Matt Paulson (MarketBeat) joins Matt and Kolby to talk about the SMS playbook that's now 25% of MarketBeat's revenue, why he pays Twilio $400K a month to make it work, and the case for treating digital media as a depreciating asset he'll shut down at 65 rather than sell.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 03:30 SMS Is The New Email
• 06:00 SMS Is Now 25% Of MarketBeat's Revenue ($1.5M+/Month)
• 10:00 Promoting Advertiser Offers Over Your Own
• 13:30 $100 Paid Webinars That Sell $2,500/Month Coaching
• 14:30 SMS Sunsetting, Short Codes, And Deliverability
• 17:00 Confirming Phone Numbers To Avoid TCPA Lawsuits
• 19:00 SMS Tech Stack And Twilio's $400K/Month Bills
• 23:00 Why Newsletters Are Still Worth It (Gmail's March 20 Change)
• 28:00 Multi-Channel: Spending $500K/Month On Meta Ads
• 33:00 The Co-Reg Wars: IMS vs AfterOffers
• 35:00 Every Tech Company Will Eventually Buy A Media Company
• 38:00 Why MarketBeat Won't Be Sold Or Acquired
• 41:00 Beehiiv, Substack, And ESP Feature Bloat
• 46:00 Marketers Matt Watches: Hormozi, Sanchez, Deiss
• 50:00 Where to Find Matt Paulson

📌 Resources:

• MarketBeat
• AfterOffers
• The Email Copywriter (Chris Orzechowski)

🔗 Connect with Matt Paulson:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter/X

Leave a 5-star review on Apple or Spotify, then email matt@growletter.co or kolby@growletter.co with a screenshot and a question — we'll answer it on the show.

Jonathan Hunt (VP of HubSpot Media) joins Matt and Kolby to talk about how HubSpot built a 50M-reach owned-media network, the four-part test they run on every acquisition (Hustle, Mindstream, Starter Story, Futurepedia), and why they killed every audio-only podcast on the network.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 03:33 Why HubSpot Buys Media Companies
• 04:45 What HubSpot Media Actually Is (65 People, 3 Pillars)
• 07:15 The Editorial Thesis Behind Every Acquisition
• 12:26 The HubSpot Acquisition Test: 4 Criteria
• 14:53 Inside HubSpot's 150-Creator Program
• 22:24 Co-Creating Brands With Creators
• 25:06 Why HubSpot Went YouTube First
• 30:41 The Ad Fatigue Problem (And How They Solved It)
• 33:01 Scott Galloway and the Native Lead Magnet Play
• 36:15 How HubSpot Reinvests Profits Into Growth
• 39:46 Minority Report-Level Attribution
• 42:00 Why HubSpot Killed Audio-Only Podcasts
• 43:12 Reactions: Puck, TBPN, Sherwood, A16Z
• 51:31 Why HubSpot Won't Launch a Net-New Live Show
• 53:47 Where to Find Jonathan

📌 Resources:

• Mindstream
• Starter Story
• Futurepedia
• HubSpot Creator Program

🔗 Connect with Jonathan:

• LinkedIn

Enjoying the show?
Leave a 5-star review on Apple or Spotify, then email matt@growletter.co or kolby@growletter.co with a screenshot and a question — we'll answer it on the show.

Katelyn Bourgoin (founder of Unignorable) joins Matt and Kolby to break down the 6 types of ownable ideas, the 5-question framework she uses to engineer one, why courses are losing value to AI-enabled "brainware" agencies, and a live audit of Matt's ownable idea.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:39 The Why We Buy → Unignorable Rebrand
• 04:16 Ownable Ideas: Test Round (Sinek, Welsh, Sanchez)
• 09:30 What an Ownable Idea Actually Is
• 12:22 The 6 Types of Ownable Ideas
• 16:26 How to Create Your Own (and Why It's Hard)
• 18:55 The 5-Question Framework 22:10 Brené Brown Broken Down by the Framework
• 24:16 Lightning vs. Engineered Ideas
• 27:06 Live Audit: Matt's Overlap Effect Framework
• 39:58 Brainware: The AI-Enabled Agency Thesis
• 43:32 Productized Services as the New Course
• 50:37 Accountability as a Service
• 52:36 Sunsetting What No Longer Fits
• 54:38 Where to Find Katelyn

📌 Resources Mentioned:

• UNIGNORABLE
• Why We Buy newsletter
• Brian Balfour's Four Fits Framework

🔗 Connect with Katelyn Bourgoin:

• LinkedIn
• Website & Newsletter

Enjoying the show? Leave a 5-star review on Apple or Spotify, then email matt@growletter.co or kolby@growletter.co with a screenshot and a question — we'll answer it on the show.

