How the Top 0.1% of Newsletter Creators Are Skyrocketing Their Growth with Chenell Basilio of Growth in Reverse

Yong-Soo Chung [00:00:00]:

Chenell Basilio graduated with a degree in geography because...

Chenell Basilio [00:00:04]:

And I knew that a degree in geography, the classes, you got to go hiking. So I decided that I was going to pursue, uh, that. So yeah, I could have helped Google build out their little map, their digital map system. But here I am. It got me a job at AAA because they thought I knew how to sell travel. They didn't know what geography degrees did. I started working at AAA. Um, and then I was moved into their marketing department after they saw I was good with computers. I started helping people on the side and got that first invoice was paid. And I was like, I want to do this. Like, I don't want to work for somebody else. I'm going to figure this out. And so, yeah, I just started figuring out I started saving up money, saved up about eight months of expenses, and then I left my day job in 2017 and started finding clients.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:01:21]:

And now, she writes a weekly newsletter called Growth in Reverse, where she writes amazing deep-dives on creators who have more than fifty thousand subscribers on their  newsletter! And let me tell you, Growth in Reverse is blowing up. I know because I’ve been following her journey closely since the very beginning! And guess what? Chenell’s newsletter just hit the 10,000 subscriber milestone in just 6 months!But the craziest part? Her growth rate is accelerating. By the time you listen to this episode, Growth in Reverse might be at 50,000, heck maybe even 100,000 subscribers! And to think it all started with a degree in geography that she wasn't even keen on in the first place!If this has gotten you curious about Chenell, her journey, and how she became a content creator who does amazing deep-dives on the biggest creators today, get ready because that's *exactly* what I have in store for you today! Hi, my name is Yong-Soo Chung and I am a first-generation Korean-American entrepreneur living the American dream. I started Urban EDC to cater to enthusiasts of everyday carry gear. I also own two other successful ventures: GrowthJet, a climate-neutral certified third-party logistics company for emerging e-commerce brands, and SpottedByHumphrey, an online boutique curating dog goods for good dogs. Through these three ventures, my business has generated over $20 million dollars in 8 years and I'm here to tell you how YOU can do the same! On this episode of First Class Founders I am talking to Chenell Basilio, the creator behind the incredibly well-researched newsletter, Growth in Reverse. Chenell does amazingly detailed deep-dives of fast-growing creators and how they got to where they are today. Her newsletter is on fire, growing rapidly. So, I decided to invite Chenell onto the show not only because we could all learn a thing or two about how today’s fast growing creators are growing their audience and monetizing their work, but also because I wanted to learn more about Chenell’s workflow for Growth in Reverse. I mean… the level of detail that she goes into each creator’s journey is absolutely insane. If you’ve read one of her deep dives, you know what I’m talking about.

Chenell Basilio [00:03:34]:

My name is Chenell Basilio, and I run Growth In Reverse.com, where I reverse engineer top creators every week who have more than 50,000 email subscribers. And I just figure out how they got to where they are. I spend about 20 hours a week doing each one.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:03:47]:

During our conversation, I got Chenell to...outline her process of crafting her weekly newsletter in detail, discuss her motivations for starting and maintaining a newsletter, and, of course, dissect patterns and strategies from successful creators to see if they could be applied to our newsletters! I also asked Chenell about how she organizes the structure of her content because if you’ve read any of her deep dives, they are extremely well-researched and long. Yet, each deep dive is presented in a simple format that keeps you wanting to read more. That’s right, Chenell actually reverse engineered her content to keep her readers engaged until the very end. I mean, how brilliant is that? Chenell shares how exactly she accomplishes this and her process behind it. These thoughts can be heard in the extra segment included in the special ad-free version of this episode, available only to our premium members. Become a premium member of First Class Founders by signing up at firstclassfounders.com/join - I'll leave a link in the shownotes! So, get ready because we are about to take-off!

Chenell Basilio [00:04:58]:

Hi, I'm Chenell Basilio! Let's get down to business!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:05:02]:

I'll be honest here, I LOVED Chenell's idea of reverse-engineering the growth of successful creators - it is such a brilliantly simple idea that seems so obvious in hindsight! And yet, it was surprising that no one else had thought of it before!

Chenell Basilio [00:05:23]:

Well, thank you. Um, yeah, so I just, I don't know. Like I was saying, I was just researching these people, and I couldn't find any one good spot where I don't know, you'd hear, like, a podcast interview and that's fun. But what I'm learning is combining all of these things together into one place. And so I wasn't finding that. So I was like, let me just create this on my own. Um, and it seemed to resonate.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:05:36]:

Yup, there are several interviews, newsletters, and channels on youtube and elsewhere, which regularly feature high profile creators. There are several news articles and posts praising creators and their success. Each of them caters to the niche of analyzing them to some extent. But NONE of them does deep-dives quite like this, dissecting growth-levers of creators. It seems to me like Chenell found a niche within a niche that was unoccupied and filled that need quickly and effectively.. Remember when I said this in episode 25, “How To Turn Your Side Hustle Into a Million Dollar Business”? You might be someone who adores James Clear and thinks that his book of Atomic Habits is gospel truth. That doesn't mean you don't have your own tweaks to the techniques suggested in the book! Those tweaks will become YOUR unique twist to the niche. In the process, you will find a niche within the niche. And then you can own THAT niche within the niche - isn't that awesome? Chenell's journey into this niche-within-a-niche began with a breakdown of how Mario Gabriele grew his newsletter into a $350,000 a year business. That edition, the first one, took her THREE whole weeks to research and compile.

Chenell Basilio [00:06:54]:

So I was kind of like, I'd start researching, and then I'd kind of like, pause. And I was like, is this really something I want to do? And I was like, let me just push it out. I never stick with anything. Let's try this. December 4 is when I sent my first one. I probably had, like, 20 subscribers at that point, just from the previous two weeks or so. I, uh, was tweeting a lot and commenting on other people's stuff.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:07:22]:

Commenting and engaging on other people's stuff. Just two episodes ago, Clint Murphy was telling us about the importance of building yourself a community of like minded creators and finding your ride or die partners.

Clint Murphy [00:07:38]:

Find those ride or die partners, build relationships, create your core group, and then you're going to have different cohorts over time, but have your core group.

Chenell Basilio [00:07:47]:

So that did really well. And then I started getting replies and people saying, this is amazing. This is crazy. And then they would share it, I guess, silently, because I didn't see all of this. But I started getting subscribers, and I was like, I don't know who these people are. This is pretty cool. Um, and then from there, it just kind of I don't know. It went wild. And ever since, everybody's just enjoying the content and sharing it. So that's a huge growth lever for me.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:08:18]:

I guess that's a great first takeaway for this episode. TAKEAWAY NUMBER ONE: To grow as a creator, you need to get your work seen by other like-minded creators. So don’t be afraid to share your work and build your tribe of supporters.There were also a few other growth levers that Chenell applied which helped her newsletter grow rapidly, first of which also had to do with her Twitter account. Until that point, her Twitter account was filled with the kind of followers that can only be described as low-quality.

Chenell Basilio [00:08:43]:

I had a Twitter account from the past, from what I was doing with these other blogs. Um, but it was mostly like, I don't know, you auto share your old blog post in 2014, 2015, that kind of thing. Um, so I had a bunch of follow for followers on Twitter where you follow each other. Uh, so they're not really quality. So I had probably 7000 at that point. So everything I tweeted, I got, like, no engagement.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:09:11]:

So, she decided to revamp her entire Twitter bio.

Chenell Basilio [00:09:12]:

So I changed my entire Twitter profile to be just Growth in Reverse. It's pretty much what you see now, minus a few changes on the profile, but just, um, changed the background, changed my image to have that orange circle and then added the website link. And people just started signing up. As I was engaging with other people's tweets, they'd click on my profile and then sign up from there.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:09:46]:

This was, in my opinion, a particularly important step because changing her entire Twitter profile to focus on Growth in Reverse signaled to her audience that this was her main creative work.The second growth lever was the content itself - by choosing to profile really popular creators, she is automatically assured of exposure to their audiences. And with each creator she profiles, she gets more and more exposure from their various audiences, who then share it with their own audiences, thus creating an explosive multiplier effect.

