Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

Get Esteban's 36k Subscriber Content Machine → growthinreverse.com/esteban/

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Esteban Perez is the co-founder of the ADHD Weasel newsletter. Their newsletter has grown to over 36,000 subscribers and reached over 280,000 followers on Threads.

But it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies. The cofounders first launched an app for food waste and discovered the hard way what happens when you don't validate your idea. Now, their newsletter is earning over $100k annually with 800+ paid subscribers.

In this episode, Esteban shared how they go there, along with his most successful growth strategy - and their content strategy that allows a two-person team to post over 100 posts per week.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How a failed food waste app accidentally revealed the audience that became The ADHD Weasel
• The "accidental" moment that convinced Esteban to launch a paid tier
• The quiz that 6-7X'd conversions in one week
• The Threads posting system behind 4+ million views
• The Meta ad format that worked because it didn't look like an ad
• How Esteban treats segments with a Substack newsletter
• The platform Esteban believes has the most valuable subscribers
• The weekly "bottleneck analysis" habit that everyone skips

LINKS MENTIONED

• Get the 36K Subscriber Content Machine →
• ADHD Weasel — adhdweasel.com
• ADHD Weasel on Threads
• Esteban's email — [email protected]
• The ADHD Weasel Quiz (ADHD Weasel lead magnet)
• Publer (scheduling SOCIAL tool)

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Get free access to Jay Clouse's Memberships Teardown including how he built The Lab: creatorscience.com/teardown

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And you can take YOUR newsletter to the next level by joining our private community — GIR Pro >>

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Jay Clouse, founder of Creator Science and The Lab, joined us live from Kit Studios in Boise.

Jay pulls back the curtain on 4+ years of building one of the most enduring creator communities out there — from its origins as the Creative Companion Club to a 340-member operation with tiered access, mastermind groups, and a wait list. Jay shares what's worked, what's backfired (including the scarcity campaign that became his worst churn month ever), and what he's actively redesigning right now.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why their highest-ever membership revenue month was followed by their worst churn month
• The difference between marketing levers that convert and the ones that serve your members
• How The Lab evolved from a 200-member cap to a tiered application model
• The "mid-boarding" gap that kills retention in most memberships
• The troubling paradox of community-led mastermind groups
• The two onboarding secrets Jay considers his unfair advantages
• Why offline events are a retention tool, not a growth tool
• What to think through before launching a membership
• The unexpected risk in scaling a community too quickly

LINKS MENTIONED

• CreatorScience.com/teardown
• Chenell on Jay's podcast: 1st Appearance || 2nd Appearance

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Stop losing subscribers with your onboarding — get Chenell's Subscriber Onboarding Course included in The Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault

This episode is a live recording from the 2026 Newsletter Conference in New York City where Chenell sat down onstage with Tim Huelskamp, co-founder of 1440 — the daily digest for more than 4.7 million curious readers.

Tim shares the full arc of 1440's growth: from 78 subscribers to a media company generating roughly $1M in revenue per employee, including the unconventional early tactics, the Facebook ad playbook that still runs today, and the ambitious new "Topics" platform they're building to become the Pinterest for knowledge.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why Tim spent the first 7–8 months focused entirely on product before touching growth 
• The counterintuitive decision to remove images from 1440 entirely 
• The discovery that 3x'd sponsor revenue without adding a single new advertiser
• The bet on their "Topics" platform: what "Pinterest for knowledge" actually looks like 

LINKS MENTIONED

• 1440 Newsletter — 1440's daily digest (join1440.com)
• 1440 Topics — 1440's new knowledge platform (1440.io/topics)
• WhoSponsorStuff — Newsletter sponsorship intelligence tool mentioned by Tim ("Ryan and Jesse's" tool)

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Steve Kamb bought the domain for NerdFitness.com in 2007 and grew it into a 45-person, SEO-driven coaching company. But then he burned out. Badly. He demoted himself twice, and eventually stepped away from running the business entirely — all so he could do the one thing he actually loved: write.

In this episode, Steve joins us to talk about his new book How to Try Again, the hard lessons from 17+ years of building Nerd Fitness, and why starting over isn't a failure — it's a skill.

His PACT framework (Pause, Accept, Change, Try) offers a practical roadmap for any creator who's ever felt stuck, burned out, or tempted to quit.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• How Steve built Nerd Fitness from a blog into a 45-person company
• Why he demoted himself out of his own CEO role
• The brutal reality of pandemic-era burnout and what it taught him about chasing the wrong things
• Why "all or nothing" thinking almost always fails
• His four-step PACT framework for starting over after burnout or failure
• The question he asked that changed everything
• Why writing two articles a week for 10 years was the real engine behind Nerd Fitness
• The danger of modeling celebrity success over relatable success
• How Steve separated his personal brand from Nerd Fitness
• What success actually looks like for Steve now

LINKS MENTIONED

• SteveKamb.com
• How To Try Again (Steve's Book)
• NerdFitness.com
• Kit — email platform used by Steve and the hosts

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Check out the 30 Days of Growth: 30daysofgrowth.co/

Get the Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault

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Alyssa Dulin is Kit's deliverability expert.

