basically being more valuable to the same clients that we have and so therefore being able to charge more. So like in October, we had a client who we give them a discount because they were a big brand and we really wanted to work with them. So we were working them for probably, you know, maybe 3k a month. And our typical minimum is 5k a month. And we did a very good job during that engagement. And so I went out and visited this guy in San Francisco. We had a great time, and we re signed a deal that was 10 per month, which is great. Like, I would love our average contract value to be 10amonth for clients.

That'd be awesome.

So that kind of stuff was super, super helpful, I'd say. Now the challenges that I'm having are like, are more like niche things, right? It's like, I don't think my niche is super huge, like just newsletters, you know, media companies that have newsletters. And I think even if we worked with all the biggest ones, it's very difficult to have more than a million and a half, $2 million agency with that and I, that's, that's still a liability more than it is an asset. And so like what we're trying to do now is like, cool, can we take this and do paid ads for E commerce or can we take the fulfillment that we do for email marketing and funnels and do that kind of like a grid operator model like Logan we talked about or some of these other guys who do that bad or you know, whatever. And so I think we're in this like, I feel in this weird like purgatory thing where I, the business is going well but it's not as well as I would like. And, and there's not immediate executional clarity. I'm cool. Take this thing. You found the gold vein and just keep digging at it because I'm like looking for the next like vein of gold. It's like, what's the sort of niche that we should be trying?

Yeah. Do you feel like it's more of like a getting clients game? Because I think some businesses, especially at your level, they go one of two ways. It's either make more money from your existing client base or go out and get more clients. Where do you feel you're at? Or is it even some of both?

I think it's a little bit of both. Like I think that. So for instance, the Rundown, which is a big AI newsletter that we work with, they have like a higher ticket subscription product that sits behind the ad monetized newsletter. So in theory, even though we only do ads with them, could we do all of their email nature and do some of their funnel, you know, and be valuable there more than what we charge? I think so. And I think like the best media companies have the high end LTV stuff in the back. But that notwithstanding, I think it will be like probably easier or more scalable to find a much larger niche and like add that as well. So there's two buddies of mine run this company called Ad Crate and they're, they're pretty cool agency. They're a good creative marketing agency and like they work with E commerce, they work with a couple mobile apps, they work with one of our friends in the newsletter space and so like they've gone a lot more horizontal. So I think we may want to try that.

Super interesting. Yeah, I guess too being in the client ascension community and attending some of the coaching calls or interacting with some of the expert coaches or even just having conversations with guys like myself or Daniel or Dan or Christian or whoever. It might be like, what are some things you might have learned in the past couple of months that you're actively trying to or have applied in the business.

I would say maybe two. Two things. One we talked a little bit about, which is like the community thing. Like I just feel like there's like, you know, like you guys are going to be like the whatever, the Sean Perry, Sam par of whatever kids who are like 20 now, you know, like, you know, going off on the rant. I think that's really cool. I'm friends with a couple of those guys and like it's cool to see that like there's a bunch of them who have been friends for 10 years. They have a bunch of lived in SF to get together for a while. Then they were down in Austin for a while all together. It's like they've just been this unit that has always been around for each other. And I know that's a very wishy washy thing, but I think that is super important because I think the worst thing that like somebody listening to this interview or whatever some shit could do is like it's quit. Is like quit the game just by staying in the game. Stay in the game. Very, very difficult to fail. Very difficult to fail if you just stay in the game. I think the second thing is I think it's really important to you can pivot your idea, but don't pivot or quit like the ICP or the problem. And so I think again like I joined probably a couple months after you guys had the big, you know, 0 to 100k and list kit or like I knew about you guys roughly in that time and joined now as you guys have had this second unlocked phase of the business in paid ads. And you know, you're very humble about not sharing your number at the beginning. But you know, million dollars a month, right was your guys number last month. And so I think there's a big lesson in that which is that, you know, Daniel, you guys, you guys have been talking about fucking cold email for years and you guys have taken that from so many different angles from Twitter content to then low ticket products and courses in the beginning days. Now you have client ascension, now you're doing SaaS. Like you've tackled the same problem in so many different ways and it turns out the software one is the one that's going to get you guys to whatever 50, 60 million dollars plus exit. So you guys have pivoted and added on different solutions but you never quit the icq. You never quit the problem. And I think there's a big lesson.

