Just watched a really insightful chat between @lennysan
and @david_perell.

@lennysan was part of the PM/Growth team at Airbnb for 7 years. His newsletter has 28,000 subscribers + 1,400 paid subs, netting him around $500,000 annually (by my napkin math)

- a few highlights https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="RĂŒckhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: RĂŒckhand Zeigefinger nach unten">
"I have no idea what I& #39;m doing" is literally what @lennysan
said at the start of his webinar.

But he has several actionable insights that are well worth taking note of and following:
Lenny used Twitter to keep testing ideas and grow his audience.

1 tweet led to 500 subs early on in the newsletter& #39;s life.

He advocated for building your audience in parallel with creating content and testing your ideas out!
Guest posting was huge in the early days of the newsletter.

@lennysan highlighted specific guest posts that led to hundreds of subs on his newsletter.

One was a guest post for @andrewchen& #39;s blog (500 subs). Another was for @firstround& #39;s blog (1500 subs).
@lennysan highlighted 2 posts that really drove his subscriber count.

The first was a post series on marketplaces, where he did in-depth research and really dug into how marketplace companies succeeded with their particular models - https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-kickstart-and-scale-a-marketplace">https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-to-...
Why did he think that did really well?
One reason is the primary research he did (and does).

@lennysan spoke to current and fmr execs at Uber, Thumbtack, TaskRabbit and others directly.

One way he differentiates himself is with primary research - not many newsletters do that.
Another reason ties into the 2nd post that really drove his subscriber count.

@lennysan loves looking at patterns vs. specific examples.

It doesn& #39;t matter what one company& #39;s strategy is bc (for him) that& #39;s not actionable.

Multiple examples create patterns and that& #39;s useful.
@lennysan& #39;s #1 takeaway from his newsletter& #39;s success?

"Deliver consistent value to people."

This was so important he mentioned it 3 times in his presentation!
@lennysan& #39;s top rules for his newsletter posts:
1. Make it actionable and practical.

2. Talk about things he knows, and loop in experts for things he doesn& #39;t.

3. Add something new to the conversation.
Lenny also has a constant flow between Twitter and his newsletter.

He frequently pulls out juicy bits from posts, throws them on Twitter to get followers interested so they& #39;ll read the full thing or think of subscribing.

Tweets that do well also serve as fodder for new posts.
@lennysan& #39;s writing process was really cool to see -
1. Audience submits questions through a Google Form tied to a Google Sheet.
2. He throws qs in an ongoing @coda_hq doc that he maintains.
3. As he works on a post, he throws ideas and links together before fleshing them out.
Some of @lennysan& #39;s diistribution strategies:
1. Deliver value to people.
2. Use free posts for growth.
3. Repurpose content.
4. Guest posts are great (good for taking a break since he& #39;s writing weekly for a paying audience).
@lennysan& #39;s research process was also super actionable:
1. Make a wishlist of target companies.
2. Find warm intros, or cold DM/email.
3. Throw raw interview answers into a doc.
4. Stare at it for a while to let post ideas come together.
5. Turn it into a story or framework.
"You don& #39;t need to know everything to share value.

Just explain it clearly and make it easy to understand." - @lennysan
For new newsletter creators, @lennysan has a great framework to think about sharing value.

When your audience reads you, they should think -
1. Entertain me.
2. Make me smarter.
3. Make me money.
4. Keep me informed.
5. Make me feel like I& #39;m part of something bigger.
Bonus tips/recs from @lennysan for maintaining a weekly, high-value newsletter with 1000s of subs:
1. @centered_app
2. @magicmind
3. @Grammarly
4. Schedule deep work time
5. Email yourself a copy of each post - view it on multiple devices (he does this with every post)
Alright, if you got all the way here, I& #39;m done!

Here& #39;s a link to the full deck from @lennysan& #39;s presentation: http://bit.ly/lennysnewsletterwriting

Can& #39;t">https://bit.ly/lennysnew... wait for more newsletter strategies and insights from the @david_perell team!
You can follow @realictionboy.
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