Hey there 👋
Happy Monday and a slightly different intro this week.
It's my birthday. 🎂 I'm one of those people who treats their birthday like a party and even more so like a checkpoint: a moment to slow down, look back, and feel grateful.
So here's what I'm grateful for:
You for reading this newsletter. You're the reason I keep writing on Mondays at 11:58pm 🙃
Every deal I've helped close, and every one I'm still working on. (34 years old and more than 100 deals closed, it’s pretty cool)
Every person I've met along the way, buyers, sellers, operators… They never stop teaching me new things.
My entourage, family, and friends who support me all year long!
I got into newsletter acquisitions because someone took a chance on me. That hasn't been forgotten. My hope for this next year is to pay that forward, to help a lot more people buy, sell, and grow newsletters, the same way I was lucky enough to be helped.
Thank you for being here. Truly.
Now, let's find the right asset for you!
Cheers,
ACQUIRE THE WEB
Find the perfect digital asset to acquire. 🌍 Website | 🗞️ Newsletter | 🧑🤝🧑 Community | 🎧 Podcast | 📱 Application
Career | 🗞️ 400 Subscribers | 💰 - | Ask: Under $5,000 | on LetterTrader
Self-Improvement | 🗞️ 13,068 Subscribers | 💰 Ads, Affiliate, Digital Product | $200 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $7,000 | on LetterTrader
Health | 🗞️ 24,160 Subscribers | 💰 Ads, Sponsorships | $500 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $14,500 | on LetterTrader
News | 🌍 3 Years Old | 💰 YouTube | $2,114 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $57,078 | on Empire Flippers
Beauty | 🌍 1 Year-Old | 💰 E-commerce | $98,024 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $250,000 | on Empire Flippers
Automotive | 🌍 1 Year-Old | 💰 YouTube | $4,173 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $55,301 | on Empire Flippers
Finance | 🌍 14 Years Old | 💰 Display Ads, Subscriptions | $3,862 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $120,615 | on Empire Flippers
Dating | 🌍 7 Years Old | 💰 Affiliate, Ads, Backlink | $987 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $23,000 | on DotMarket
DIY | 🌍 13 Years Old | 💰 Affiliate, Ads | $4,153 Average Monthly Revenue | Ask: $95,000 | on DotMarket
Home | 🌍 3 Year Old | 💰 E-commerce | $4,137 Annual Revenue | Ask: $3,500 | on Microns
NEWSLETTER GROWTH TIP
Don't put all your revenue in one basket
Most newsletters start with one source of income. A few ad placements. A sponsor who keeps coming back. That's perfectly normal, and it's how every successful newsletter begins.
But the moment you start thinking about scaling, raising your value, or eventually selling, the story changes. Newsletters with diversified revenue grow faster, handle slow months more easily, and sell for more when the time comes.
Here's a simple framework to think about it:
Layer 1: Ads, network or marketplace placements (Beehiiv Ad Network, Paved, Passionfroot). Mostly hands-off, lower payout per spot, but a steady baseline once you're plugged in.
Layer 2: Direct sponsorships, brands you negotiate with directly. Higher payout, more control over who shows up in your newsletter, and the start of real revenue.
Layer 3: Affiliates, recommend tools, products, or services you genuinely use. Low effort to add, and it compounds over time as your list grows.
Layer 4: Paid subscriptions, a premium tier, members-only content, or a paid version of your newsletter. Recurring revenue is the most stable kind, and buyers love it.
Layer 5: Your own offer, a digital product, course, or service that complements your newsletter. This is where margins jump and where strategic buyers see the most upside.
You don't need to add all five at once. Start with one new layer this quarter and see what sticks. Even moving from one revenue stream to two changes everything: from your monthly stability to your peace of mind to the price your newsletter could fetch one day.
A good rule of thumb: aim for no single source to make up more than 60% of your revenue within 12 months.
The newsletters that thrive long-term aren't the ones with the biggest sponsor. They're the ones that built a system where no single source can pull the rug out from under them.
Reply and let me know what your main revenue source is today; I'll share the breakdown in a future issue.
MEET RAPH:
Raph is my sister-in-law’s brother. He’s one of the only devs I know that doesn’t get under my skin 🙃
He currently builds applications for different content creators, in fitness, wellness, and meditation, and his agency is the name of my favorite board game.
If you need a dev for your next project, feel free to reach out!
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🗞️ Build a Newsletter That Pays You- The 30-Day Newsletter Expert: Your one-to-one guided growth sprint. Take 60 seconds and fill out this quick form to get started.
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👑 Empire Flippers - Best marketplace to acquire or sell a Saas or E-commerce, safe process from A to Z. Browse the Marketplace
🤝 Lettergrowth - Start Cross-promoting with creators in your niche, one of the best way to grow your audience without spending a dime, plus it makes you network! Start now!
ACQUISITION NEWS
3 deals, 3 lessons
This week, we are looking at 3 newsletters recently sold on LetterTrader.
Millionaire Habits: a personal finance newsletter with 35,000 subscribers and $425/mo in revenue—> sold for $8,500 (~1.7x ARR).
Alpha in Academia: a quantitative finance newsletter with 7,481 subscribers and $1,765/mo in revenue—> sold for $30,000 (~1.4x ARR).
Palm Beach Digest: a local Florida newsletter with 1,807 subscribers and $0 revenue—> sold for $1,000 (~$0.55 per subscriber).
Lesson 1 — Revenue beats list size. The newsletter with 5x fewer subscribers sold for 3.5x more because it earned 4x more per month. Cash flow is what makes buyers pay the most.
Lesson 2 — Local newsletters keep finding buyers. They sell consistently, even at small sizes and even with $0 revenue, because the path to monetization is so obvious: local businesses want local readers. If you're sitting on a few thousand engaged subscribers in a defined geography, you have a sellable asset whether you've monetized it yet or not.
Lesson 3 — Small newsletters sell too. A 1,800-subscriber list found a buyer this month. You don't need 50,000 subscribers to have something worth selling. This is more accessible than most people think.
Want to know more about deals we close? Reply, and I’ll share more insights.
Congratulations to all parties involved!
Your ads ran overnight. Nobody was watching. Except Viktor.
One brand built 30+ landing pages through Viktor without a single developer.
Each page mapped to a specific ad group. All deployed within hours. Viktor wrote the code and shipped every one from a Slack message.
That same team has Viktor monitoring ad accounts across the portfolio and posting performance briefs before the day starts. One colleague. Always on. Across every account.
Until next week, keep building. 💪
Important Disclaimer: Not financial or investing advice. This newsletter is strictly for information and education purposes. Do your own research and due diligence. Certain links in this newsletter are affiliate links. We believe transparency is part of our code of ethics, hence the sharing.