Earning $500k+ Per Year With A Newsletter

How does making $100,000 a year by writing sound like?

Sweet deal, right?

How about $300k per year? That’d be crazy. 

You know what’s crazier?

Making 500k annually..writing..newsletters.

That’s how much Lenny Rachitsky’s earning from his newsletter – Lenny’s Newsletter.

I spent hours listening to his interviews on how he achieved such success online by writing. 

And below I’ve written the different strategies he’s done to be an anomaly in the space.

Let’s begin!

📈Growth Phases & Strategies📈

The early stages of being a creator are one of the hardest phases. 

No one knows who you are. You’re trying to get known in a crowd of people doing the same thing.

You’re forced to work with what you have.

And that’s exactly what Lenny did.

He was an early Airbnb employee and when he resigned he wanted to remember everything he learned from the company. 

So he created this Medium post – What Seven Years at Airbnb Taught Me About Building a Business.

It was a hit — 29k claps on Medium are like “likes” and “favorites”.

That post got Lenny his first 100 subscribers.

Knowing that his long-form content was a hit, he repurposed those nuggets and turned them into tweets. 

Now what Lenny did to reach the 1,000 mark was an old-school type of strategy..

Guest posting.

He was guest-posting on other newsletters that had the same audience as him.

With his ability to do in-depth research and give out easy-to-understand information, those “borrowed” audiences will seek more of his work.

Next up, 10k.

Conquering that monster is a whole ‘nother game. 

Not a lot of publication reaches this figure but Lenny did so because he chose to do one thing that most wouldn’t try…

To be consistent.

According to him, reaching 10k subs was writing quality content every week for 9 months.

There’s no secret to it. 

That’s the growth lever he’s been abiding by from the start.

Ok, now the big question…how about going past 500k subs?

Yep. That’s how big Lenny’s Newsletter is.

Lenny credits this milestone to Substack’s recommendation feature.

The inflection point of reaching six-figure subs was brought by thousands of other newsletters recommending his newsletter to their audience.

This is why Lenny believes that there’s never been an easier time to grow yours. 

🤔3-Step Content Creation Process🤔

For someone with that big of a list, it’s easy to think that their content creation process is sophisticated and complex.

However, Lenny’s different from the rest. 

He’s made this process as simple as possible.

At its core, the newsletter is about answering questions of the readers regarding product, growth, and all things related to being more efficient in the office.

✍ Brutal Editing ✍

Writing is 20% writing and 80% editing – and Lenny takes this to heart.

He’s brutal when it’s time to do the 80%.

Here are some principles he follows:

High Signal To Noise Ratio📣

High signal to what?? 

In basic terms, it means that his content should have more actionable information than fluff.

Seems basic but it’s actually a great strategy.

90% of written content online has a ton of fluff (noise). Writers don’t get to the point immediately. 

They dilly-dally way too much before they give the answer to their readers.

Lenny’s mindset:

Let’s take this issue for example. 

Keep The Bar High🏋️

What is “high quality”?

If you had gone through enough garbage online you’d easily know what high-quality output is.

Garbage content are hard to understand, full of fluff, and doesn’t answer the questions of readers.

Lenny achieves high quality with sheer effort.

He rereads his content 20 to 30 times. Again and again.

Until he doesn’t see anything else to rewrite or improve.

He sends the draft to his own email and also tries to read it through his phone.

Covering all angles helps him make sure that he’s done everything to “keep the bar high.”

Cut Cut Cut✂️

In one interview, Lenny shared that one influential book on his writing is On Writing Well.

It’s basically teaching readers to cut everything – delete unnecessary words and fluff.

Don’t Drop These Gems💎

• Be consistent in your work.

• Give the answers immediately to your readers.

• Make your content stand out by making it high quality.

• Cut the fluff. Shorten your sentences. Double down on editing.