The Creator Spotlight Podcast

Today’s guest is Akhil Chauhan, who runs The Writer’s Job Newsletter (TWJN). But he didn’t create the newsletter — he acquired it. Akhil has been running TWJN solo (besides occasional social media help) for two years. The guy he bought it from ran it for only one year. We spoke about: 💰️ The economics of a newsletter acquisition 🤐 Keeping his personality (mostly) out of the newsletter 🤝 Pulling off a seamless handoff after acquiring the newsletter 🧑‍💼 Being accountable to subscribers who rely on the newsletter for jobs 00:00 Acquiring a newsletter 08:05 Researching solo 14:10 The differences in journalism in the UK vs US 15:35 Growing a newsletter to 10k+ subscribers 23:18 Work/life balance as a creator 29:23 Premium subscribers and monetisation 33:04 Keeping a distance from your audience 36:50 Advice to creators, from a creator 41:05 The future of TWJN 45:30 The biggest regret as a creator Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today’s guest is Peter Ramsey. He runs Built for Mars, a UX consultancy and content library he started almost by accident after the company he founded during university was acquired in 2018. I was drawn both to his story and the undeniable quality of his content. Peter is a rare type — an obsessively detailed researcher but not pedantic about it. He’s just as talented at spinning that research into fun, useful, and easy-to-digest narratives. In this episode: 00:00 Who is Peter Ramsey and what is Built for Mars 05:30 The MrBeast of UX 09:47 Using every bank in the UK 13:19 Who are Built for Mars readers? 16:30 How Peter monetizes the newsletter 19:30 Is the website fantastic, or does it suck? 25:20 Why start a newsletter? 27:43 The stats 30:23 Peter’s most viral posts 31:40 Why Peter hates social media 33:38 The gamification of education sites/apps 38:11 The different types of written content 40:46 Growing an online business 47:00 The future of Built for Mars Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today’s guest is Caitlin Murray, better known by her Instagram handle @bigtimeadulting. After her son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2016, she started writing about it to friends and family — nearly 8 years later, she has 1.4 million Instagram followers. It’s a great story. In today’s episode: 00:00 The origin story 05:50 How to gain over 1 million followers 10:15 The 4 chapters of @bigtimeadulting 14:15 Turning Instagram into a business 19:25 Building a positive community 24:08 Growing an Instagram following, organically 29:22 Podcasting is hard 33:41 Monetizing as a creator 38:31 Starting and building a newsletter 47:45 Having multiple monetization streams 51:53 Advice lightning round Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today's guest is Tyler O’Shea, creator of Joker Mag, a website and newsletter about sports underdogs. He started the project in that “what am I gonna do with my life” period after graduating college. Nearly 7 years of posting later, he’s still doing it as a side project, but it’s also led him to a career in SEO (search engine optimization). In this episode, we talk about: 🐶 Learning how to write for the internet 🌟 What writing and posting content online can do for you 🔎 How posting led Tyler to discover and start working in SEO 📱 How to figure out which social media platform is most useful for you Note: Yes, Francis' sound is slightly off in this episode. Good thing Tyler does most of the talking! 00:00 Tyler’s motivation and the mentality of a creator 05:37 The inspiration to start writing 08:40 Is Google’s AI killing SEO? 11:36 The average Joker Mag reader 14:44 Finding amazing sports stories 18:37 How to grow a loyal audience 23:25 How much time does it take to grow a newsletter? 27:38 The different monetization channels 32:03 Hiring other writers 37:21 SEO tips: How to make your website the best 39:06 Advice for creators 43:40 Future goals 49:30 Quick Q&A Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today's guest is Kate Samuelson, co-creator of Cheapskate London. Every Monday, they send out a newsletter built around free events, two for each day of the coming week. Over the last five years they’ve built an audience of over 19k, winning praise from longstanding media institutions in the process. All the while, Cheapskate is a side project; during the day, Kate works as a journalist. She specializes in newsletters. In this issue: 🍸️ Giving subscribers a free bottle of gin as a referral reward 📰 Operating a newsletter while working full-time in journalism 💷 Running paid ads for your newsletter is easier than it sounds 00:00 What is Cheapskate London? 06:10 Who is the average reader? 10:03 Choosing what content to include — curation 17:36 Kate’s career as a journalist 30:45 The stats — how to grow an audience 38:42 Kate’s unique referral program — giveaways! 41:58 Monetization 52:49 Advice for newsletter creators Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today's guest is Haya Kaylani, creator of a curation-style newsletter called The Deep Dive. What does she curate? YouTube video essays, five of them every Wednesday. She’s built an audience of 92k TikTok followers and 13.5k newsletter subscribers in just 15 months — pure organic growth, with almost all of her newsletter subscribers coming over from TikTok. In this issue, we discuss: 🎨 Curating, gatekeeping, and gatecreating 📺️ Why writing about YouTube is a huge opportunity 📢 Applying lessons from a career in PR to indie creator work 🤳 Building a newsletter audience by building a TikTok audience 00:00 What is The Deep Dive 02:30 Being a curator 06:23 What is a video essay? 14:26 Going viral on TikTok 19:04 Why start a newsletter? 24:21 Why we need curators and gate-creators 28:22 The stats - How to grow subscribers 33:32 Haya’s premium newsletter, The Rabbit Hole 37:27 Monetisation and referrals 41:47 Advice for creators and lessons learned Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today's guest is PJ Milani, a high school animation teacher recently turned social media star. He’s known for his “visual metaphors” — single-panel illustrations featuring lessons about life and creativity. Across his socials he has over 200k followers, his newsletter has 16k subscribers, and he teaches a perennially sold-out cohort course about visual thinking on Maven. In this issue, we discuss: 🌱 Organic growth 🔜 Trusting the process, every day 🎨 What it means to live a creative life 🤝 Working in community with other creators 00:00 Who is PJ Milani 01:25 Why PJ started creating — Getting on social media 09:04 How to gain 200k followers 14:48 Relationship between writing and drawing 19:39 Which social media platform is best — Twitter vs Instagram vs LinkedIn 23:57 How to convert social media followers into newsletter subs? 30:56 How PJ monetises his content 42:23 The long term plan Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Ryan Broderick is the creator of Garbage Day, “A newsletter about having fun online.” He’s among the most popular journalists-turned-newsletter-creators out there. It’s clear by the numbers (68k subscribers, 3k of whom pay for premium content), praise from other creators, and the nearly 200 press clippings on his About page. In this episode we discuss: 📰 There’s (almost) no difference between journalists and creators 🛋️ Why you need a Simpsons couch gag in your newsletter 🫵 Every American is a journalist (if they want to be) 🚖 Creators are Uber drivers for content 🧑‍🎓 Garbage Day is on the syllabus Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Jared Dashevsky runs Healthcare Huddle, a twice-weekly newsletter for physicians and other healthcare professionals. In just over four years, he’s built an audience of 30,000. He’s also built a team of 13, dismantled that team and been acquired. But today, Jared is once again a solo creator. In this episode, we discuss: 🎓️ The cap on how far Healthcare Huddle can or should scale 😍 Understanding your newsletter’s “true fans” ✍️ Creating a sustainable newsletter workflow 🧠 Jared’s four key lessons from four years of newslettering ↩️ Pivoting from a B2C to B2B audience Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Arielle Nissenblatt knows podcasts. She writes a weekly newsletter about podcasts, hosts a podcast version of that newsletter, co-hosts another weekly podcast and a daily podcast. She runs a Discord community for podcasters. On top of all that, she works full-time as a community marketing manager at Descript. In this episode, we discuss: 🤝 How Arielle broke into the podcasting industry 🎙️ Why you should not start a podcast (unless you should) 🫂 What “community” means to brands and creators 💖 The potential of creator advocacy organizations 🏠 How brands should work with in-house creators Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Ryan Sneddon runs Naptown Scoop, a local newsletter serving Annapolis, Maryland. In three-and-a-half years, he’s built an audience of over 18,000 (nearly half the town’s population), and last year the business generated around $200,000 in revenue. In this episode, we discuss: 🏘️ How Ryan got half the town to sign up for the Scoop 👩 Exactly how Ryan defined his core reader 💲 How Ryan prices the newsletter’s ad spots 👀 The Scoop’s simple and incredibly effective referral system 📈 Ryan’s plans to increase revenue by 175% this year

