“I love unsubscribes. Don’t be here if you don’t want to be here.” It is insanely easy to subscribe to a newsletter—and even MULTIPLE newsletters all at once. But is that a good thing? Should newsletter creators be more choosy when determining who signs up? We're diving into one of the most overlooked and under-discussed aspects of newsletter growth: friction. Specifically, how adding friction —rather than eliminating it—can actually improve subscriber quality, open rates, and monetization. This...
Jul 02, 2025•32 min•Ep. 36
“The real value wasn’t in the keynotes—it was the dinners, the hikes, the casual connections.” – Dylan Redekop, first-time C+C attendee Dylan and Chenell reflect on their time at Kit's Craft + Commerce email newsletter conference for creators in Boise. But this episode isn’t just a recap — it’s a deep dive into what made the conference unforgettable: the people, the ideas, and the big shifts in how creators are building authentic businesses. From mastermind dinners with Pat Flynn to keynote take...
Jun 25, 2025•47 min•Ep. 35
"Every time I try to be an expert, I lose readers. When I’m just me, they stick around." – Jesse J. Anderson, Extra Focus newsletter For the first time ever, Chenell & Dylan have recorded LIVE, in-person podcast episodes! Coming at you in-person from Kit Studios in Boise ID, Chenell & Dylan connect with Jesse J. Anderson—better known online as ADHD Jesse —to uncover the evolution of his successful newsletter, Extra Focus . Jesse's grown Extra Focus to over 70,000 subscribers and a combin...
Jun 18, 2025•48 min•Ep. 34
"Podcasting isn’t a shortcut to growth—but it’s a hell of a way to deepen relationships." – Chenell Basilio What can happen when you commit to a weekly podcast for six straight months? You're about to find out. Chenell & Dylan pull back the curtain on the Growth In Reverse podcast—sharing the behind-the-scenes of what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what we’ve learned along the way. We get real about the numbers: subscribers, downloads, YouTube stats, and more. Plus, we chat through the very real...
Jun 11, 2025•48 min•Ep. 33
“You can pretty much do anything on Substack—which is good and also makes me nervous.” – Chenell Basilio We've seen a wave of creators flocking to Substack over the last month and couldn’t help but wonder... what’s really going on here? In this episode, Chenell & Dylan unpack the why we believe this migration is happening. Are creators just chasing the next shiny thing, or is Substack genuinely offering something new and powerful? We dive into the benefits, red flags, and the not-so-obvious ...
Jun 04, 2025•39 min•Ep. 32
"I thought this would grow my list. It did—but the real win was something else entirely." — Chenell Basilio on her 30 Days of Growth experiment. In this special episode of Growth In Reverse , Chenell & Dylan break down the whirlwind that was Chenell's 30 Days of Growth experiment. What started as a simple idea to improve my cross-promotions quickly snowballed into a full-fledged daily popup newsletter, complete with giveaways, podcast episodes, and a ton of valuable insights. We dive into th...
May 28, 2025•42 min•Ep. 31
Get 30 proven newsletter strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "There is a strong, undeniable correlation between the number of emails you send and the amount of money you make." — Olly Richards In this episode, Chenell & Dylan chat with Olly Richards — the founder of Storylearning.com and now a fast-growing personal brand — about exactly how he grew his personal brand from $0 and 0 audience to $1.2m and over 18,000 subscribers in 18 months. From his early days as a b...
May 21, 2025•50 min•Ep. 30
Get 30 proven newsletter strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Faceless brands are forgettable. Put your name on it. Make it human." In this episode, Dylan and Chenell are back for another Newsletter Roast! Get out your marshmallows 🔥 This week we're roasting a newsletter all about podcast discovery. The Find That Pod newsletter promises to help readers uncover the best shows out there, but does it actually do that? We go deep into what’s working and what’s not. We shar...
May 14, 2025•31 min•Ep. 29
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "This might be the most fun I've had growing my newsletter." — Chenell And here's how Chenell's doing it. We're giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how 30 Days of Growth is going—and how we’re planning to make the most of the final stretch! With over 2,600 signups already and a massive giveaway in motion, this mini-launch is becoming more than expected… but can it be even bigger? In this episode, Chenell & Dylan b...
May 07, 2025•35 min•Ep. 28
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In this episode, we’re unpacking five high-performing newsletter growth levers that creators are using right now to grow smarter—not harder. Each tactic comes straight from Chenell's 30 Days of Growth series, where creators shared the exact strategies that helped them attract thousands of new subscribers, improve engagement, and build more loyal audiences. From a clever “four-hour follow-up email” to a Google Doc that he...
Apr 30, 2025•39 min•Ep. 27
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> We're diving into one of the most underrated growth strategies out there: collaborations and cross-promotions . Whether you're building a newsletter, launching a podcast, or growing a YouTube channel, collabs are one of the most high-leverage plays you can run — and we break down exactly how to do them right. We get into real-life examples, from simple newsletter swaps to co-created content that drives thousands of subsc...
Apr 23, 2025•48 min•Ep. 26
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Three roasts are better than one! Our first Newsletter Roast was last month, and we only roasted ONE newsletter. Today we're bringing back the heat—but roasting THREE newsletters instead of just one. These newsletters are all in different phases of their journey but all share one common problem (you'll have to listen to find out). In this episode, we review each newsletter's sign-up page, their welcome email & onboar...
Apr 16, 2025•41 min•Ep. 24
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> This special edition of the Growth In Reverse podcast is the full live talk I gave at the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin TX this past February. Over the past two years, I’ve studied the growth of the most successful newsletters in the world—those who’ve hit 50,000+ subscribers—and I noticed something interesting. There's one thing every single one of them has in common. It's not some sexy growth hack or a secret r...
Apr 09, 2025•26 min•Ep. 23
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Quantity leads to quality, but when you find a winner, you have to double down." — Dave Kline, MGMT Playbook Dave Kline went from leading teams at Bridgewater to building a million-dollar creator business—with zero prior experience on social media. But the real secret behind the success? His wife, Marsden (Mar). While Dave built a public-facing brand on Twitter and LinkedIn, Mar worked behind the scenes to shape the vis...
Apr 02, 2025•46 min•Ep. 22
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Lenny Rachitsky just crossed 1 million subscribers with his Substack newsletter, aptly named Lenny's Newsletter . Chenell has written a few deep dives on Lenny ( How he reached 377k subscribers , and how he got 18k paid subscribers ). So we thought it would be interesting to see what he's done to accelerate his growth to over 1M subscribers over the past few years—and share our biggest takeaways and reasons for his growt...
Mar 26, 2025•44 min•Ep. 21
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> “The easiest way to lose potential subscribers is to make them work too hard to understand what they’re signing up for.” (Watch this episode on YouTube --> ) We sent out the call to get your newsletter roasted. Over 20 listeners submitted their newsletters. And today we're roasting the first one: Craftsman Films Shout-out to Daren Smith of Craftsman Creative and Craftsman Films for being our first guinea pig with this...
Mar 19, 2025•35 min•Ep. 20
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "The future of newsletters isn’t just email." — Chenell Basilio Missed the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin? Well, Chenell didn't! She was there IRL—and she's sharing her biggest takeaways from the first annual summit. Not only did Chenell attend the event, she was a speaker! Listen in to find out more about her talk and the insights and trends she discovered while in Austin TX. → Take your newsletter to the next le...
Mar 12, 2025•42 min•Ep. 19
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "I didn’t have a goal—I just committed to showing up every day for 100 days." — Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Ness Labs After publishing 100 articles in 100 days, Anne-Laure drove 6,000 subscribers to her Maker Mind newsletter. It was the tiny experiment that kickstarted her newsletter journey. But it was just the beginning. Today, her Maker Mind newsletter reaches over 100k subscribers' inboxes, and her Ness Labs community bring...
Mar 05, 2025•45 min•Ep. 18
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Anne-Laure got her first 6,000 subscribers by posting 100 articles in 100 days. But that was back in 2019. Today, her Maker Mind newsletter hits over 100k subscriber inboxes, and her Ness Labs community brings in over 6 figures in revenue every year. So, in this deep dive walkthrough, I share how Anne-Laure went from 6k subscribers to 100k+. Then later this week, Dylan and I chat with Anne-Laure about her recent journey ...
Mar 02, 2025•24 min•Ep. 17
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Less is more. The key to growing Why We Buy wasn’t doing more —it was doubling down on what worked and cutting the rest.” — Katelyn Bourgoin Chenell & Dylan are joined by Katelyn Bourgoin of the Why We Buy newsletter. Chenell researched & wrote a GIR Deep Dive on Katelyn back in 2023. At that point, Katelyn's Why We Buy newsletter had just surpassed the 50k-subscriber mark and she was in the midst of earning $30...
