This is an ongoing repository of my case study interviews. I’m compiling it to make it easier for new subscribers to access older case studies.
Link: How a former travel journalist built a paid membership community for the PR industry
Kelsey and Derrick Ogletree designed Pitchcraft to serve as a liaison between PR consultants and journalists.
Link: How Living Cozy leveraged product reviews to build a successful ecommerce business
Founder Ash Read explained how he built up search authority in a crowded content niche.
Link: How Freetrail carved out a media niche for one of the country's fastest-growing sports
Ultra marathoner Dylan Bowman grew a highly diversified company on the back of his personal brand.
Link: How the Sunday Long Read newsletter built a thriving membership by curating longform journalism
Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman grew the newsletter to over 25,000 subscribers.
Link: How the GameDiscoverCo newsletter launched a data product for game developers
Simon Carless carved out a niche in the gaming industry by tracking the metrics around game releases.
Link: How the Tangle newsletter reached 77,000 readers and $624,000 in annual revenue
Isaac Saul wanted to create an antidote to the hyper partisan media ecosystem that dominates the web.
Link: This local news outlet carved out a lucrative niche by targeting Indianapolis women
Leslie Bailey explained how Indy Maven grew from a weekly newsletter into an events and coworking company.
Link: How Oovvuu grew its video platform to over 400 million streams per day
Ricky Sutton co-founded the company to help publishers claw back advertising dollars from the Google/Facebook duopoly.
Link: How a blog about the VC industry generated over $1 million from online courses
John Gannon built an audience with VC job postings and then monetized through a mix of online courses, productized services, and sponsorships.
Link: How a B2B outlet that covers the corporate travel industry built up a loyal subscriber base
The Company Dime mostly eschewed sponsorship revenue and focused instead on delivering high-quality journalism.
Link: How Man of Many grew into the largest men's lifestyle media outlet in Australia
Frank Arthur and Scott Purcell realized early on that content consistency was paramount.
Link: How two graduate students launched the leading biotech publisher in Europe
Co-founder Joachim Eeckhout explains how Labiotech.eu filled an information gap for Europe's fast-growing biotech scene.
Link: How a kids-focused podcaster reached 1 million monthly downloads
Jim Jacob accidentally stumbled upon a huge market opportunity when he launched Kids Short Stories.
Link: How investment newsletter The Daily Upside reached 300,000 subscribers
Founder Patrick Trousdale explained his growth and monetization strategies.
Link: How a former Cosmo editor built Australia's largest women-focused media company
Mia Freedman started Mamamia as a one-person blog and bootstrapped it into a multi-media outlet that reaches 7 million people.
Link: How a college student launched one of the most influential B2B sports media companies
Adam White explains how Front Office Sports grew from a college project into a media powerhouse.
Link: How a podcast for entrepreneurial parents generates $200,000 a year
Sarah Peck explains why she didn't chase scale when building her Startup Parent podcast.
Link: How Starter Story grew to 1.4 million monthly visitors and $500,000 in annual revenue
Founder Pat Walls discussed how he automated his process so that the site now operates as a sort of flywheel.
Link: How Big Cabal Media became one of the fastest-growing news outlets in Africa
CEO Tomiwa Aladekomo walked me through the company’s origin story, explained why he joined in 2018, and outlined its monetization strategy.
Link: How an interest in whiskey birthed a thriving media company
The Whiskey Wash capitalized on the rise of craft distilleries and is almost entirely funded through digital advertising.
Link: How Maria Brito used Instagram to build a 7-figure art consulting business
She eventually grew her audience to over 200,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and email.
Link: How an engineering student accidentally started a thriving science news site
Hüseyin Kilic grew Interesting Engineering into a media behemoth with over 15.5 million social media followers.
Link: Was Randy Cassingham the first member of the Creator Economy?
In 1994, he launched This is True, one of the first email newsletters, and grew it into a thriving business.
Link: How ScoopWhoop became one of India’s most viral publishers
The BuzzFeed-like site has built two popular channels on YouTube, one of which serves as a counterbalance to partisan TV news.
Link: Judd Legum proved that investigative journalism can thrive on Substack
The former ThinkProgress editor has over 150,000 signups and at least 7,500 paying subscribers to his newsletter.
Link: Can a hit YouTube channel thrive after its founder departs?
The King of Random had 8 million YouTube subscribers when Grant Thompson suddenly decided he didn't want to create videos anymore.
Link: How Taegan Goddard built a thriving paid membership for Political Wire
He already had a robust advertising business, but he wanted to foster a deeper connection with his audience.
Link: This YouTuber built a massive following with pop music guitar lessons
A lot of people conduct searches for instructions on how to play their favorite songs.
Link: How Josh Spector monetizes his 25,000 newsletter subscribers
Through a mixture of consulting, advertising, and paid subscriptions.
Link: How The Discourse scaled its business model to 34 local news sites
The media startup developed a membership model that involves asking the audience what news should be covered.
Link: Daily Detroit is proving there’s a market for local podcasts
Jer Staes monetizes his podcast through a mixture of local business advertising and paid memberships.
Link: How a VC investor grew her newsletter to over 100,000 subscribers
Codie Sanchez finds interesting ways to make money and then reverse engineers them for her audience.
Link: Inside the career of a successful ghostwriter
Jonathan Rick’s writing appears in hundreds of mainstream publications, but it rarely includes his byline.