In that yeah, Huge lesson in that. It's like, just stay in the game. It's like the best business strategy I've ever learned, even from my own experiences, is just stay in the game. And the best example of that is client Ascension as a coaching program. Like, coaching programs, I feel like, are the easiest businesses to run. And the reason people start a coaching program is because they're not good at running a business to begin with. And it's easier to start a coaching program and then coach rather than do an actual business. So that's one thing we've always held ourselves accountable to. When we first started Client Ascension, we were running and scaling our agency, and then that turned into our SaaS, which we're now. You know, our SaaS is double the size of our coaching program business in a third of the time because our SaaS started a year ago. Our coaching business started three years ago. But what I am most proud about of Client Ascension is we've stayed in the game for three years, and we've not been flashy. We've not seen insane revenue growth or, you know, record revenue months just because of Client Ascension alone. But we've stayed in the game, we've held true to our morals, we've produced consistent student success stories, and that's it. And we want to stay in the game for, you know, the next 10 to 20 years, and that's really the goal. And it's crazy because I work not too closely, but I work with the sales team sometimes, or at least Dan, who runs the sales team. And we'll always hear of different competitors. So, like, for the next three months, we'll probably be up against one competitor, and then that competitor will all of a sudden disappear, and then a new competitor will come up and a new one. There's not been a single competitor that stayed with us for the three years we've been in business. It's always someone new. And to me, like, that's crazy. But it's also not too surprising because coaching programs, again, are the easiest businesses to run, in my opinion. But like you said, just being around a group of people that stay in it no matter what and constantly evolve and apply their learnings or what they want to teach or share in the world to different business models is really cool. And I can see that for you as well. Like, I'm sure you're going to pivot and change business models. Maybe you'll start a SaaS. Is that something you've thought about?

I think so. I mean, my. So my first business I ever had. I was 15 actually, I was super young and actually I left the game for a bit and I think I shouldn't have. It was this super nerdy thing. We built custom Minecraft Maps, famous YouTubers and it was how I made my first hundred grand. I was like 15 years old and I made my mom open up a Robinhood account. I felt like, you know, I felt like the man, you know, it's cool. And then I went and did a bunch of stuff that was like Morris Averse. Right. I went to college and then I got a traditional job and I just think about like, God, if I just, if I just kept trying shit, I would have like eight more years of, you know, I should have, I should have stayed in. But yeah, I mean, in the future, I don't know, I mean I, in general I'm very conservative financially and so I think I want to get to a point where I, you know, I think the average person, if you had 5 or $10 million of net worth, it is virtually impossible to ever lose that or ever like unless you're just silly, you know, spend above that, what you could get paid from dividends. And so, you know, at that point, like practically speaking, like you should be willing to do the big venture funded bet, do anything you want. And so yeah, I think we could get there in the next couple of years. I want to do that first. And then there's like other ideas that I think are more like far fetched I'd want to try and play around with. But yeah, I don't want to leave the game. I'm not, you know.

Yeah, it's just your time, your timing, the specific projects and ventures you actually want to put effort behind based on where you're at and what your risk tolerance levels are, which I think is really smart. And that's like a good way to go about doing that. That's what we did with our coaching program and agency and SaaS. It started with an agency and then the coaching program and then the SaaS. And the SaaS. It was easy to do because the SaaS company, most people don't know this. It's like they're not cash cows. Like you're not going to start a SaaS and start, you know, producing crazy distributions and profit for yourself. Like even with ListKit, profits are slim and everyone knows that. And it's like we're not getting rich off of ListKit today, but we're building enterprise value for a get rich overnight at the time of an exit, if that is, you know, where the company goes and if it goes to zero, you know, that's, that's part of business too. But client ascension in an agency business prior and at the same time producing cash flow for us personally allows us to be way more risk tolerant with a company like Liskit, which I think is a big competitive advantage to people that only have a software company because they can only afford to do that for so long before they have to go out and get a job or sacrifice growth for taking more profit. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. The other thing I was going to say on like just like do I start SaaS or other stuff down the road? So I didn't have some grand idea about working with newsletters. Like it was by chance, it was serendipity. I was helping build a company that was acquiring mobile apps and happened so we would acquire from all these super dope entrepreneurs. They never went to college, they just launched these mobile apps and a bunch of them, they're doing, you know, 5, 7, $10 million a year, 45% EBITDA margins. You've never heard of these people? They just fucking got to it. And a couple of them or two brothers owned a newsletter. And that's how I found out about newsletters. And I was like, oh, shit, all right, well, these guys are legit naps. I guess newsletters could also be a viable business. And that was the whole thing. And so I think there's like a. The learning in there for me has been like. It's not like I have some grand plan, but I do think there are like different types of luck. And super quickly I feel like there's lottery luck, which is, you know, there's like blind luck. Basically the next level of luck is like what I call like duck luck. So you ever picture like a duck swimming and they're very calm above the water, but like below their feet are kicking like crazy. Duck luck is basically just if you move around and create motion, you will become more lucky by doing things. And so that's newsletter insight. The next one is more like more of like a luck meets preparation. So when I met Jesse Puigi, he had a newsletter and I happen to have been working on newsletter for, for three or four months. Lucky that I met him, but I was prepared when I did. And so we've had a great friendship, a great business relationship since that. And the final one is more along of you and Daniel and everybody are going, which is you guys are a luck magnet. You guys are now known very well. And luck finds you because you have a very large brand and people know you for what you do. So anyway, I.