Feb 26, 2025•53 min•Ep. 16
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Katelyn Bourgoin has amassed over 63k subscribers and earned $1M in revenue—in 2024 alone! She runs the popular newsletter Why We Buy . It's my favorite newsletter when it comes to buyer psychology. And in this deep dive walkthrough, I'm giving you a rundown of how she's built and monetized her newsletter. And then later this week, Dylan and I have Katelyn on the show talking all about how she's pivoting her consulting b...
Feb 23, 2025•32 min•Ep. 15
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> What are the most popular revenue streams for newsletters? And how many revenue streams do most newsletters have? Chenell & Dylan review the revenue stream stats from the 66 Deep Dives that Chenell's published for Growth In Reverse. They reveal what the 3 most common revenue streams are—but then they unearth the lesser-known revenue streams that newsletter creators are sleeping on. → Take your newsletter to the next ...
Feb 19, 2025•38 min•Ep. 14
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> What happens when an established newsletter hits a growth plateau? And can anything be done to revive it? Chenell & Dylan sit down with Ben Collins of BenLCollins.com and his Google Sheets Tips newsletter. When Chenell researched & wrote her GIR Deep Dive on Ben last year, all appeared to be going well for Ben and his Google Sheets Tips newsletter. But when we invited Ben to join us on the podcast, he was apprehe...
Feb 12, 2025•47 min•Ep. 13
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Ben Collins has built a successful business and a newsletter with over 50k subscribers that earns him a comfortable living. Later this week, Dylan and I talk to Ben about how he can continue to grow the newsletter and get over the growth plateau he's currently facing. Get 75+ Growth Levers used by top newsletters: https://growthinreverse.com/gll/ Join a community of others building their newsletters: https://growthinreve...
Feb 10, 2025•22 min•Ep. 12
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Could these small changes have a 10x impact on your newsletter's success? Chenell & Dylan reveal 15+ little newsletter changes you can make today that could have massive results. → Take your newsletter to the next level with GIR Pro >> → Get free access to 75+ newsletter Growth Levers here >> KEY TAKEAWAYS The minimalist landing page tip that can help boost conversions 9 small ways to improve your welcome...
Feb 05, 2025•45 min•Ep. 11
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Collaborations are not optional. They’re the fastest way to grow a newsletter.” — Aakash Gupta, Product Growth Chenell & Dylan sit down with Aakash Gupta of the Product Growth newsletter in this episode. When Chenell researched & wrote her GIR Deep Dive on Aakash last year, he had just hit 100k subscribers. He's now grown to over 150k subscribers, publishes multiple times per week—and started a new podcast this ...
Jan 29, 2025•48 min•Ep. 10
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In 3 years, Aakash Gupta went from 0 to over 300k followers, 105k email subscribers, and $624k in annual revenue. This is a walkthrough of a deep dive I wrote into his growth story, which you can read here: https://growthinreverse.com/aakash-gupta/ On Wednesday, we're releasing the full interview with Aakash Gupta here, so stay tuned!...
Jan 27, 2025•18 min•Ep. 9
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "I made $2,000 with a newsletter list of only 3,000 subscribers." In this episode of the Growth In Reverse podcast, Chenell & Dylan sit down with Justin Moore and discuss how to nail brand sponsorships. Justin is the founder of Creator Wizard where he coaches creators to earn more with their brand deals. He has also written and pre-launched his book on the same topic called Sponsor Magnet. → Take your newsletter to t...
Jan 22, 2025•52 min•Ep. 8
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In this episode of the Growth In Reverse podcast, Chenell & Dylan dive into the best and most unique growth strategies they saw in 2024. → Take your newsletter to the next level with GIR Pro >> → Get free access to 75+ newsletter Growth Levers here >> KEY TAKEAWAYS How Khe Hy used lead magnets "in disguise" Aakash Gupta discovered a massive growth hack Kyla Scanlon drives over 69k subscribers with short-f...
Jan 15, 2025•36 min•Ep. 7
Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In this episode of the Growth In Reverse podcast, Chenell & Dylan dive into some of the most polarizing newsletter topics. They share their experiences and opinions AND potentially *hot* takes. Take your newsletter to the next level with GIR Pro >> Get free access to 75+ newsletter Growth Levers here >> KEY TAKEAWAYS Lead Magnets: Yes or No? How to make them work for you. Double Opt-In Debate : Does it he...
Jan 08, 2025•52 min•Ep. 6
