In this episode I sat down with Nic Conley from The Follow Up to break down how he got to ~7,000 newsletter subscribers in about two weeks—and what actually mattered versus what just made for a good growth story. We talked through his “early referral” style experiment at launch, then how he layered in paid acquisition (Facebook in particular, plus a window where Twitter ads were weirdly cheap) and why the channel matters way less than the offer + audience fit. One of the big themes: there’s a short list of tactics that are always “fine,” but the real leverage comes from distribution you can own and repeat. We also got into the stuff most people skip: staying interesting long enough to keep subscribers. Nic was blunt that writing consistently is hard—especially in sales where you don’t get a fresh news cycle like AI or finance. His solution is what I see work over and over: capture ideas constantly, go deeper on evergreen concepts (like price anchoring), and steal angles from places your competitors aren’t looking. And we talked about the best feedback loop in newsletters: reader replies. When people respond, you know you hit something—and you can double down on what actually resonates.