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- Ice cream so good = $7000 per day š¦
Ice cream so good = $7000 per day š¦
Welcome to a fresh edition of eBiz Insider, my free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business.
Today...
Their Database Generated $100,000+ Within a year
This Software Powers Million Dollar Newsletters
Ice Cream So Good = $7000 Per Day
People Pay Billions of Dollars For This
$10K/Month Email App While Sailing The World
Music Superstar Failed 100s of Times
Her Island Website + Newsletter Earns Up To $2500/Month
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Their Database Generated $100,000+ Within a Year
Ryan Sager is the co-founder of Who Sponsors Stuff, a database that tracks sponsorship data for newsletters š
Ryan used to work at a company called Ladders, where he helped build a newsletter that generated millions in ad revenue š°
That's also where he met his co-founder Jesse.
In a recent interview, Ryan shared how it came to beā¦
After Ladders, Jesse and I set up a company doing third-party sales for newsletters that needed help filling ad inventory.
We had big clients in numerous content verticals, so we needed a way to track what companies were sponsoring which newsletters. We'd done this casually at Ladders, but this time around we systematized it more and more.
Before long, it was clear that what we were building wasn't just of use to usāit was something we should package and sell to publishers.
Who Sponsors Stuff now tracks 350+ newsletters and records details like ad screenshots, sponsor landing pages, and the best contacts to reach out to š
We record who is sponsoring each newsletter and package that data up for use by publishers' sales teams or for solopreneurs.
They built the whole thing with Airtable and Softr (turns Airtable data into a working app), and hired virtual assistants to collect the data.
After starting in late 2021, Who Sponsors Stuff was already generating six-figure revenue within a year š
Most of our interest has come inbound and through referrals from other customers.
Ryan says the product now has over 50+ paying publishers using it to power their newsletter and podcast ad sales. So Iām guessing they charge $2k-$3k per year for this data.
The success of Who Sponsors Stuff in the newsletter industry has me wondering if it could work for other industries š¤
Maybeā¦
Podcast Sponsor Tracker
Niche YouTube Sponsor Tracker (tech, gaming, productivity, etc.)
Might be an opportunity to package who's sponsoring what in those industries, and sell the data to creators.
Ryan's advice for new foundersā¦.
Make sure you're solving a problem. If you're solving a pain point that can unlock revenue for others, you're off to a better start than 99% of projects.
With that in mind, a good starting point here would be to speak to a bunch of people you think would pay for such a service š¬
If you're addressing a real pain point ā and they believe you can actually deliver a solution ā they'd likely be willing to pay in advance.
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This Software Powers Million Dollar Newsletters
Today's email is brought to you by BeehiivĀ š
That's the software I use to publish and grow this newsletter. I switched to it a month ago and it's been great so far.
Beehiiv's CEO was head of growth at Morning Brew, a newsletter which was valued at $75 million a few years ago š¤Æ
Beehiiv is also the software used to power The Milk Road, a newsletter that sold for $10+ million after only 10 months.
I really like the pricing of Beehiiv. There's a 14-day free trial and you can continue to use it for free up to 2,500 subscribers. After that it's flat-rate pricing.
For example, I'm paying $84/month for my list of 19k subscribers. And the price doesn't increase until I hit 100k subscribers.
I just checked another popular newsletter software and I'd be paying $210/month on there currently, and $700/month by the time I reached 100k subscribers š±
So yeah, Beehiiv is a really nice, inexpensive way to start a newsletter. And they've got a ton of growth tools built in.
š Check it out if you're thinking to start a newsletter.
ā¹ļø full disclosure | sponsorship info
Ice Cream So Good = $7000 Per Day
Fedha Sinon, known on social media as PinkyDoll, has recently gone viral due to her imitations of background characters in video games (aka non-playable characters or NPCs).
Hereās a video of her that got 50M+ views on TwitterĀ š
She says in a NYT profileā¦
I was just being cute. I remember someone saying, 'Oh my God, you look like an NPC.' And then they start sending me, like, crazy money.
In a typical livestream, she stares into the camera while delivering canned phrases like š
mmm ice cream so good
yum yum
gang gang
yes yes yes
I know, it's pretty weird.
As she streams, viewers send PinkyDoll digital gifts which translate to cash payments. Her reaction to the ice cream cone gifts has become a memeĀ š¦
From the NYT profileā¦
For certain viewers, thereās something sexual about being able to control her every word and gesture by sending her this or that gift. For other viewers, she is just plain fascinating to watch.
Regardless, this schtick is earning PinkyDoll a ton of money š¤
Ms. Sinon said she made between $2,000 and $3,000 per stream. Across all her social media accounts, which include Instagram and OnlyFans, she puts that number at $7,000 per day.
And she doesn't seem to mind the criticismā¦
I donāt really care what people say about me. If they want to think I am this or that, itās fine with me. At the end of the day, Iām winning.
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People Pay Billions of Dollars For This
š From the archive, published February 2021ā¦
John da Maia writes about the time he bumped into Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston before a meeting at Amazonās headquarters.
Cranston told himā¦
If you analyze the world, you will find that you have been told stories since you were born. You need stories to make sense of the world.
And the most important thing: people pay billions of dollars to hear a story.
John goes on to recount an experiment performed by a journalist back in 2009ā¦
[The journalist] wanted to find out if storytelling was powerful enough to make people spend more money on ordinary / low-value objects.
His strategy was brilliant: have creative writers invent stories about the objects and then post them on eBay and understand if the invented stories increase the value of the object measured by the eBay auction.
He bought 200 objects with an average of $1 each. The objects couldnāt be clothing or anything that could be considered artwork. The results were mind-blowing.