She joined us to pull back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood forces shaping newsletter success: deliverability.

We sat down with her to unpack why emails land in spam, what the big Gmail and Yahoo changes really mean for individual creators, and how to build a sending reputation that lasts. From domain warmups to fake opens to bot clicks, this episode covers the stuff most newsletter creators won't learn until something goes wrong.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The custom domain mistake tanking open rates — and how to make the switch
• Why your sender reputation works like a credit score, and what "starting at zero" actually means for deliverability
• The top 3 subscriber engagement signals ranked by impact
• How long you should wait before removing inactive subscribers
• What actually happens to your sender reputation if you take a break from sending 
• Alyssa's deliverability checklist for newsletter creators
• How to onboard Creator Network and "recommendation" subscribers without hurting deliverability
• The uncomfortable truth about whether your open rates and click rates are even real
• How AI inbox summaries are becoming the new gatekeeper between your email and your reader
• How to safely increase your send frequency without triggering spam filters

LINKS MENTIONED

• Kit — email platform used by Alyssa and the hosts
• Google Postmaster Tools — monitor your domain reputation and complaint rates with Gmail
• SendGauge — Alyssa's new deliverability intelligence platform (beta)
• Deliverability Defined Podcast — Alyssa's podcast with the deliverability back catalog
• Kit deliverability support: [email protected]

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Check out the 30 Days of Growth: 30daysofgrowth.co/

Get the Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault

***

Chenell and Dylan break down everything that happened with the second annual 30 Days of Growth — 30 cross-promotions with 30 different newsletter creators, published as a daily email series over 30 consecutive days. They cover what worked, what flopped, why Chenell wishes she'd done opt-ins instead of opt-outs, how 2,086 new subscribers came in (beating last year's 1,757), and which tips from the series they found most compelling — from AI-powered subject line analysis to a 5x landing page conversion boost from changing one button.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why Chenell decided to run 30 Days of Growth for a second time 
• The biggest mistake they made with subscriber onboarding this year 
• Why daily newsletters can quietly hurt engagement and deliverability 
• The surprising ROI of referral incentives and private podcast feeds 
• Why collaborations create long-term relationship leverage beyond subscriber growth 
• The operational reality of coordinating 30 creators in 30 days 
• Whether 30 Days of Growth will return again next year 

LINKS MENTIONED:

• 30DaysofGrowth.co
• https://helloaudio.fm/
• The Growth Vault
• The GIR Pro Community

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Get Sam's FREE $500K Launch Breakdown >> growthinreverse.com/500k

Get Instant Access to Chenell's Growth Vault >> growthinreverse.com/vault

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What does a $500,000 digital product launch actually look like behind the scenes?

In this episode, we welcome back Sam Vander Wielen to the show. She's breaking down the exact strategy behind her recent 4-day launch that generated over $500,000 in revenue — with only about $24,000 in Meta ad spend.

Sam walks us through the entire launch machine: how she generated 11,000 webinar registrations, why she treats Meta ads like a social media channel, the psychology behind her webinar structure, and the surprising role personalized VideoAsk responses played in boosting attendance and conversions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The exact webinar strategy behind a $500k launch in 4 days 
•  Why Sam treats Meta ads like a social media content channel 
•  The personalized VideoAsk tactic that boosted webinar attendance 
•  How she generated 11,000 webinar registrations 
•  The subtle webinar psychology most creators completely miss 
•  Why she believes creators should focus on ONE flagship product 
•  The “Olive Garden Effect” philosophy for customer retention and referrals 
•  Her secret trick to sending webinar replays that dramatically increased replay consumption 
•  The biggest mistakes creators make with launches and digital products 

LINKS MENTIONED:

• The FREE $500K Launch Breakdown >> growthinreverse.com/500k
• Sam Vander Wielen Official Website
• Sam’s Sidebar Newsletter
• On Your Terms Podcast
• When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy
• VideoAsk

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

Love what you’re hearing? Make sure to subscribe, and if you found this episode helpful, leave us a rating & review on your favorite podcast platform.

Check out Jillian & Jordan's Growth Lever here: https://growthinreverse.com/loveleigh-popups/

Join 30 Days of Growth here: 30daysofgrowth.co

Check out Tyler's Growth Lever here: https://growthinreverse.com/tyler-welcome-flow/

Join 30 Days of Growth here: 30daysofgrowth.co

Check out Justin's Growth Lever here: https://growthinreverse.com/justin-welsh-question/

Join 30 Days of Growth here: 30daysofgrowth.co