You want to launch a newsletter. Awesome!
But be careful. Because the excitement around starting a newsletter can quickly turn into a to-do list with 150 tasks on it.
You can quickly fall down a rabbit hole of “best practices” that leaves you overwhelmed and paralyzed about your next step. Should you use Beehiiv or Kit? Do you need a welcome sequence? What about UTM parameters?
That list grows and grows until you get so overwhelmed that you never send any emails.
I’ve seen it happen more than I’d want to. So I’m hoping this list will help you avoid some of those early distractions so you can remove a bunch of stuff from your to-do list, or just move them to a “future to-do list.”
The 9 Things You Don’t Need (At First)
On a recent podcast episode, Dylan and I shared the 9 things you absolutely don’t need when starting your newsletter—and what you should focus on instead.
Let’s get right into it!
1. A Welcome Sequence
Let’s be clear: a welcome email is fine. A welcome sequence is overkill.
If you have 3 subscribers, you don’t need 5 perfectly crafted onboarding emails. What you should do instead is go find more subscribers and validate that people actually want what you’re creating.
I could get even spicier here and say that you don’t even need a welcome email at first, but let’s be conservative and start with a simple welcome email instead.
Your super-simple welcome email should do 3 things:
- Thank them for subscribing
- Tell them what to expect and when
- Ask them to hit reply and answer a simple question
That’s it.
Don’t try and get fancy and overdesign it. We can improve it later. Check this box and be done.
2. A Fancy Landing Page
I think this one trips people up more than almost anything.
Unless you can build a website in under an hour without thinking about it, skip the fancy landing page. You don’t need custom graphics, perfect copy, or a professionally designed form…..yet.
In fact, you might not even need a landing page at all initially.
Go manually find your first 10-20 subscribers. Text people. DM them on LinkedIn. Email friends and colleagues.
If everyone says no, you might need a different topic or a different audience.
The key is to validate your idea with real people before you invest time building fancy pages for an audience that doesn’t exist yet.
3. The “Perfect” Email Platform
This is by far the most common question I get: “Should I use Beehiiv, Kit, or Substack?”
There are literally dozens of software platforms you can use to send your newsletter.
The short answer? It doesn’t matter. Look at the tools for 20 minutes, see which one resonates with you and where your peers hang out, and pick one.
Not satisfied with that? Fine, here is my quick and dirty breakdown:
- Use Beehiiv if you don’t have a website yet
- Use Kit if you have a website and want more automations (again, a distraction at this point)
- Use Substack if you enjoy hanging out there
The tool won’t make or break your success. What matters is your content and your ability to reach the right audience.
Pick any reputable ESP and don’t look back for 6 months. Focus on writing and growing instead of endless tool comparisons.
Once you have 500+ subscribers and you’ve validated your concept, then you can evaluate whether you need different features or capabilities.
4. Automations to Clean Your List
“I have 80 subscribers. Should I clean my list?”
No.
Instead of trying to remove “inactive” subscribers who haven’t opened in three weeks, try reaching out personally. Send them a direct email asking what they need help with or how you can make your newsletter more valuable.
Until you’re dealing with significantly larger numbers and consistently low open rates (think sub-30%), list cleaning should be the last thing on your mind.
And remember, open rates are practically useless anymore.
People who show up as having opened them might not have, and people who look like they don’t open your emails might be reading each one. They aren’t reliable metrics most of the time.
Again, don’t focus on this in the beginning. Focus on talking to real people and figuring out how you can make your content insanely valuable.
5. Fancy Automations
I see so many newbies looking to build out robust automations because they see a larger creator talking about how they automatically tag and segment people and drive $50k in sales.
You’re not there yet. And that’s a good thing. Let the complicated stuff come later.
You don’t need to build complex automation workflows that send different emails based on whether someone opened within seven days or clicked a specific link.
What you should automate: Nothing yet. Okay, maybe the sending of your welcome email – that’s about it.
What you should focus on: Creating content people actually want to read and finding the people who will consistently engage with it.
Save the complicated automations for when you’ve reached escape velocity—the point where people share your content without you asking them to.
6. Paid Ads
Okay, now we’re getting spicy.
