Make Lemonade

How Matt Paulson scaled MarketBeat to $25m a year

Jan 4, 2024

Matt Paulson, founder and CEO of MarketBeat, shares his origin story, discusses growing MarketBeat to a $25m revenue, the impact of COVID on the business, and offers advice on starting a newsletter. He also talks about his involvement in the local startup community and shares how he spends his free time.

45:30

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Episode guests

Matt Paulson

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Finding advertisers that align with your niche and developing long-term partnerships is crucial for newsletter success.

Focusing on niche markets, providing unique perspectives, and offering valuable content can help newsletter creators stand out in a saturated market.

Building a business model that provides sustainable and long-term revenue, such as relying on performance advertising, is essential for newsletter success.

Deep dives

Monetizing newsletters through performance advertising

Matt Paulson highlights the importance of finding advertisers that align with your niche and developing long-term partnerships. He emphasizes the value of performance advertising, where you only get paid when you make a sale or generate results for the advertiser.

Introduction

4min

Growing a Profitable Side Hustle

21min

Impact of Loss of Revenue, Advertising Spend, and Office Setup

2min

Monetizing Newsletters: Advertising and Sponsorships

11min

Ventures and Investments

6min

Personal Interests and Reflections on Building a Business

2min

Today we’re joined by Matt Paulson, who is the founder and CEO of MarketBeat, a financial media company with their main newsletter, MarketBeat Daily being sent out to over 4m subscribers. They do over $25m in revenue and has over 15 employees and have seen rapid growth over the past few years. JR and I speak to Matt about his origin story, how COVID almost 4x’d the business, Matt’s advice to people starting out with a newsletter today and why he’s so involved in the local startup community.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:58 Why Matt has a private jet
03:55 Matt's origin story
08:45 From finance blogger to MarketBeat
10:24 Avoiding platform risk
11:39 Why Matt left his job to go full-time on MarketBeat
15:19 Growing MarketBeat
17:13 How a $25m newsletter business operates
20:24 Huge growth during COVID
25:02 Spending $3m on a new office
27:10 The newsletter craze
29:14 Different advertising models for newsletters
33:45 Matt's advice on starting a newsletter
37:39 Why Matt invests in the Sioux Falls startup community
43:21 How Matt spends his free time
44:04 Final takeaways

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com.

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

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Make Lemonade

How Matt Paulson scaled MarketBeat to $25m a year

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Monetizing newsletters through performance advertising

The significance of targeted and authentic content

Navigating the newsletter market saturation

Building a sustainable business model

The importance of perseverance and putting in the work

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts