The Growth Vault is LIVE: Chenell's brand-new offer for newsletter creators is here—filled with newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.

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“Creators overinvest in subscriber count and under-invest in content quality.” — Chenell Basilio

We went live on YouTube for the first time and opened up the floor for a full creator Q&A session!

In this session, we answered audience questions about newsletters, growth, ROI, lead magnets, AI in email, overcoming writing fears, and building creator businesses that last.

QUESTIONS WE ANSWERED

These are the questions we tackled during the livestream:

• Do newsletter writers need to have a podcast and/or YouTube channel to succeed?
• Should creators focus on one platform first, or spread across multiple?
• What’s was our ROI and ROF (Return on Fun) of running a podcast for a year?
• What were the biggest benefits of podcasting this year?
• What would we do differently if we were starting the podcast in 2026?
• Which part of our podcast workflow will we stop doing (or want to stop)?
• How do subject lines affect open rates for new vs. long-time subscribers?
• What’s one thing newsletter creators over-invest in?
• What’s one thing newsletter creators under-invest in?
• What is the most important metric you track in your ESP?
• What metrics matter more than open rate?
• How are AI features in Apple Mail and Gmail changing how people interact with newsletters?
• ...and more!

LINKS MENTIONED

• GrowthInReverse.com
• GrowthCurrency.net
• Join a community for newsletter creators: Growth In Reverse Pro
• Get The Growth Vault — newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.
• Want your newsletter roasted? Submit it here.
• Ask us a question or submit a podcast topic idea: growthinreverse.com/questions
• Check out past Growth In Reverse Deep Dives: https://growthinreverse.com/archive/

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

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

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

If you found this episode valuable, take a second to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! It helps more newsletter creators find the show. Plus, if you submit a review, you’ll get priority for your own newsletter roast!

Music from #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/21-on-the-block/i-know
License code: 1XP9IRXHPZSBPGMM

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >>

This week, we're playin' the hits!

Let's rewind the clock to December 2024. This episode was the very first episode we published—and it's been our most popular episode to date! In this very first episode, we dig into the 3,000+ hours of research Chenell has done into creators and uncovered some of the wildest ways successful newsletter creators have grown their newsletters.

Get the full list and 75+ newsletter growth tactics here: https://growthinreverse.com/wild
Start collecting testimonials for free with Senja: https://growthinreverse.com/senja

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Codie Sanchez’s Playbook: How buying and growing newsletters helped her build a massive audience.
• Yossi Levi (Car Dealership Guy): Building a powerful brand—100% anonymously.
• Ali from First 1000: Breaking down intentional, daily growth strategies.
• Tom Alder’s Prelaunch Strategy: Using social media to validate your newsletter idea to the tune of 5k subscribers.
• Justin Welsh’s Content OS: A behind-the-scenes look at the system that powers Justin’s consistent content creation—and how it's earned him over 7 figures.
• Cross-Promotion Tactics: How creators like Alex Garcia used newsletter-video swaps to grow their lists by thousands.

LINKS MENTIONED

• Codie Sanchez Grew Her Newsletter to 250k+ Subscribers in Just 3 Years (deep dive)
• Yossi Levi Built The Car Dealership Guy to 550k+ Followers (deep dive)
• First1000.co Grew to 60k Subscribers in 32 Months (deep dive)
• How Justin Welsh turned his sawdust into $2 million (deep dive)
• "Car Dealership Guy" Yossi Levi's "Who the f*** is Car Dealership Guy" video
• Justin Welsh's Content System: https://youtu.be/0tjGORsL2QI?si=LRUt9hOqRAJHNdaW&t=1012
• Justin's ContentOS course https://growthinreverse.com/contentos (aff link)
• Check out all these growth levers here: https://growthinreverse.com/wild

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

• Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn | Bluesky
• Dylan: Twitter | LinkedIn | Bluesky

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!

The Growth Vault is LIVE: Chenell's brand-new offer for newsletter creators is here—filled with newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.

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“Organic needs to be your biggest channel if you want a real audience that feels connected to you.” — Sean Griffey, Industry Dive

You might not have aspirations of building a $100m newsletter empire. Neither did Sean Griffey.

But 10 years after cofounding Industry Dive with two peers, Sean and his cofounders sold their newsletter media business for a reported $500 million. We sat down with Sean Griffey, to understand what it took to build a behemoth like they did with Industry Dive, and whether or not Sean is still bullish on the newsletter business model.

In our chat, Sean breaks down exactly how they grew Industry Dive—from buying LinkedIn groups to mastering first-party data—and shares what today’s newsletter operators can learn from Industry Dive’s playbook.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The real reason Industry Dive launched with five newsletters on day one (and why Sean says they all “sucked” at first).
• How a bad story accidentally proved their newsletter finally “mattered.”
• The exact growth levers they pulled early on — including buying LinkedIn groups.
• Why Sean believes “organic audience growth beats paid growth every time” for long-term brand value.
• How they turned a small B2B news business into a 500-person company operating globally.
• The virtuous cycle of investing revenue back into better content.
• What their content studio does—and how it now drives ~40 % of total revenue.
• What Sean believes is the most valuable data point in newsletters.
• How Industry Dive decided which metrics actually mattered.
• The lessons creators today can steal from a company that built 9 figures in newsletter revenue.

