How to build a newsletter business - Louis Nicholls, SparkLoop

Louis Nicholls is the co-founder of SparkLoop, a product that helps newsletter operators grow through referral partnerships. Indie hackers might know Louis from his Sales for Founders course which he ran a few years ago, as well as his many other projects.

What we covered in this episode:

• How Sparkloop Started
• How Louis met his cofounder Manuel
• Going Niche vs Broad
• Pursuing a growing market
• What is your unique competitive advantage?
• Avoiding shiny object syndrome
• Speaking to your customers
• How does a newsletter referral program work?
• Can you start a referral program from the beginning?
• What’s the value of a newsletter subscriber?
  • Sparkloop calculator
• Sparkloop growth from day 1
• How big is Sparkloop?
• How to start and grow a newsletter
• Louis’ favourite newsletters
  • Lenny’s Newsletter
  • Morning Brew
  • Why We Buy

Recommendations

• Book: Wuthering Heights
• Podcast: Default Alive
• Indie Hacker: Josh Ho

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet
• 2 Hour Podcast Course
• PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)
• This Indie Life Podcast

Sponsor - Ahrefs

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.

If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.

To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools