I launched an investment-focused Substack-based newsletter in January of this year.
My first-year goal is to hit $20,000 in gross annual recurring subscription revenue.
Why only $20K?
I think $20,000 is challenging enough to be motivating yet achievable. Since I’m starting from zero with no preexisting audience, this feels like a realistic first-year target.
Pricing
My annual subscription will be $200, and my monthly subscription will be $30.
I considered making the monthly rate equal to the yearly subscription to encourage annual subscriptions and smooth out revenue, but decided against it initially.
I may adjust this pricing structure once I have a larger audience.
My newsletter is in the finance and investing niche.
It focuses on owning high-quality companies for the long term.
Unlike short-term trading newsletters, which can charge higher rates due to their high-frequency content, my newsletter serves long-term investors.
I’ve aimed to price my newsletter to fairly compensate my analysis while ensuring subscribers receive clear value for their investment.
Subscribers Goal
I need 100 paying subscribers to reach my goal of $20,000 gross annual recurring subscription revenue.
The typical conversion rate from free to paid subscribers is about 1ā2%.
At a 1% conversion rate and a $200 annual payment, I’ll need 10,000 subscribers.
At a 2% conversion rate and a $200 annual payment, I’ll need 5,000 subscribers.
Getting 10,000 subscribers in one year seems daunting. Iām going to do whatever needs to be done to increase that conversion rate.
Schedule
I post at least twice per week.
Each week includes a curated roundup of the best financial content I’ve read.
Paid subscribers receive a weekly portfolio update email with fair value adjustments on holdings and position sizing updates.
On Thursdays, I publish a longer-form article. The format rotates weekly, with each type appearing once per month.
The second-to-last week of each month features a paid subscriber issue analyzing a high-quality company trading at an attractive price that I’m adding to the model portfolio.
Social Media
Starting from zero, I need to build my presence on social media and other discovery platforms. I’ll use Metricool as my social media planner and scheduler.
Initially, I’m focusing on major text-based platforms: Twitter, Threads, and BlueSky.
I plan to concentrate my engagement on BlueSky, as Twitter’s discovery features now favor paid subscribers, and Threads has limited reach for posts with external links.
While I’d like to start a YouTube channel for additional reach, creating a faceless channel seems daunting. It would require extensive video clips and images to complement the voiceover, unlike a simpler format of recording myself with occasional charts and B-roll.
Substack Finance Support Group
I joined a Telegram group exclusively for finance-focused Substack authors. The group’s goals are sharing growth strategies, promoting each other’s work, and developing collaborative projects and cross-promotions.
This group has been my biggest source of growth since launching on Substack.
My subscriber count has grown from fewer than 10 to 187 subscribers.
Revenue
After 5 months, my annual recurring revenue is $936, coming from a mix of monthly subscribers and one yearly subscriber.
It’s a modest beginning and still very far from my $20K annual goal.
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