Newsletter & Email Growth: Growth In Reverse

Get Matt's 1,000 Email Subscriber Formula: https://growthinreverse.com/matt-yt-download/
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"The way to monetize a small, niche audience is not sponsorships — it’s higher-ticket services." — Matt McGarry, GrowLetter
Matt McGarry has helped grow some of the largest newsletters in the world — including The Hustle, Milk Road, and 1440 — to millions of subscribers. But in this conversation, he makes a contrarian case: you don’t need a massive email list to build a highly profitable newsletter business.
We dig into why sponsorships are a weak monetization strategy for most creators, how Matt generates $76+ per subscriber from LinkedIn, why short-form video is the most underutilized growth channel for newsletters right now, and how to think about business models before chasing scale.
Matt also shares how he’s evolved his own newsletter past 50,000 subscribers, what growth channels are actually working in 2025, and why events, services, and higher-touch offers often beat low-ticket products — especially early on.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Why sponsorships are one of the weakest newsletter monetization paths
How Matt earns $76 per LinkedIn subscriber (and why lead quality matters more than volume)
How one YouTube video drove 1,000+ email subscribers with a simple lead magnet
When not to start paid growth — and the exact criteria Matt uses before spending a dollar
Why newsletters should often monetize with services and consulting before products
The biggest newsletter opportunity most creators are ignoring in 2026
LINKS MENTIONED
Matt's 1k Email Formula Breakdown
Growletter.co
NewMediaSummit.com (use GIR20 for 20% off your ticket)
Matt's newsletter — The Newsletter Operator
Chenell's on Matt's podcast 
Take your newsletter to the next level with Chenell & Dylan — join GIR Pro today
All of Chenell's Free Content → 
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL
Chenell: Twitter | LinkedIn
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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“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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“I think you are being financially irresponsible if you do not have a newsletter.” — Nathan May, The Feed Media
The GIR Podcast is approaching it's 1st anniversary of publishing!
To celebrate, we pulled six standout clips from some of the smartest newsletter operators and creators we interviewed this year.
Each clip highlights a growth or monetization tactic that actually works in the real world — from using testimonials strategically, to building self-liquidating flywheels, to using DMs to drive thousands of subscribers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
How Eddie Shleyner drives high conversion rates on his landing page
The Self-Liquidating Flywheel Olly Richards uses to fund his paid growth
The IG + ManyChat strategy Sam Vander Wielen uses to convert viewers to subscribers
How Katelyn Bourgoin uses an incentivized newsletter poll question to drive sales
The successful + unscalable strategy Justin Moore used to get his first devoted subscribers
Nathan May's private newsletter strategy earning $1M ARR. 
LINKS MENTIONED
Eddie Shleyner's GIR Podcast episode
VeryGoodCopy.com
Olly Richards' GIR Podcast episode
OllyRichards.co
Sam Vander Wielen's GIR Podcast episode
Sam on IG
Nathan May's GIR Podcast episode
TheFeedMedia.com (Nathan's business)
Katelyn Bourgoin's GIR Podcast episode
Why We Buy newsletter (sign-up to get the Fri-Yay email)
Justin Moore's GIR Podcast episode
CreatorWizard.com
Milly Tamati's GIR Podcast Episode
Chenell on Instagram
Dylan on Instagram
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

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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“The quiz brings them in, the newsletter builds the relationship, and the community closes the loop.” — Milly Tamati, Generalist World
This week on Growth In Reverse, we sat down with Milly Tamati, founder of Generalist World — a thriving online community for multi-passionate professionals.
Milly’s story is a masterclass in building an ecosystem that grows itself. She used a quiz funnel to attract her ideal audience, a newsletter to nurture them, and a lifetime-membership offer to monetize — all without relying on constant product launches or heavy ad spend.
In this conversation, we dig into how Milly designed her quiz to drive newsletter sign-ups, how she uses TikTok and LinkedIn differently to drive new subscribers, and how the Generalist World newsletter feeds directly into her paid community. She breaks down conversion numbers, lessons learned, and the surprising reason she decided to cancel recurring monthly revenue—and switch to a lifetime membership model.

If you’re looking to turn your newsletter audience into a self-sustaining business, this episode is packed with ideas you can steal today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
How Milly went from 0 to 15,000 subscribers in under a year with one quiz.
The exact structure of her quiz that’s driven 23,000+ completions.
How she optimizes quiz results pages to convert visitors into newsletter subscribers.
How Milly uses TikTok to fuel growth.
Her LinkedIn strategy that has her posting for 1000+ weekdays in a row.
How her newsletter now reaches 40,000+ globally — and the flywheel that keeps growth compounding.
The reason she switched to a lifetime membership offer.
How she's driving newsletter revenue after cancelling monthly subscriptions.
How Milly landed her Big Four "dream" sponsors.
The metrics she tracks weekly to measure real growth (not vanity metrics).
What she’d do differently if she rebuilt the Generalist World from scratch today.
LINKS MENTIONED
Generalist World
Generalist Quiz – “What Kind of Generalist Are You?”
Milly on LinkedIn
Milly on TikTok
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