Chenell Basilio [00:10:08]:

So it's kind of like, it depends on who I'm reverse engineering. And some people find it really interesting and will share it with their own audience, which is kind of cool. So it's like I'm hitting different people every week, but that's hard to manufacture. I've just kind of let it happen because I don't know, that's not one I could figure, uh, out consistently.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:10:26]:

In essence, Chenell has engineered herself a near perfect positive flywheel of audience growth. Did you spot it yet? First, she does an incredibly impressive deep dive on a popular creator with a huge audience. That gets the attention of the popular creator who shares it with their audience, which gets Chenell even more followers on Twitter and subscribers for her newsletter, which gets her more and better sponsorship deals, which allows her to put more time and energy into her deep dives, and so on. Hmmm… where did we see this again? Oh right, Clint Murphy told us how he creates his positive flywheel in audience growth back in episode 36:

Clint Murphy [00:11:06]:

And so the flywheel is, as we grow the social media, the access to guests increases. As we have larger and larger guests, the threads that we write on social media to promote the episode get more eyeballs because people want to learn lessons from those people that you had on the show. And so it becomes a flywheel of grow better guests. Those guests grow the podcast, and it just keeps feeding off itself. And that's the flywheel as a creator and a podcaster, or a creator and a YouTuber.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:11:49]:

…or, in Chenell’s case, a newsletter writer! Another thing that Chenell does is, regardless of whether or not her newsletter gets shared by the creators she profiles, she makes sure to share the contents of the newsletter as a Twitter thread.

Chenell Basilio [00:12:07]:

I'm sharing it on Twitter afterwards, so I'll write a thread every week on that person and then people like and share that and then they'll subscribe. And in my welcome email I have that most recent post listed so people can go through and click through and read that. I use LetterGrowth from Paul. I think you use that as well. It's a really great tool. Essentially lists out everyone who's looking to do cross promotions and then you can kind of figure out which ones work for your audience and vice versa. Um, before he created that, though, I was just DMing people on Twitter and asking and some people would ask me the same as well. So I like to have one or two every week, but, uh, I really don't have any high hopes for them because sometimes they result in like zero new subscribers and sometimes they're really good. So it's just kind of one of those things that I have going consistently and just kind of hope it does well, but don't expect anything.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:13:04]:

So, to quickly sum it up, Chenell chose to:profile really popular creators. This helped massively because they then gave her exposure to their audiences.revamp her Twitter profile to focus on Growth In Reverse. This signaled to her potential followers that she had chosen a niche and was laser focused on it.write twitter threads for every newsletter she sends out. This made it easy to reach other people on twitter directly and convert them into her subscribers.and also do cross-promos with other newsletters - either directly via Twitter DMs or via the excellent community lettergrowth.com. This allowed her to reach out to new partners and new audiences but the jury's still out on how effective this can be. We'll revisit this a little later in the episode again. I guess if I were to shorten this into a crisp takeaway, I would say: TAKEAWAY NUMBER TWO: Don't be afraid to try out different growth levers - some will work, some won't, but you never know unless you try. Coming up in a bit, I got Chenell to explain, in DETAIL, the process of researching and drafting the newsletter every week. And let me tell you - it is WILD. But first, I wanna give a shoutout to our sponsor who made this interview with Chenell a smooth and hassle-free experience - Riverside. I'm really excited to have Riverside on as a sponsor because we record all of our interviews using you guessed it, Riverside. And I love everything about it. My favorite feature is how everything's recorded hopefully, to optimize sound quality because, as you all know by now, we take high quality audio pretty seriously around here. If you're a video podcaster, their video features are fantastic as well, allowing you to create short form video content to promote your podcasts across your social channels. We don't do this quite yet, but it's something we plan on doing in the near future. Riverside is completely free to sign up and try out for your 1st 2 hours, Then when you're ready, use the code 1st class to get 20% off any paid plan. And trust me, You'll love using Riverside as much as I do. So go ahead and sign up for free using the link in the show notes. While you do that, I'll queue up the next part of this episode. As I was saying before the break, I got Chenell to take us behind-the-scenes of her newsletter, Growth in Reverse. Specifically, I was eager to find out what her research process was. Well, lucky for you, Chenell didn’t hold anything back. If you’ve ever been involved with a research project, you know that the biggest question is always when to stop researching! I mean, research - ANY kind of research - is always a rabbit-hole. There is so much to uncover that, sometimes, you can disappear and lose track of time! I know because I have gone down rabbit holes only to emerge and realize that I am dangerously close to the deadline! Naturally, I was curious to know how she manages to 'finish' all her research before the deadline!