LINKS MENTIONED

• Industry Dive
• Sean Griffey on LinkedIn
• Informa (the company that bought Industry Dive)
• Join a community for newsletter creators: Growth In Reverse Pro
• Get The Growth Vault — newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.
• Want your newsletter roasted? Submit it here.
• Ask us a question or submit a podcast topic idea: growthinreverse.com/questions
• Check out past Growth In Reverse Deep Dives: https://growthinreverse.com/archive/

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

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

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

If you found this episode valuable, take a second to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! It helps more newsletter creators find the show. Plus, if you submit a review, you’ll get priority for your own newsletter roast!

Music from #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/21-on-the-block/i-know
License code: 1XP9IRXHPZSBPGMM

The Growth Vault is LIVE: Chenell's brand-new offer for newsletter creators is here—filled with newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.

Quick note: We ran a 30-day Social Growth Challenge that we opened to the public for a $100 fee to join.
But all purchasers of The Growth Vault were able to join for FREE ;)

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“I love the concept of a challenge—I just don’t know that social media is the goal anymore.” — Chenell Basilio

We ran a "public" 30-Day Social Growth Challenge.
But was it worth it?

This episode breaks down the fallout and lessons learned from the GIR 30-Day Social Growth Challenge. We dive into whether or not we thought the challenge was a success—and whether it was worth it for each of us. We also share some pretty epic wins from several of our challengers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What can happen when you post 30 days straight.
• Whether or not a challenge like this is worth it.
• The hidden ROI of consistency—even when follower growth looks small.
• How one participant landed $2M in investor interest from a single post.
• Is daily posting “an exercise in futility”—and what you could do instead.
• How a 12-week Content Flywheel became the ultimate anti-burnout system.
• The channel appears to be the best long-term growth play for newsletters.
• How to design a challenge that actually moves your business forward.
• The surprising power of small wins and how to build momentum fast.

LINKS MENTIONED

• Our Challenge Winners: 🥇 Tom Orbach || 🥈 Danny Naz || 🥉 Alejandra Rojas
• Adam Schaeuble's 12-Week Content Flywheel
• Join a community for newsletter creators: Growth In Reverse Pro
• Get The Growth Vault — newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.
• Want your newsletter roasted? Submit it here.
• Ask us a question or submit a podcast topic idea: growthinreverse.com/questions
• Check out past Growth In Reverse Deep Dives: https://growthinreverse.com/archive/

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

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

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

If you found this episode valuable, take a second to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! It helps more newsletter creators find the show. Plus, if you submit a review, you’ll get priority for your own newsletter roast!

The Growth Vault is LIVE: Chenell's brand-new offer for newsletter creators is here—filled with newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.

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“If you’re not exceptional at one of the Big 3 — it’s impossible to build a content business.” — Dylan quoting Matt McGarry

We're sharing the biggest stories, trends, and lessons from the newsletter space over the past few weeks.

From Bari Weiss’s $150M Substack newsletter sale to gamified engagement strategies and the rise of YouTube as the new discovery channel, we're unpacking what these moves mean for creators and operators running newsletters today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What the $150M acquisition of Bari Weiss's The Free Press proves about newsletters.
• How creators can reverse-engineer their dream roles or acquisition partners.
• The game that The Assist launched to boost engagement & reader affinity.
• What LinkedIn’s games can teach creators about streaks, competition, and retention loops.
• A referral program so smart it practically funds itself.
• The "Big 3 Media Strategy” that should reshape your content marketing.
• The #1 fear that's holding back most newsletter creators.

LINKS MENTIONED

• The Free Press by Barri Weiss
• News: CBS parent company Paramount Skydance buys The Free Press
• Workle by The Assist newsletter
• The Dink Deep Dive (via GIR)
• The "Big 3 Media Platforms" article via Matt McGarry
• Get Chenell's brand-new offering for newsletter creators: The Growth Vault — newsletter templates, growth strategies, and real examples you can implement at your own pace.
• Want your newsletter roasted? Submit it here.
• Ask us a question or submit a podcast topic idea: growthinreverse.com/questions
• Check out past Growth In Reverse Deep Dives: https://growthinreverse.com/archive/

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL

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

OUR NEWSLETTERS

• growthinreverse.com
• growthcurrency.net

Subscribe & Leave a Review:

If you found this episode valuable, take a second to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! It helps more newsletter creators find the show. Plus, if you submit a review, you’ll get priority for your own newsletter roast!