Summary

Milk Road, a daily crypto newsletter, rapidly grew to 150,000 subscribers and a $1 million annual run rate in just six months by leveraging a proven newsletter model, an existing audience, and community engagement.

Abstract

Milk Road, co-founded by Shaan Puri and Ben Levy, achieved remarkable growth in a short period, securing 150,000 subscribers and a $1 million annual run rate within six months. This success was driven by adapting a successful newsletter framework, The Hustle, to the cryptocurrency niche, capitalizing on Puri's substantial pre-existing audience from his podcast and newsletter, and fostering a highly engaged community through transparency and active feedback mechanisms. The founders' unique combination of copywriting skills and crypto knowledge, along with their strategic use of an unfair advantage, were key factors in their rapid growth.

Opinions

Shaan Puri believes that their unique combination of great copywriting and crypto knowledge was pivotal in Milk Road's success.
The founders emphasize the importance of not reinventing the wheel but rather applying a proven model to a new niche.
An unfair advantage, such as Shaan's established audience from his podcast and newsletter, is seen as a critical element in accelerating growth.
Community involvement, including transparency in communications and a referral system, is considered essential for building trust and fostering loyalty among subscribers.
Milk Road's approach to reader feedback, including voting options and publishing reader reviews, is viewed as a method to incentivize engagement and build a community of loyal subscribers.

How The Milk Road Went From 0 To $1 Million ARR In 6 Months

A daily crypto newsletter grew from 0 to 150,000 subscribers in just 6 months. Here’s how.

Milk Road, a brainchild of Shaan Puri and Ben Levy, has been one of the fastest-growing newsletters this year. It has amassed a $1 million annual run rate and 150,000 subscribers in just 6 months. In this article, we’ll discover the pillars of success that will help you grow your newsletter.

Let’s dive in.

Take An Existing Model That Works, Apply It To Your Niche

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to be successful.

Milk Road founders took a proven, successful model and applied it to their own interests. The foundational idea was to provide daily news in a fun, interesting matter for a modern, tech-focused audience. The Hustle had done it for tech news. Puri and Levy used the same framework for cryptocurrency news.

Milk Road took a lot of inspiration from The Hustle.

As Shaan Puri himself put it: “We took 2 unique abilities and combined them — great copywriting and knowledge about crypto. There are maybe 5 people in the world that can do it. That’s why it worked.”

The framework worked — Milk Road, even during a massive market downturn, has managed to add 150,000 subscribers.

Use Your Unfair Advantage

Using your unfair advantage can be the fastest way your idea can take off.

An unfair advantage is something that cannot be easily copied or bought by your competitors. For Shaan and Ben, it was using the pre-existing audience Shaan had built over the past 2 years hosting My First Million, a Top 10 business podcast. Additionally, Shaan had a weekly newsletter with 30,000 subscribers and more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

Shaan Puri is the co-host of the My First Million podcast.

“I don’t have an audience,” I’ll hear you say. And that’s OK. Most don’t have the kind of reach Shaan has.

Your unfair advantage can be your industry expertise, your work rate, or your ability to make people laugh about the most mundane things.

Find a unique ability you’re better at than others and lean into it.

Involve The Community In Your Work

From day 1, Milk Road has done an amazing job to build a community of active daily readers.

The secret sauce is part great copywriting, part transparency. Milk Road uses very conversational language in their emails. It creates a feeling that the email has been written specifically for you.

Shaan and Ben are very transparent in their emails. They publish a daily update on their investment portfolio and talk through their thinking about new cryptocurrencies.

Milk Road has a very conversational language in their emails.

Transparency creates trust. Trust creates an army of Milk Road readers who’ll in turn recommend the newsletter to others.

Additionally, they took advantage of a referral system early on, offering exclusive content after you’ve referred a new reader.

Milk Road focuses on reader feedback offering a voting option after each email. They also publish reader reviews which further incentivizes you to reply to the email with your feedback. It’s a part of building a community of loyal subscribers.

Milk Road focuses on acquiring a lot of feedback.

Milk Road is a great example of applying a business framework that works in a new industry. Shaan and Ben have been great at building a loyal audience around the brand. Everything that Shaan Puri touches turns to gold — Milk Road included.

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