In this segment of the My First Million podcast, host Sam Parr and a guest explore the business model of Agora, a massive B2B paid‑newsletter network founded by Bill Bonner in the 1970s. They describe how Agora acquires traffic aggressively, sells low‑priced front‑end products (e.g., $5‑$50 books) at a loss to build a highly qualified email list, and then monetizes that list with high‑ticket backend offers such as $2,000 paid newsletters and even supplements. The discussion highlights Agora’s audience—predominantly older, conservative white men—and its stark, text‑heavy landing pages that prioritize copy over visual design. The conversation pivots to a broader argument that copywriting, the art of persuasive written sales messages, is far more valuable than aesthetic design. Sam emphasizes that mastering copywriting equips anyone to generate revenue from any simple webpage, for better or worse, and that it teaches deep insight into human motivations. The guest mentions the classic “Boron Letters” by legendary copywriter Gary Halbert, noting how the letters demonstrate powerful storytelling, teasing, and persuasive structure. Throughout, the speakers stress that copywriting is the core skill for building products people want and for sustaining a lifelong income stream.
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Um, okay.
Yeah, let's talk about Agora.
Okay. You wanna hear about Agora? Okay.
So Agora is, is what? It's a B2B paid newsletter company.
Uh, yeah.
That has absurd revenue.
Go to my Twitter account. Okay. So here's another interesting company. I know this because I'm in this world and it's directly related to us. Yeah, just, yeah, the same part. Yeah, whatever. That's fine. Okay. So Agora, crazy interesting background. So Agora was started by this guy named Bill Bonner in the 1970s. He was a publisher. He had a magazine about money and investing and things like that. And then he decided to start changing how he did his marketing and he created a newsletter that became quite popular. At this point, you'll see it, it's the most popular one. No, up higher. At this point, they make, it's rumored to be $1.5 to $2 billion a year. And the way that they do this, there it is, they own 20 to 40 different newsletter publishers. And what they do is, is they buy a ton of traffic to their funnels, their marketing funnels, and right off the bat they'll sell you a $50 product.
Right.
And once you buy that $50 product, they now have a large database and email list of qualified buyers who are interested in a particular topic. And they typically lose money on this first purchase. So let's say that they have a book that's $50. They'll spend up to $200 to acquire you. Mm-hmm. Meaning they'll buy a ton of ads and they'll, they'll lose money on you. But they'll make it up because on the, they call it a backend. On the backend, they sell you a $2,000 paid newsletter. And this company in particular, they even sell supplements and shit. Now, some people think that they— some people love them. And when you own 20 or 40 different brands, you're going to have some legitimately great products, right?
What's their best product?
Um, moneymappress.com, or yeah, Money Map Press.
So this is for hedge funds, for financial traders?
Um, yes, some financial traders. Their typical audience is white men between 50 and 70 who, who, who are conservative and believe in like the government's gonna come and like take your money. I mean, that goes like, so I signed up some of their funnels and there was shit like if you go to Breitbart.com, you'll see an ad that says like Nancy Pelosi's coming for your money and things like that. And you sign up.
And that takes you through one of the Agora funnels.
Uh-huh. And it's a $5 book. And then, yeah. And then you'll, you'll go through these funnels. Now let's just get rid of the whole unethical part because you can learn from everyone. Who cares if it's unethical or ethical? It's fascinating regardless. And you can learn from it. What they're experts at is copywriting and everyone in Silicon Valley, not everyone, but you know, you get the point, is all about design. It's gotta look good. It's gotta be aesthetic. Their websites are a blank page with text, right? Not just text, but like fucking 5,000 words and a buy now button at the very bottom. It's crazy.
That's fascinating. That is fascinating. And I think you're, you know, you know that Peter Thiel quote where it's like, what's something you believe to be true that few would agree with you on?
Yeah.
I feel like, you know, you might have many, but one of 'em would be copywriting over design any day.
Copywriting over design, 100% any day.
Most people, I remember when I learned the word copywriting, cause I was like, what is, what does everyone talk? What is copy? Why does everyone keep saying this? And like, I literally was at work and people were like, hey, can you gimme some copy? I was like, coffee? What did she just ask me to go get a coffee for her? Like, I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about. And, uh, and then I sort of learned, oh, copy means text that's gonna go on the website. And then through you, I realized, hey, wait a minute, the text that's on your website is essentially your salesman and sales gives you the money. I should probably learn how to do this. And then I went deep on it.
It's the most important skill you can learn because I've spent years learning it. If you just give me a blank webpage, I will, I will make money until I die, right? I will always have a job because I could do that. Now, what I could do is do really unethical shit and scam a lot of people really easily. But if you know how to copyright, do, or you know how to persuade via the written word.
Yeah, I would say persuasion is the most important skill, whether it's through the written word, verbally, um, you know, I don't know if there's some other—
yeah, but copywriting variation, copywriting is just the form in which you learn it. Now, the way that I describe it is if you're a good copywriter, you understand what motivates people. And if you understand what motivates people, you can create products that they'll want.
That will appeal to people.
Yeah. And then if you are— that is, that's the— when you do copywriting, you just learn what motivates people and then you just happen to use the written word to communicate.
Yeah. When you mentioned the Boron Letters and then I just went deep on that, that was like my foray into this. So we'll do a whole section on—
Did you read the Boron Letters?
Yes. And then I started like, doing all the things in it, uh, because I got obsessed.
So the Boron Letters, if anyone's curious, Gary Halbert is his name. He's dead now. He died of a heart attack.
It's actually kind of hard to find. It's hard to find, but there's, there's one link, and if you get to it, it's like chapter 1, 2, 3, and it goes to 19 or whatever.
It's this copywriter who's one of the best copywriters of all time, and what he would do is he was such a good copywriter that he kind of turned into a crook. And so he would write these sales letters to buy like encyclopedias or, and buy like Fucking anything, just shit.
So the Boron Letters are— the way it starts, it's like he's writing to his son.
He's in jail.
He's in jail writing to his son, and he doesn't start off by being like, here's how you copyright. He's just writing to his son, and it's one by one, and each one's a teaser. Every sentence teases the next sentence, and every letter teases the next letter. And then by the time you get 20 deep, you're like, this guy's a master.