Chenell Basilio [00:16:11]:

When Sunday at 07:00 A.M. comes around and I'm supposed to be sending my emails is usually when I know it's done. Um, I mean, I could spend so much more time on these, but at the end of the day, it's like, it took a week, I have to send it out now.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:16:23]:

Ah, yes, that makes sense. The newsletter is delivered on Sunday at 7 AM, which makes it a HARD deadline of sorts, of course! But, jokes aside, I wanted to know if she had a list of items that she checks off one-by-one while compiling her research for the newsletter. So I asked her if she'd be willing to go over her entire process in detail and, guess what, she was happy to share! So, listen to this next part carefully because this is where Chenell really shines. Her process might seem simple and straightforward but I hope you notice all the little things she does while compiling the newsletter. We'll compare notes at the end of her description, got it? Good, here's Chenell describing her process for constructing each edition of her newsletter.

Chenell Basilio [00:17:15]:

I've been using Spotify lately because the Playlist feature is really cool, but I'll go through and I'll find all the podcasts that they've been interviewed on as well as some of their own stuff, if they have their own podcast. And I'll kind of combine those in and then I, um, sort them by date. So I start listening from like oldest to newest and it's pretty cool to hear the progression of people along the way. And then I'll go through start Googling and try and find some obscure articles that they have on page ten of Google, or like interviews they did really early on and that kind of thing.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:17:56]:

Step 2 is looking beyond the first page of Google. Sometimes she ventures in the deep, dark, murky waters and goes as far as page TEN of Google!

Chenell Basilio [00:18:05]:

And then I go on a walk. So, like Monday, Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm usually walking like four to 5 miles and I'll just listen to all of the podcasts that I have on that Playlist. I sometimes don't get through all of them because there's a ton with some of these people, but I'll go through the ones that seem most relevant. Um, and then once I have all that so as I'm walking, I'll take notes on my Apple, notes on my phone. Um, so I do that and then when I get back, I'll kind of have those thoughts going in my head as I'm going through the rest of my week, um, go back through some articles I found and that kind of thing. And then usually, like, Thursday, Friday I'll start putting it together in that new blog post I was talking about and just kind of I have a layout, so I'll start with how they make money and then the growth timeline and then their growth levers. So, um, I'll just kind of walk through all of that and just start filling in as I remember details or as I find them in my notes.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:19:02]:

Step 4. Compile everything into a blog post, using a layout that she uses for all her posts.And that's basically it. The four-step process of how Chenell Basilio researches and compiles content for her blog-post-slash-newsletter each week. It seems pretty straightforward but here's what I found fascinating about Chenell's process:- Chenell orders her podcast playlist from oldest to newest because...

Chenell Basilio [00:19:31]:

It's pretty cool to hear the progression of people along the way.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:19:36]:

Chenell wades deep into Google searches and that is where she usually finds interviews they did really early on and that kind of thing. Chenell takes notes while listening to podcasts.

Chenell Basilio [00:19:46]:

So as I'm walking, I'll, like, take notes on my Apple notes on my phone?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:19:51]:

Chenell uses a consistent layout for her newsletter. The thing I want to point out here - and I don't think I can say this enough - is this: Consistency is important.

