NEW live case study - growing a newsletter to 1 million subscribers

Do you think I can grow a newsletter from 0-1,000,000 subscribers?

I've only ever grown a newsletter to 400 subs (this one you’re reading), but I'm about to go all in, and I'm doing it publicly so y'all can follow my progress live.

Yup, I'm revealing the URLs.

And I'm starting today.

I'm actually gonna grow 2 newsletters simultaneously:

• The first is Success Highlight - I'm attempting to grow it from 0 to a million subscribers. It's a bi-weekly newsletter sharing success stories in 2 minutes or less. Hopefully super inspiring!By the way I actually need success stories to feature, so if you wanna be featured, click here. Any success, big or small is fine. $100 MRR, $1M MRR, doesn't matter to me. All success stories are inspiring regardless of size!

• The second is called The Slick Pixel - I'm attempting to grow this one to a $100K valuation. It's a DAILY newsletter featuring slick web design examples.

Both are free and will earn money primarily through sponsorships and affiliate marketing.

Success Highlight will also earn from SparkLoop’s Upscribe recommendations (hopefully lol).

There are several other monetization opportunities to explore down the road as well. ;)

I'm still a noob when it comes to newsletters, and am fully aware that this has a good chance of becoming an epic, public failure.

But what's that saying.. "aim for the stars and even if you miss you'll land on the moon"? I think I got it backwards but it makes more sense this way lol.

Why am I doing this?

My background is in niche sites and SEO. But I think it's unwise to put all your eggs in one basket and be reliant on Google. Especially as of late, where legit sites are getting rekt by algorithm updates.

That's not the only reason though.

I also really enjoy reading success stories and know pretty much everyone else does to.

And, I have a background in web design and UX and really appreciate a well-designed site.

So these newsletters are a way for me to further explore those interests and share them with others.

Of course, the business potential is appealing as well.

Newsletters have great profit margins, are growing in popularity, and are extremely valuable to potential sponsors who want to get in front of their target audience.

And yet the market for newsletters is still wide open.

What inspired me to start this case study?

I've wanted to start a success story site/newsletter for a long time now out of my own interest, but Scott DeLong’s challenge is what tipped me over the edge for sure. Ultra inspirational. If you're not following it, you should be.

I actually emailed Scott a while back about my idea and he said he loved it and would subscribe.

This vote of confidence meant a lot coming from the king of newsletter growth.

How am I going to grow these newsletters?

I obviously don't have much experience, but this is what I'll try:

• Twitter (I do have experience growing a Twitter account :))

• Recommendation swaps with other newsletters

• Referral program maybe?

• FB ads

If you want to help jumpstart the growth of my newsletters' Twitter accounts, you can follow them here:

SuccessHighligh

TheSlickPixel

So there you have it. The when, the what, the why, the how. To follow my progress, follow me on Twitter where I'll share regular updates, and subscribe to:

…where I'll share more behind-the-scenes details and strategy (I decided to create a separate Substack because this one is about niche sites/SEO which is a different audience than newsletters).

Don’t worry, I’m still doing my niche site case study and will continue providing updates on the progress of that here. :)

Questions? Advice? Thoughts?