That is amazing. I've never heard it explained that way.

I think it's super true. So I'm like, trying to, like, keep getting more duck luck and like, be prepared. And then hopefully over time I will, you know, also be, you know, the luck will come find me. That's the one.

That is so cool. I've never thought of it that way, but I'm thinking in my head all the opportunities in recent years and how it's been an evolution of Duckleck, like literally throwing everything at the wall, moving really fast, trying everything, and then something sticks. And then like you said, preparation or opportunity meets preparation. It's like, then opportunity comes along and you're actually prepared for it. Like, for us, that was the start of client ascension. It was myself, Dan and Christian running an agency for a year, learning from Daniel from afar and then meeting him in person, essentially, and partnering up on a business idea that we both collaborated on. It's like. And to Daniel, that was a luck attraction or a luck magnet because he was someone that people wanted to partner with in business. But for us, that was a preparation meets opportunity or vice versa. And now there's been a lot of luck magnets, like you've pointed out, which is really interesting because a lot of times those will come across my desk and I'll just be like, where did this even come from? Like, how it almost feels too easy sometimes. And it's not to say that from like. Like we're crushing it in that sense, but it's like you used to have to really, like, kick your legs to even find anything tangible.

Yeah, I think it's so true. Yeah, you guys deserve it. You guys are awesome.

That's cool, man. Did you learn that framework somewhere or did you just kind of think of that on your own?

I think it was like a. Paul Graham has talked about parts of it, but then I was like, what's a better word for like, the thing where you're just making motion? It's like, oh, I like that.

Yeah, that's.

I got a ton of this. Dude, we gotta bring the cigars in. You know, you come, come hang out, we'll text, talk shop.

We'll do. We'll do a long form podcast. We gotta get that. That was gonna be my next thing, bro, is we gotta. Especially because you prioritize community over anything else. We gotta get you out to one of our events in Tampa we do these big events once a year, at least a big event like in October we had over 100 people there. And then we'll do smaller events like satellite type events or fly ins or office events every quarter at least as well. And those are always great because, you know, we're mostly online from the day to day. And then just to be able to fly out somewhere and kind of be out of that office environment and just in person with a bunch of people you've been talking with and learning from online, like that's what I look forward to more than anything else. So like the future of client ascension is a lot more in person. At least that's where I want to go with it. So hopefully that also, you know, means us being able to collaborate and meet and chop it up and do more in person stuff.

Yeah, million percent Hampton, by the way, coming to a similar conclusion. They're, they're moving very heavily in person, I think for the same reasons. Yeah, I think that's a good bet.

They have a really interesting model because I think they do it geographically or.

At least now they do. Yeah. I mean before it was more like okay, as long as Canada, U.S. mexico. But yeah, now they're making a very concerted outbound effort that is very geo centric, which I, you know, I think makes sense.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, one day we'll get there. Like I said, client ascension is something that we're going to be building for the, I mean, the rest of my life, at least the way I see it. Yeah, it's a very long term lifestyle business and as long as we continue to learn from our own business experiences, we'll always. Client attention will always be relevant because those learnings can be shared and are valuable to other people, including yourself and everyone else that's been on this channel before. So. So yeah, man, business is a fun game and it's cool. We get to meet people like each other and have conversations like this and get paid for. So I appreciate you coming on, sharing your story, talking about some of your experience being in the program. I know you're super new to the program, but you've already had a huge impact. So looking forward to what this year has in store for both of us. And last question for the audience, where can they connect with you and follow you online if they're inclined? Ascension, I always just say DM the impact. So looking forward to what this year has in store for both of us. And last question, for the audience, where can they connect with you and follow you? Online if they're inclined. Ascension. I always just say DM the person.