One example was a plastic banana š bought for $0.25 and sold for $76. Another was a mug bought for $0.39 and sold for $31.
All because of the compelling stories the writers attached to those objects.
If you want to get better at storytelling yourself, two great books on the topic:
Building a StoryBrand (8m video summary)
Storyworthy (18m author TED Talk)
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$10K/Month Email App While Sailing The World
Danielle Johnson and her partner James Ivings are digital nomads who have been traveling the world full-time for 6 years, and living on a sailboat for the last 18 months āµļø
(Some nice photos on Danielle's Instagram)
Despite their nomadic lifestyle, they've managed to start and grow a successful business called Leave Me Alone.
Leave Me Alone is super easy to use. Simply connect your email addresses, and weāll show you all the mailing lists youāre on, and you can unsubscribe from the ones you donāt want with a single click!
When youāre done unsubscribing you can add the newsletters you love to a daily (or weekly) digest email using Rollups.
To keep your inbox clean you can control who is allowed to email you or block everything else with Inbox Shield.
The idea came about because Danielle and James were spending a lot of time sorting through their own emails while on the road. They went looking for a service to help them find and unsubscribe from unwanted emailsā¦.
Faced with the dilemma of a messy inbox or all of our data being exploited, we decided to build our own solution.
They built the first prototype of Leave Me Alone in just 7 days š
The response from early users was incredibly positive, with 50 potential beta testers signing up after just a few hours of sharing the landing page on their social accounts.
Leave Me Alone officially launched in January 2019.
In the first month, we scanned a mind-boggling half a million emails!
The launch was a huge success: Leave Me Alone finished #1 product of the day and week on Product Hunt and brought in over $1000+ in revenue š°
Danielle writes...
Our single best decision was to share our journey of ups and downs, and give people an insight into our lives as we build Leave Me Alone from various locations around the world - our audience has proved invaluable when we needed feedback, advice, encouragement, and even beta testers!
Four years later, the app now earns around $10,000 per month from subscriptions and one-off payments (via their website) š
Danielle addsā¦
We also completed our goal of earning enough money from Leave Me Alone to buy the sailboat of our dreams and sail around the world!
Weāve been living aboard our 36ft boat Nayru since May 2022 and weāre still working on Leave Me Alone - I guess you could say that weāve transitioned from nomads to sailmads!
Danielleās advice if youāre building productsā¦
It takes time to find an idea that sticks. Donāt hold onto a bad idea or product just because itās the easy option. Itās difficult to admit that something you built or are building isnāt working, isnāt getting users, and isnāt growing.
If you can recognise when this is happening and be objective about it, then you will waste less time bouncing back and working on your next idea.
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Music Superstar Failed 100s of Times
š¶ Words from musician Ed Sheeran in a recent interviewā¦
You learn nothing from success. Nothing.
You learn everything from the failuresā¦
Success happens from failing hundreds of times.
It doesn't just happen overnight, you have to be rubbish and you have to have people laugh at you and you have to have people go, "Oh, go on, get a real job, this isn't really going to work."
And you just have to have belief that eventually it is going to get better.
Although Ed himself started very young, releasing his first album at the age of 14, he didnāt exactly have it easy.
From The Journal of Musicā¦
Ed Sheeran played 312 gigs in 2009 in addition to constantly releasing new material on his YouTube channel. These gigs and his widespread social media following caught the attention of Jamie Foxx, Elton John and Example.
He was only 18 years old at that time. Very few people ā let alone 18-year-olds ā have that kind of work ethic.
And all those reps = lots of opportunity to fail, learn, and improve šŖ
Ed was eventually signed by Asylum Records in 2011. He released the album + soon after, which has since been certified seven-times platinum in the UK.
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Her Island Website + Newsletter Earns Up To $2500/Month
š From the archive, published March 2023ā¦
Mallorca is a Spanish island (pop. ~1 million) in the Mediterranean š
Ida Jakobson started The Mallorcan, a website and newsletter about the island, after moving there from Sweden in 2021.
Ida shared in a recent interview that the site and newsletter now earns $500 to $2500 per monthā¦
The newsletter makes money in two main ways.
Either a main sponsor or smaller ads further down in the newsletter sourced through Post Apex. [ā¦]
Then a second source of revenue comes from the website. There, we operate a paid directory for local businesses and have some affiliate content with car rental companies and other tourist attractions.
The Mallorcanās first 100 subscribers mostly came via local Facebook groups that Ida was a part of. Sheās also built up a 2.5k following on InstagramĀ š
I love local website/newsletter businesses like this. Not only can they earn good money, but they can also be a great way to get to know a place and be part of the community.
Ida writesā¦
Itās been an amazing way to both develop professionally by shipping a real project with growing metrics and also personally by being able to meet so many great people where I live.
Check out a recent edition of The Mallorcan here.
Meanwhile, a company called 6AM City has taken the local newsletter concept to the extremeā¦
The company operates newsletters in 25 cities across the United States, reaching 1.2 million+ subscribers and generating $10 million+ annual revenue.
Like The Mallorcan, 6AM City keeps the format of their newsletter pretty simple, as you can see from a recent edition of their San Jose newsletter.
Could you do something like this for your local area? š¤
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Thanks to Fardeen Khan for helping me write and research today's newsletter.
Hasta la prĆ³xima, rock on with your legendary self šŖ
Niall Doherty ā Canillo, Andorra
eBiz Facts (follow on twitter)
P.S. Thinking to start a newsletter? I'd highly recommend checking out Beehiiv š
It's the same software I use to publish and grow this newsletter, and it's free up to 2500 subscribers š
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