Growing to 1+ million subscribers without spending any money with Maximilian Rofagha of Finimize

About this episode: In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking with one of the most successful newsletter creators. Maximillian Rofagha of Finimize. Finimize has over 1 million subscribers and has expanded into a community and mobile app. We'll be discussing the best growth channels for your newsletter from 0 to 1k, 1k to 10k, and 10k to 100k subscribers. We're also going to dive into Finnimize's newsletter format and why Maximillian chose to structure in that fashion.

Episode Sponsor: EmailOctopus

"EmailOctopus has the flexibility to design great-looking newsletters that stand out. The best part is it's free until 2,500 subscribers."

Yaro Bagriy Newsletter Crew

Join the Newsletter Crew

Want to build a successful newsletter? Join the community and connect with successful newsletter creators who can help.

Yaro Bagriy Newsletter Crew

The Ultimate Guide and List of Newsletter Directories

Growing a newsletter is the hardest part about running a successful newsletter. No matter if you're just starting out or if your newsletter has 10k+ subscribers. It doesn't get easier, but there are many ways to that can facilitate growth.

Yaro Bagriy Newsletter Crew

Notes & Insights:

• There's no silver bullet to newsletter growth. It's always a combination of multiple avenues and strategies. Find the strategies that work well for your newsletter by experimenting.
• As you grow your newsletter, certain growth avenues will work better than others.
• Great content will lead to great word-of-mouth growth.
• Friends, family, and professional network should always be the first channel for growth. It'll get you your first subsriber and maybe even your thousandth subscriber.
• Growth Steps: Friends, family, professional network -> Featured in blogs -> Product Hunt/Community posting -> Referral program/Word of mouth -> Campus ambassador program -> Cross-promotions
• As your newsletter starts gaining traction start reaching out to blogs for cross-promotion. Have them feature your newsletter. It'll help give your newsletter passive growth as well as added SEO via a backlink from that blog.
• One really easy and desired referral reward is a special weekend newsletter edition.
• Cross-promotions can provide massive results if you find the right partners. Make sure there's customer-market-fit with who you're cross-promoting.
• You can get to 1+ million subscribers without spending any money.
• Growth from 0 to 1k subscribers is all about manual growth work. Reaching out to blogs, influences, Quora, Reddit, etc. Do what's unscalable.
• If you have more of a general newsletter, then a campus ambassador program could provide solid results.
• As your newsletter grows and matures, layering on and compounding different growth channels will get you to that next milestone.
• The subscribers you onboard with an ambassador program are higher quality compared to some other channels.
• Doing the unscaleable growth tasks will start compounding.
• An ambassador program can work with a niche newsletter but you'll need to think about where that audience frequents. That could be at specific conferences, Meetup groups, etc.
• Subscribe to newsletters within a certain niche, find what you don't like about it (could be format, content, etc) then create your own and fix those problems.
• The format of your newsletter plays a huge role in how sticky it will be and if readers will continue to subscribe and engage with it.

Newsletter + Guest Info:

• Maximilian Rofagha: https://twitter.com/wholeearthweb
• Finimize: https://www.finimize.com/