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🐍 Newsletter Snake Oil

🐍 Newsletter Snake Oil

This week I discuss bad actors entering the newsletter space, Beehiiv launching AI, and the latest newsletter exit

Richard Patey
July 14, 2023

Hey there 👋,

In this week’s newsletter I discuss:

Bad actors entering the newsletter space
Beehiiv’s new AI pushing it way out in front
The latest newsletter exit

Cheers!

Richard Patey (@richardpatey)

🐍 Look Out for the Snakes

Every week there’s a new agency or consultancy doing the rounds on newsletter twitter, and Manu from Stacked Marketer tweeted that some bad actors are now entering our space:

The only thing that's been disappointing with the growth of the newsletter business model is the growth of snake oil salesmen getting involved.
— Emanuel Cinca (@emanuelcinca)
Jul 10, 2023

Manu clarifies what he means:

❝

Misleading stats and lying by omission with the intent to mislead others.

It's similar to the Shopify screenshots that some "coaches" post.

And very often, you can't tell it's not an apples to apples comparison without being a newsletter operator yourself.

Manu, Stacked Marketer

Scott Oldford, the CEO of Wisdom Media, pointed out that running a newsletter business is not an easy task and not one he would automatically recommend to others:

So far… I would say running a newsletter business is equally as difficult as almost any other business I’ve been in.
Not easy… at all.
And not sure I would reccomend it.
Just like I wouldn’t reccomend someone be an entrepreneur that isn’t.
— Scott Oldford (@scottoldford)
Jul 11, 2023

Perhaps a motivation behind the new Beehiiv Certified Partner status is to prevent newsletter operators from working with bad actors.

The first person I’ve seen to be awarded partner status is Matt McGarry with his agency GrowLetter:

With beehiiv's software + GrowLetter's done-for-you services, newsletters can now grow bigger and faster than ever.
— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry)
Jul 13, 2023

💸 Beehiiv Stacks Value With AI

This week beehiiv released new AI features for those on its top plan. You can generate new content from scratch using the AI writer, but the really significant part is being able to rewrite and improve your existing text from within the editor. Which I’ve been doing in this issue!

For me, it was already a no-brainer to choose beehiiv for your newsletter, and now it’s a game of whether competitors have a chance to catch up.

As Daniel from beehiiv states in his tweet, the value is immense:

The old way to write a newsletter:
- writer's block
- takes hours
- spelling mistakes
- only one language
- boring tone of voice
- costs way too much money
The new way to write a newsletter:
- @beehiiv's AI writing assistant
- instantly translate into 7 languages
- write an… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Daniel Berk 🐝 (@danielcberk)
Jul 11, 2023

📰 Classifieds

Duuce is the #1 marketplace for buying & selling newsletters. See what your newsletter is worth with their free valuation calculator. Check it out

The Newsletter Is The Business is everything I know about launching, scaling and selling editorial newsletter businesses. Check it out

☝️ One More Thing

Jaisal Rathee just sold another newsletter and is now up to 7x successful exits on his twitter profile.

This time it was Daily Dose of Startups that was acquired by Michael Houck who will be rolling it into his startup newsletter:

I just made my first acquisition 🥳
Excited to share that Houck's Newsletter has acquired Daily Dose of Startups.
Working with @RatheeJaisal was smooth — we went from initial DM to close in 1 hour.
We'll be rolling DDoS (lol) into Houck's Newsletter for now. But, more to come!
— Michael Houck 💡 (@callmehouck)
Jul 9, 2023

Disclaimer: Nothing in this email is business advice and I am not a professional business adviser. I send weekly updates on the newsletter market - consider it informational and for entertainment purposes only. This newsletter is monetized through sponsorship and product revenue. There are no affiliate links in this issue.