Chenell Basilio [00:20:00]:

I have a layout, so I'll start with how they make money and then the growth timeline and then their growth levers.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:20:06]:

To be honest, Chenell's research process isn't anything out of the ordinary but it is her little tweaks and process improvements that I found incredibly fascinating.With all this research at her fingertips, I am sure Chenell must be facing the problem of plenty for every newsletter she sends out. That is, the problem of having too much information, with all of it seeming equally important. It must be difficult to decide what information to keep in the newsletter and what to discard.

Chenell Basilio [00:20:42]:

I think it's more intuition. So as I'm doing my research and as I'm listening to podcasts and interviews and all that, I'll kind of identify a couple of things that I'm seeing stick out over and over again and things that I heard once in a spot and I'll double check and it's actually what they were doing. Um, that's kind of what I do there. It's mostly intuition, it's hard to say. I wish there was some AI tool that could kind of help me along here, but at this point, it's just kind of listening to the way people say things and all of that.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:21:10]:

Intuition. That's a skill that you can learn, by the way. You just need to immerse yourself really DEEP into a subject and acquire as much knowledge as you can. Then, let your brain work its magic and, voila! You have intuition!In other words, intuition is basically a higher level of pattern-recognition. Patterns that you have seen again and again over the years tend to stick out and make themselves evident.Chenell also uses the pattern-recognition that she has developed over nearly a decade of being in digital marketing to identify what’s *really* important from her research.

Chenell Basilio [00:21:40]:

So then I'll kind of delete or add certain things to it, um, explain, like with Miss Excel, some people don't understand what an evergreen webinar is. So I went through and I kind of explained that and how people usually promote them and that kind of thing. So it's kind of taking my past experiences as well as what I'm learning from these people and combining them into a post.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:22:00]:

Something I consistently noticed in all of Chenell's profiles was her ability to pinpoint the intangibles that helped these creators achieve rapid growth. On the surface, a lot of these intangibles look like they may have happened through crazy coincidence or even sheer luck! But, Chenell found that it was actually not the case...

Chenell Basilio [00:22:22]:

I would say it's probably like 5% luck and 95% they're actually trying to do something. So, um, if you look back on, like, Nathan Bough's journey, you could see that he was trying to chat with Sahil, uh, Bloom in the beginning. Um, and then I think he actually took his Twitter growth course on Maven. And so after that started, you can see them interacting afterwards together. And it's sahil bloom. If he retweets your thing, that's pretty cool. People are going to notice you. You're going to start growing. Um, and so you can kind of that was also the time when Nathan started really doing well with Twitter threads because I think he was able to take feedback from someone who's been doing it for longer and just jump in and implement that himself. You still have to put in the work after that. You still have to keep going and keep engaging with people. So it does help, but it's not the end all, be all. And I think a lot of people in the beginning are like, well, if I could just get this person to retweet me, everything would change. And it's like, that's not really the case. You do grow a little bit faster, but it's not the end all, be all. I think it was Dickie Bush. He was being interviewed on some podcast, and him and the host were talking about how it might look like these people had these relationships beforehand. But it's really just like showing up week in, week out. People are seeing you over and over and over again. They know you're going to be around. So you start to build those relationships. But from the outside looking in, it looks like you had them before or you got lucky or something like that. But it's really just like that consistency of showing up week after week and creating consistently that people will start to notice you and you create those relationships.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:24:22]:

There's that word again - consistency. We just can't seem to escape it, can we? That's because consistency IS the name of the creator game. Without consistency, you might as well drop out and go back to whatever you were doing before starting your journey as a founder, as a creator. Because, like it or not, the content creation world - and the social media algorithms that run this world - demand and reward consistency. Everything else is secondary.So, if you want to achieve the kind of growth that will make Chenell profile YOU on Growth in Reverse, make sure you have consistency. In everything you do. Oh, and also make sure your newsletter content neatly falls into one of these categories that Chenell looks for while profiling newsletter creators...

