Latest / Solopreneur Sessions with Fexingo: One-Person Businesses, Freelancing, and Independent Work / How One Newsletter Turned a Side Project Into a Business
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this story I keep coming back to, and it's about a solo developer who turned a weekly newsletter into a business that now pays his rent. His name is Alex, and he started it in 2023 as a side project. Luna: A newsletter? In the age of AI and video? That feels almost retro. What was the angle? Lucas: That's the thing — he wasn't trying to be clever. He just wrote about one niche: the business of running a solo software agency. Every Friday, he'd send out one actionable tip, like how to price a retainer or how to handle a client who doesn't pay. Luna: So it was basically his own playbook, but public. That's a smart way to build authority. Lucas: Exactly. And it worked. In eighteen months, he got to ten thousand subscribers. The email list was the business. No course, no product, no consulting — just the newsletter. Luna: But ten thousand subscribers doesn't automatically mean income. How did he actually make money? Lucas: Three streams. Sponsorships from tools he already used, like a time-tracking app and an invoicing platform. Affiliate links for books and software. And a paid tier at nine dollars a month for a deeper dive, like a breakdown of his own numbers. Luna: And that added up to enough to replace a salary? Lucas: He published his revenue in the newsletter itself — probably the best transparency move ever. Last month, he made about four thousand dollars. Now, that's not a fat startup salary, but for a solo developer in a low-cost city, it's solid. Luna: Four thousand a month from just writing one email a week. That's impressive. But I'm wondering — is this replicable, or was he just lucky with timing? Lucas: That's the honest question. He did a few things that I think are transferable. First, he picked a niche he knew deeply — he wasn't a generic productivity guru. Second, he committed to consistency. He never missed a Friday, even when he was sick or traveling. Luna: Consistency is key, but what about growth? Ten thousand subscribers in eighteen months — that's not viral. It's steady. Lucas: And that's the point. He didn't rely on one viral hit. He grew through a few channels that compounded. He wrote guest posts for bigger newsletters in the agency space. He shared snippets on LinkedIn, where his target audience hangs out. And he had a simple referral program — every subscriber who referred three friends got a free month of the paid tier. Luna: So it's not just writing. It's distribution. That's a lot of work for a side project. Lucas: He said the guest posts took about four hours a month, and LinkedIn maybe thirty minutes a week. The writing itself was the bulk of the time — about five hours per issue. So total, maybe ten hours a month on distribution, ten on writing. That's twenty hours, which is manageable. Luna: Twenty hours a month for four grand. That's fifty dollars an hour, which is decent — but not amazing. He could probably bill more as a consultant. Lucas: That's the trade-off. He's trading potential hourly income for something that's more stable and, frankly, more scalable. As the list grows, his rates rise. Sponsors pay more, the paid tier converts more. He doesn't have to trade more time for more money. Luna: And that's the real business model. It's not a newsletter, it's an audience. The email is just the delivery mechanism. Lucas: Right. And this is where I think a lot of solopreneurs get it wrong. They start a newsletter because they think it's easy, but they don't think about who it's for or how it'll eventually make money. Alex knew from day one that he wanted to serve other solo agency owners, and he knew that tools wanted to reach that audience. Luna: So he had a business plan disguised as a side project. That's smart. But what were the biggest mistakes he made along the way? Lucas: He mentioned two. First, he spent the first three months writing about general freelancing topics — being a better writer, managing time — and it went nowhere. It wasn't until he narrowed to his specific niche that growth started. Luna: So he wasted three months. That's a lesson in itself. Lucas: And the second mistake was ignoring his paid tier for too long. He had a few hundred free subscribers for a year before he even tested a paid option. When he finally did, about two percent of his free list converted almost immediately. That was revenue he'd left on the table. Luna: Two percent might not sound like a lot, but on ten thousand subscribers, that's two hundred paid members at nine dollars a month. That's eighteen hundred dollars of recurring revenue. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the magic of a newsletter — it compounds. Every new subscriber is a potential future customer, and the list grows while you sleep. Alex told me he woke up one day and realized he had more monthly recurring revenue from the newsletter than he'd ever had from a single client. Luna: That's a powerful moment. But I want to press on the sustainability. What happens when he gets busy or burned out? Does he have an exit? Lucas: He's thinking about it. He's talked about hiring a part-time editor to take over the daily work, and he's exploring a premium tier that's a paid community. But for now, he's enjoying the fact that his income isn't tied to a client's whims. Luna: So what's the takeaway for someone listening who might want to do something similar? Is a newsletter still a viable path in 2026? Lucas: I think yes, but with conditions. The days of 'just start a newsletter' are over. You need a niche that's specific enough to be valuable but broad enough to have a market. You need a distribution plan beyond just hitting publish. And you need to be in it for the long haul — eighteen months is a realistic timeline to see real money. Luna: And you need to be willing to show your numbers. That transparency is what made Alex's newsletter stand out. It built trust. Lucas: Absolutely. In a world of curated perfection, raw numbers are refreshing. It's the same reason we love seeing other companies' revenue breakdowns. Luna: Speaking of which, I know we keep this show free because we believe in the mission, but if these conversations have helped you think about your own work in a new way, and you've got a couple bucks to spare, the best way to support us is to buy me a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a tiny gesture, but it keeps us going. Lucas: Yeah, it's like Alex's newsletter — small, consistent support compounds into something meaningful. And it lets us keep doing these deep dives without ads. Luna: Alright, back to Alex. One more thing that struck me — he never tried to be a celebrity. He's not famous, he's just useful. That's a model I think a lot of solopreneurs can aspire to. Lucas: Exactly. He found his lane and stayed in it. As he likes to say, 'I'd rather be the go-to person for one small thing than the jack-of-all-trades for everything.' Luna: That's a perfect note to end on. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.