Called First 100 Customers

Sam Parr shares how he launched Trends, a paid research newsletter that grew to $500k/month in 18 months.

"I created a Gumroad page with about 400 words telling a story about Jeff Bezos. In 1996, Bezos saw this amazing stat that the internet was growing at 2,300% - nothing grows that fast. Bezos said 'unless it's in a petri dish' and immediately knew he had to start an internet company.

I introduced myself, mentioned my company The Hustle, and explained I was launching Trends - a product that would break down interesting companies and identify shocking trends like the one Bezos found. I priced it at $300/year but offered lifetime access for $100 as a pre-launch deal.

Before launching, I ran Facebook ads against the Gumroad page and made $60,000 in presales. To get the initial 100 users, I found the 300 most engaged Hustle subscribers from our million-person email list and sent them the offer. Then I got on the phone with all 100 early customers, asked why they signed up, what they were looking for, and what their expectations were. I used their insights to create the first report.

After that, whenever someone signed up for The Hustle, they'd see a thank you page that linked to the Gumroad pre-sale. By month 18, we were doing $400-500k per month with about 20,000 users."