Ali built an audience of over 7,000 subscribers before he even sent the first issue of his newsletter, AI for Work. He would only end up sending 13 issues before (at approximately 30,000 subscribers) he went looking for advice on how to monetize and ending up selling the whole thing instead. We spent an hour discussing: 🧲 How he built an ingenious, highly successful lead magnet 👀 Emailing every new subscriber to build relationships 💰️ Experimenting with monetization 🤖 Using TikTok to grow his email list (without making his own videos) 📰 His plans to start a local news newsletter Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Andrew Huang is lifelong musician and a pioneer in the Creator Economy. He made his first dollar online auctioning off songwriting commissions on eBay two decades ago and has since became a celebrated YouTuber with 2.36 million followers, produced commercial commissions for international brands, and published a book. Make Your Own Rules: Stories and Hard-Earned Advice from a Creator in the Digital Age came out in February 2024. We spoke with Andrew shortly after about: 📍 Why he focuses his output on just a few platforms 🧑‍🏫 His approach to creating his online music production course 🪞 Scaling as a creator without losing authenticity 📕 Writing this book (his first) and giving timeless advice

Casey has been writing the youth consumer trends newsletter After School for three years, the culmination of nearly two decades writing and editing content about and for teens in her own online publications and in Teen Vogue and New York Magazine. On the occasion of Casey leaving her day job to work full time on a newsletter — for the second time in her career — we spoke about: 💵 Building and selling her first newsletter business (2016–2019) 📭 Writing her newsletter to 0 subscribers for the first month ✌️ Leaving a full-time job to commit to her newsletter business (again) 📈 Her premium subscriber model with a 5% conversion rate 👩‍🎨 Monetizing a curation-style newsletter Read our feature on Casey and subscribe to our newsletter for more behind-the-scenes stories from the creator economy.

Eric, alongside Slava Rubin (host of the Smart Humans podcast), co-founded Vincent in 2019 as an aggregator platform for alternative investment opportunities. It's evolved into a media company with three newsletters and a podcast, still focused on alternative investments. Adam joined the team a couple of years ago as a researcher and writer. We spoke about: 🏋️ Building a solid core audience over four years 📰 Deciding not to put names on the newsletter byline 👎 Knowing what not to write about 💰 Generating revenue through partnerships and trust 😌 Not worrying too much about competitors

Hannah started the TikTok page Salary Transparent Street two years ago. It now has 1.3 million followers — 2.8 million across all channels — and is a full-fledged media business, with $1 million revenue just last year. Read our feature on Hannah and subscribe to our newsletter for more behind-the-scenes stories from the creator economy. We spoke with Hannah about: 🫂 Building a brand based on audience trust 💵 The “Three C’s” at the core of her pay transparency mission 🎤 The art of the street interview 📈 Turning viral content into a sustainable business 🤝 Navigating brand deals with integrity