This week's interview

When Tim Huelskamp and the 1440 team launched their newsletter in 2017, they started with 78 subscribers. Today, that newsletter has 750,000 subscribers.

Huelskamp and the 1440 team approached growing the business with a product-driven mindset: "Nothing matters without a great product," Huelskamp says. In this week's interview, Huelskamp breaks down newsletter unit economics, strategies to scale, and product frameworks. 👇

Trends in Tech & Media:

• 💰Facebook's $5 million newsletters. In March, Facebook announced its entrance into the subscription newsletter fray. (Casey Newton made a smart argument for why it could work: "The historian Heather Cox Richardson is one of the most successful individual authors on Substack, on track to earn more than $1 million in subscription revenue this year. Many of her subscribers come from her Facebook page, which has 1.4 million followers.") Now, Facebook is moving into local journalism with a $5 million program to support journalists covering local communities.
  
  To me, this initiative feels like virtue signaling before a further push into creator monetization. (I can't picture many Facebook executives truly concerned for the fate of the Kentucky Courier Journal, Eden Prairie News, or Mount Vernon News.) But, as Newton writes: "The more big companies that are competing for writers, the better off most writers will be." 
   
• 👂Paying to listen to people talk on Twitter? You may have seen Twitter influencers hosting audio conversations through Twitter Spaces. (For example, Packy McCormick and Austin Reif host a show called Space Cadets.) Now, influencers will be able to charge for admittance to those conversations. For a particular sort of newsletter writer, Spaces could be a smart way to monetize a large Twitter following.
  
  But as a Newsletter Crew member pointed out in our Discord: "I suspect the number of writers who could command any actual paying audience on that platform is much smaller than Twitter thinks it is." And, don't forget, audio is hard. Clubhouse downloads are way down.
   
• 📈The playbook for selling digital products. It's possible that one of the most underrated ways to monetize a newsletter is by selling digital products. From Google Spreadsheets to Notion pages, industrious folks with a bit of subject matter expertise are selling digital products for tens of thousands of dollars of lifetime revenue. Make it once, sell it forever. Here's a thread by Adam Keesling, former writer of the Napkin Math newsletter, with some helpful tips and ideas. 

Resources:

• Dan Oshinsky answers the question: "When is the best time to send a newsletter?"
• How Newsette's Daniella Pierson made $6 million from 500k subscribers.
• Why Trapital's Dan Runcie monetizes his newsletter by consulting.
• Don't forget: Tax day is on April 17th. Check out these tips for freelance writers. 

Newsletters to read:

• Medialyte. A pseudo-serious newsletter that explores the innovators, innovations, and reasons for optimism in the media industry. Subscribe.
   
• Reboot. Reboot is a publication and community for technologists charting a more conscious role in the world. Every week, we share a book review or an essay by a Reboot community member, plus a few links that sparked joy and thought. Subscribe.
   
• Chips + Dip. Chips + Dips is a newsletter living at the intersection of ecomm, tech, and branding. Chips are small news bites. Dips are deeper dives. Subscribe. 
   
• (Un)real. (un)real is an exploration of the future and what’s possible when real and digital life converge … IRL + URL = ? Subscribe.
   
• The Half Marathoner. The Half Marathoner is a newsletter written by Terrell Johnson, the founder and editor-in-chief of Half Marathon Guide, plus Carissa Liebowitz and Hollie Sick, a pair of highly experienced runners who share everything they know about how to become a better runner. Subscribe.
   
• Fintech Today. Fintech Today is a newsletter on what's newsworthy and noteworthy in the fintech space, written by Ian Kar and Julie Verhage. Subscribe.