Ryan Deiss (DigitalMarketer, Scalable.co) joins Matt to talk about why he killed an eight-figure course business, the 80% sales drop that forced the pivot, why AI is replacing courses faster than anyone wants to admit, and how to actually monetize expertise in a post-course world.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:28 Why Ryan "Retired" From DigitalMarketer
• 03:32 The Real Reason Course Sales Collapsed
• 06:37 Why AI Beats Courses Every Time
• 11:54 DigitalMarketer's 80% Revenue Drop
• 13:05 Why "Course Business" Is the Wrong Frame
• 16:53 Build Your Own Media First
• 21:19 The 4 Ways Media Companies Make Money
• 22:23 Sell AI Trained on Your IP, Not the Course
• 28:23 Why Coaching On Top of Courses Won't Save You 3
• 3:12 The Truth About Cohort-Based Programs
• 35:14 The 3 Event Business Models
• 41:36 Sponsorships, Exhibitors & Critical Mass
• 48:07 Sponsorship Tiers and Protecting the Stage
• 58:00 Activations, Meetups & Sponsored Experiences
• 1:02:28 Where to Find Ryan

📌 Resources:

• The Scalable Company
• DigitalMarketer

🔗 Connect with Ryan Deiss:

• LinkedIn
• Newsletter

Brian Morrissey (The Rebooting) joins Matt and Kolby to talk about his three-archetype theory of modern media, why most TBPN streaming-show clones will fail, the real strategic value of SMS, and why aging out of LinkedIn is a bigger flex than flying private.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:06 The 3 Media Archetypes: Artists, Suits, Engineers

05:54 Streaming Media and MTS vs TBPN

08:00 Why Webinars Punch Above Their Weight

12:37 The Power of Parasocial Podcast Connections

16:09 Is Streaming A Fad? Neo-Traditional Media

20:18 The Underpants Gnome Problem With Clips

24:03 Is SMS The New Email?

26:45 The Hardest Part Is Having The Audience

29:51 Brian's Writing Process (No Audience In Mind)

34:36 Smart SMS Use Cases (Events, Subtext)

40:00 Building A Strategic Reserve Of Phone Numbers

42:59 Why SMS Crushes For Webinar Registrations

49:47 NoScroll And Anonymous X Accounts

53:22 Aging Out Of LinkedIn Is The Real Flex

54:05 Where To Find Brian

📌 Resources Mentioned:

The Rebooting
People vs Algorithms (podcast)
Monitoring The Situation (MTS)
Breaking Points

🔗 Connect with Brian Morrissey:
LinkedIn
Website & Newsletter

Enjoying the show? Leave a 5-star review on Apple or Spotify, then email matt@growletter.co or kolby@growletter.co with a screenshot and a question — we'll answer it on the show.

In today's episode, Ethan Brooks (Austin Business Review), Alyssa Dulin (Kit), and Jonathan Barshop (Modern Wisdom) join Matt and Kolby to discuss how to monetize a local newsletter with services instead of ads, what AI is actually doing to email deliverability, and the unconventional growth tactics that move a podcast in 2026.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 03:00 Ethan Brooks on Austin Business Review and Local Media
• 07:30 Why Local Newsletters Are Best Monetized as Services (Not Ads)
• 10:40 Selling Austin: $300K From Under 1,000 Readers
• 13:00 The $25K-in-8-Weeks Concrete Leads Side Business
• 22:00 Ethan's Two Frameworks: Valuable Audience + Media Monetization
• 32:00 Alyssa Dulin on AI in the Inbox
• 35:00 The New Curator in Town — How AI Is Rewriting Deliverability
• 46:00 The One-Word Reply Tip That Beats Every Other Engagement Tactic
• 52:00 Google Postmaster Tools: The Most Overlooked Deliverability Tool
• 1:01:00 Jonathan Barshop on Building a Podcast That Actually Grows in 2026
• 1:11:00 Why Premise Beats Production
• 1:18:00 The Cross-Promo That Supercharged My First Million
• 1:25:00 Engineering "Viral" Moments — The Tim Ferriss + Edward Norton Trick
• 1:42:00 Modern Wisdom's Tour Model and 12-Partner Sponsorship Strategy

📌 Resources Mentioned:

• Austin Business Review
• Google Postmaster Tools
• Modern Wisdom

🔗 Connect with Ethan Brooks:

• LinkedIn
• Newsletter

🔗 Connect with Alyssa Dulin:

• LinkedIn

🔗 Connect with Jonathan Barshop:

• LinkedIn

Join here: WriteGrowSell.com

Enrollment ENDS May 4th at 11:59 pm EST.

This is the last opportunity to join Write, Grow, Sell for the next 5+ months and get in at the lowest price since 2024.

In today's episode, Neville Medhora (Swipefile, Copywriting Course, ex-AppSumo) joins Matt and Kolby to talk about how good copy delivered AppSumo's first $10,000 day, why his flagship Copywriting Course business is being eaten by AI while Swipefile.com is soaring, Neville's content workflow, and why selling software is dead in 2026.

Timestamps:

• 01:19 House of Rave and Dropshipping in High School
• 03:21 Finding Copywriting and AppSumo's First $10K Day
• 05:53 Copywriting Course Dying, Swipefile Soaring
• 11:27 Brand, Style, and Standing Out From AI
• 16:33 How Swipefile's Business Model Works
• 18:44 Why Selling Software Is Dead
• 22:51 The Hybrid Sponsorship Model That Actually Pays
• 26:45 Custom Content and Evergreen Sponsorship Deals
• 33:47 Acquired's $4.8M Pre-Rolls and B2B Ad Math
• 35:57 Why Blogging Is Social Media Now
• 37:15 Neville's Content Flow: Swipefile → Newsletter → Social
• 40:43 Growing a Newsletter in 2026
• 45:00 Why Neville Won't Sell Claude Skills (Yet)
• 52:34 Where To Find Neville

📌 Resources Mentioned:
The Gary Halbert Letters — https://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com
Wait But Why (Tim Urban) — https://waitbutwhy.com

🔗 Connect with Neville Medhora:
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/neville-medhora-654749/
Swipefile — https://swipefile.com
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSN1tlH1nvAXkv9nnBCmfiQ

🍿 Watch on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@growletter