Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

Get free access to Jay Clouse's Memberships Teardown including how he built The Lab: creatorscience.com/teardown
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And you can take YOUR newsletter to the next level by joining our private community — GIR Pro >>
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Jay Clouse, founder of Creator Science and The Lab, joined us live from Kit Studios in Boise.
Jay pulls back the curtain on 4+ years of building one of the most enduring creator communities out there — from its origins as the Creative Companion Club to a 340-member operation with tiered access, mastermind groups, and a wait list. Jay shares what's worked, what's backfired (including the scarcity campaign that became his worst churn month ever), and what he's actively redesigning right now.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why their highest-ever membership revenue month was followed by their worst churn month
The difference between marketing levers that convert and the ones that serve your members
How The Lab evolved from a 200-member cap to a tiered application model
The "mid-boarding" gap that kills retention in most memberships
The troubling paradox of community-led mastermind groups
The two onboarding secrets Jay considers his unfair advantages
Why offline events are a retention tool, not a growth tool
What to think through before launching a membership
The unexpected risk in scaling a community too quickly
LINKS MENTIONED
CreatorScience.com/teardown
Chenell on Jay's podcast: 1st Appearance || 2nd Appearance
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL
Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram
OUR NEWSLETTERS
growthinreverse.com
growthcurrency.net
Subscribe & Leave a Review:
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Stop losing subscribers with your onboarding — get Chenell's Subscriber Onboarding Course included in The Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault
This episode is a live recording from the 2026 Newsletter Conference in New York City where Chenell sat down onstage with Tim Huelskamp, co-founder of 1440 — the daily digest for more than 4.7 million curious readers.
Tim shares the full arc of 1440's growth: from 78 subscribers to a media company generating roughly $1M in revenue per employee, including the unconventional early tactics, the Facebook ad playbook that still runs today, and the ambitious new "Topics" platform they're building to become the Pinterest for knowledge.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why Tim spent the first 7–8 months focused entirely on product before touching growth 
The counterintuitive decision to remove images from 1440 entirely 
The discovery that 3x'd sponsor revenue without adding a single new advertiser
The bet on their "Topics" platform: what "Pinterest for knowledge" actually looks like 
LINKS MENTIONED
1440 Newsletter — 1440's daily digest (join1440.com)
1440 Topics — 1440's new knowledge platform (1440.io/topics)
WhoSponsorStuff — Newsletter sponsorship intelligence tool mentioned by Tim ("Ryan and Jesse's" tool)
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL
Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram
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.

Steve Kamb bought the domain for NerdFitness.com in 2007 and grew it into a 45-person, SEO-driven coaching company. But then he burned out. Badly. He demoted himself twice, and eventually stepped away from running the business entirely — all so he could do the one thing he actually loved: write.
In this episode, Steve joins us to talk about his new book How to Try Again, the hard lessons from 17+ years of building Nerd Fitness, and why starting over isn't a failure — it's a skill.
His PACT framework (Pause, Accept, Change, Try) offers a practical roadmap for any creator who's ever felt stuck, burned out, or tempted to quit.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
How Steve built Nerd Fitness from a blog into a 45-person company
Why he demoted himself out of his own CEO role
The brutal reality of pandemic-era burnout and what it taught him about chasing the wrong things
Why "all or nothing" thinking almost always fails
His four-step PACT framework for starting over after burnout or failure
The question he asked that changed everything
Why writing two articles a week for 10 years was the real engine behind Nerd Fitness
The danger of modeling celebrity success over relatable success
How Steve separated his personal brand from Nerd Fitness
What success actually looks like for Steve now
LINKS MENTIONED
SteveKamb.com
How To Try Again (Steve's Book)
NerdFitness.com
Kit — email platform used by Steve and the hosts
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL
Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram
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.

Check out the 30 Days of Growth: 30daysofgrowth.co/
Get the Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault
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Alyssa Dulin is Kit's deliverability expert.

She joined us to pull back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood forces shaping newsletter success: deliverability.
We sat down with her to unpack why emails land in spam, what the big Gmail and Yahoo changes really mean for individual creators, and how to build a sending reputation that lasts. From domain warmups to fake opens to bot clicks, this episode covers the stuff most newsletter creators won't learn until something goes wrong.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The custom domain mistake tanking open rates — and how to make the switch
Why your sender reputation works like a credit score, and what "starting at zero" actually means for deliverability
The top 3 subscriber engagement signals ranked by impact
How long you should wait before removing inactive subscribers
What actually happens to your sender reputation if you take a break from sending 
Alyssa's deliverability checklist for newsletter creators
How to onboard Creator Network and "recommendation" subscribers without hurting deliverability
The uncomfortable truth about whether your open rates and click rates are even real
How AI inbox summaries are becoming the new gatekeeper between your email and your reader
How to safely increase your send frequency without triggering spam filters

LINKS MENTIONED
Kit — email platform used by Alyssa and the hosts
Google Postmaster Tools — monitor your domain reputation and complaint rates with Gmail
SendGauge — Alyssa's new deliverability intelligence platform (beta)
Deliverability Defined Podcast — Alyssa's podcast with the deliverability back catalog
Kit deliverability support: deliverability@kit.com
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL
Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram
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.

Check out the 30 Days of Growth: 30daysofgrowth.co/
Get the Growth Vault: growthinreverse.com/vault
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Chenell and Dylan break down everything that happened with the second annual 30 Days of Growth — 30 cross-promotions with 30 different newsletter creators, published as a daily email series over 30 consecutive days. They cover what worked, what flopped, why Chenell wishes she'd done opt-ins instead of opt-outs, how 2,086 new subscribers came in (beating last year's 1,757), and which tips from the series they found most compelling — from AI-powered subject line analysis to a 5x landing page conversion boost from changing one button.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why Chenell decided to run 30 Days of Growth for a second time 
The biggest mistake they made with subscriber onboarding this year 
Why daily newsletters can quietly hurt engagement and deliverability 
The surprising ROI of referral incentives and private podcast feeds 
Why collaborations create long-term relationship leverage beyond subscriber growth 
The operational reality of coordinating 30 creators in 30 days 
Whether 30 Days of Growth will return again next year 
LINKS MENTIONED:
30DaysofGrowth.co
https://helloaudio.fm/
The Growth Vault
The GIR Pro Community
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL
Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
Dylan: LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram
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.