DO NOT, I repeat, do not, spend money on paid ads at the start—unless you’re Matthew McConaughey or have piles of cash lying around that you want to waste.
There are a few reasons I don’t want you using paid ads upfront:
- You’re splitting your focus. It takes time to figure out how to set them up properly and make sure that even if you’re getting subscribers for 30 cents, they’re actually quality subscribers.
- You don’t know if your content is good enough yet, so spending money promoting it is a waste. If your content stinks and you’re showing that stinky content to more and more people, you’re going to lose more and more trust faster.
If you can’t get people to sign up without paid ads, you’re not going to get them to sign up with paid ads.
The product (i.e. content) needs to be good enough first. Spend all your time and energy getting that right first.
Until you nail down your core format and what you’ll consistently deliver, there’s no point in spending money to find people for something that isn’t solidified yet.
The exception: If you’ve been creating content about your topic elsewhere (LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) and have validated the concept, and you’ve been able to convert your existing audience to newsletter subscribers first, then you might consider testing paid ads.
Get your first few hundred subscribers organically. Figure out what format resonates. Then, if it makes sense for your business model, go the paid growth route.
7. Perfect Analytics & Attribution
You don’t need UTM parameters and a perfect analytics dashboard to track every link you share.
Yes, analytics matter eventually. But obsessing over whether subscriber #8 came from Twitter or LinkedIn is missing the forest through the trees, or whatever the saying is.
Google Analytics (especially GA4, ugh), is confusing. Right now, you need to focus more on doing things that bring in subscribers, not just obsessing about every page or keyword they used to find you.
Yes, it’s important. But it’s not important yet.
My favorite alternative for this is to ask your subscribers. In your welcome email, just ask: “Where did you hear about this newsletter?” Done. That’s your analytics system for the first six months.
And the best part? That’s a very simple question people can usually answer easily, so they’re more likely to reply to your welcome email than asking what their top 3 struggles are.
The attribution details can wait until you have meaningful volume to analyze and obsess over.
8. Newsletter Recommendations
Recommendations are a hot topic these days. Some people love em, some hate em. I fall somewhere in the middle.
Except for new newsletters.
I’d skip recommendations altogether until you have a solid format and core audience.
Newsletter recommendations (paid or free) remove friction, which sounds good but actually creates lower-quality subscribers.
Someone who finds you through a LinkedIn post, goes to your landing page, and subscribes has jumped through several hoops. They’re invested.
Someone who clicked an already-checked subscribe button on a pop-up? Not so much. Sure, some subscribers who come from these places are good, but many are not. So you’ll want to set up some decent automations to remove those folks who aren’t quality.
But remember, automations in the beginning can be a big distraction from the real work. So I’d skip these for now.
And the truth? Recommendations can inflate your subscriber count, making you think you’re doing great when in reality, you’re not.
Save recommendations for after you’ve built your core audience organically.
9. Going Viral
If you’re just getting started and everything isn’t dialed in, going viral is actually one of the worst things that could happen to you.
Why? Because you’ll lose the potential trust you could have gained from those thousands of people. They’ll see your half-baked setup, wonder what they signed up for, and never come back.
I’ve never gone “viral” and I’m kind of thankful for that. I’d rather have a smaller, but mighty community than a huge, but thin one.
Start slow. Grow organically and sustainably. Build trust with a smaller audience that truly values what you create. The faster growth will come naturally when you’ve earned it.
I know it’s hard to take this seriously, but enjoy the messy beginnings. You’re figuring things out, and learning a LOT. Don’t try and rush past that stage.
What You Actually Need to Launch
Okay, so I’ve given you a whole list of things not to do. But what is actually important when you’re getting started?
I think it comes down to 4 things:
- A way to collect email addresses (even a Google Sheet works) and send emails (Beehiiv, Kit, or Substack)
- An idea you care about and a real desire to create incredible work. Not just good. Insanely valuable work.
- The courage to hit “send”…even if it’s not perfect!
- Real conversations with your first handful of subscribers
That’s it. Those are the basics. Everything else in the beginning is a distraction.
Every big list started small.
And the best newsletters were born out of a creator sharing what they deeply care about and are interested in…NOT from fancy funnels and automations.
