Derek Johanson – Build a Newsletter

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I’ve been building online businesses for over a decade — both for myself and as a “hired gun” for others.And after all this time (and being in the trenches of countless businesses), I’ve realized that for my lifestyle goals there’s one business model that is nearly perfect:Newsletters.Why? Here are just a handful of reasons:

1. Because they’re simple.

I’m a solo entrepreneur and I love simplicity. Newsletters have very few moving parts and with the right systems in place, they’re very easy to write — and your subscribers love them.

2. People want to subscribe to them.

How many businesses exist where people are actively looking to give you their email address — and then give you their undivided attention every time you send them an email? Literally only newsletters.

3. You don’t need to be an expert in your topic.

Some of the most successful newsletters in the world were built by novices who were just learning the subject — and they’re successful because of that. In fact my most successful newsletter was started that way — and my subscribers knew and didn’t care. When 90% of your job is just curating great content from around the web, it actually pays to be a novice.

4. They can be started in a single weekend.

You can get an idea on Friday and have subscribers on Monday — even without a pre-existing audience, much money, or crazy tech skills. Newsletters are extremely low friction to start — it’s one of the few business models where having a “good enough” idea is all you need to start and see how it goes.

5. They can be easily ditched if there’s no traction.

I’ve built plenty of businesses where we spent months making products only to find out after launch that no one wanted them. Such a waste of time and money. Not the case with newsletters. You know very quickly if they’re a hit based on how many people subscribe and how they react to your content — and if you determine after a few weeks that no one cares, you’ve only lost a few hours of time and almost no money.

6. They’re easy to monetize.

This is the most important point. I’ve found personally that with the right systems, once you reach 500 subscribers, you’ve got a business that will comfortably pay all your bills. Everything extra is gravy. Newsletters allow you to sell your own products, sell other people’s products, sell consulting/coaching services, sell ad space, do all of the above, or even sell your newsletter itself once it’s grown.

Listen, I could keep going here.The point is: I’ve been building newsletters for years and they’ve changed my life. Nearly all my income now comes from newsletters I’ve built. And if you’re like me and value lifestyle, there is literally no better business model.

The only problem is that most people complicate how to build a newsletter business.

Generally what I see is guidance that is either way too technical or way too basic. It’s either for people trying to build massive newsletter empires with dozens of writers, or people who want to build a “hobby” project.There’s very little covering the middle ground — how to build simple, one-person newsletter businesses that make pay-all-your-bills money, and that assume you’re comfortable with marketing and copywriting.That’s what I’ve been doing for years — and it’s given me a lifestyle that I absolutely love.

So I’ve put together a course to show you my process for creating simple — but extremely profitable — newsletter businesses.

Everything from setup to systems for writing content, driving traffic, and monetizing. The complete blueprint.The idea is simple: by following my system, you’ll have a newsletter live in a weekend — and systems for building it into a real business over time.Launch fast, grow slowly.You can use my system to build one newsletter.Or you could use it to build multiple newsletters.How many times you repeat the process is up to you.

Introducing…

A step-by-step video course for launching a wildly-profitable, easy-to-write, one-person newsletter from scratch — this weekend.

The Reverse Market Process

Confidently narrow down the best market (not “niche”) to cover in your newsletter

The Perfect Lead Magnet

How to create a lead magnet that gets your audience to subscribe and listen

Initial Setup

Go from zero to having your newsletter, domain, landing page, and lead magnets set up

Traffic Sources

Where to generate traffic for your landing page that turns into excited subscribers

Ideation and Research

The only two methods you’ll need to write content — even if you’re not an expert

The Six Copy Necessities

The only six pieces of content and copy you need to get your newsletter running

Tools & Tech

The exact tools and services I use to set up my newsletter businesses

Publishing Calendar

How often should you publish content and when? All your questions are answered.

The First Newsletter

The hardest part is getting started. We’ll construct your first newsletter together.

Worst Case Scenarios

Sometimes your newsletter won’t gain any traction. We’ll troubleshoot it here.

Monetizing With The 30 Second Survey

Get your subscribers to tell you what they’ll really happily pay (lots of) money for

And bonus interviews:

Bonus Interview #1

Interview with Tyler Denk, CEO of Beehiiv

Beehiiv is my favorite platform writing (and monetizing) newsletters, and in this interview, Beehiv’s CEO Tyler Denk talks about what he considers to be the best tactics for putting together a successful newsletter.