Chenell Basilio [00:25:05]:

So, um, I always look at them in five different ways. So there's like unique content. So that could be like Miss Excel dancing on TikTok. Those two things didn't go together before that. Or something that takes a ton of time, like Growth in Reverse. I get feedback all the time that people say, you saved me so much time. I would never put that amount of effort into that post. So that's one, Lenny Rachitsky has the same thing. He says that every time he puts in more and more effort into a post, it does better.

Chenell Basilio [00:25:41]:

And then the other one is saving time. So Mario of The Generalist, he had something called the S One Club, which S One reports are when startups want to go public, they have to file an S One report. But he started distilling those really long reports down into something you could digest really quickly. So he's saving people time with that, and nobody was doing that. And then there's quantity. So like Pat Walls of Starter Story, he puts out just a ton of interviews. It's insane. I think he puts out like three every single day. It's wild at this point. That's crazy. Yeah. So there are different ways to make great, quote unquote, great content, but it has to be something good that people want to share. And then the other one would be like, uh, Dan from TLDR. He puts out a daily newsletter. So it's a curated daily newsletter of just a bunch of links. But the way he does it is super fascinating. And people subscribe because he has such interesting insights around these things. So it's like, it's almost a speed aspect. So he takes things from the previous day or previous two days, and then he'll kind of put them together and tell his readers what are the most important things so that they're on top of it kind of like Morning Brew. So there are different ways to make great, quote unquote, great content, but it has to be something good that people want to share.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:27:11]:

That's unique content, or research-heavy content, or time-saving content, or copious quantity of content, and finally, well-curated content. These are the five types of content that Chenell typically finds newsletters usually slot into, which I think also work as five excellent categories for defining the types of newsletters! Coming up in a short while, Chenell shares her insights about traits and patterns she frequently notices in all the amazing creators she has profiled.But, first, let me give you a sneak peek into a bonus segment that is available ONLY to the premium members of First Class Founders! Every week, I craft something a little extra, a special segment, in the episode exclusively for the premium members of the First Class Founders.This week, premium members of First Class Founders can listen to Chenell share the EXACT LAYOUT Chenell uses for her newsletter. The short version of it, is as follows: It starts, as you would expect, with an introduction of the person being profiled. She finds every single piece of information out there on the creator including BLEEP. Then, Chenell organizes BLEEP into a BLEEP. Then, she uses the BLEEP in her blog-post-slash-newsletter to showcase the information in a unique way, adding BLEEP to grab her readers’ attention. And last but not least, she listens for feedback from her readers, which enable her to continue to iterate and improve her product. The unbleeped version of that description can be heard in the ad-free version of the episode available exclusively to the premium members of First Class Founders.Additionally, the First Class Founders membership also comes with a ton of other perks. For instance, members of First Class Founders also get early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes - including the entire raw, unedited interview - the ability to Ask Me Anything, and much more!Head on over to firstclassfounders.com/join - I'll put the link in the show notes! And, in the meanwhile, I'll cue up the next part of the episode! Before the break, we were discussing Chenell's research process (and the layout she typically uses) for her newsletter. I figured that after having written all these amazing deep-dives, Chenell had probably managed to extract several insights from all the amazing creators she had profiled.And, of course, it came as no surprise that consistency and quality were the two traits that were at the top of the list.

Chenell Basilio [00:29:37]:

So as much as people hate that word, it's true. You have to show up consistently. Um, and then one of the other ones is just like creating really good content. Again, it sounds boring and bland, I guess, but you have to create something that people want and people want to share, um, or that gives them an insight they didn't have before, or uh, saves them time and that kind of thing. Something pretty niche. So whether you have a niche audience or a niche type of content. So, um, Jesse Anderson, ADHD Jesse, he talks about ADHD content, and he'll post, like memes about ADHD, like, things around that. And people just, like, latch on because they're experiencing that in their life, and they know he's the guy to go to for that kind of thing. So he's grown pretty quickly because he's just been able to take that niche and start really helping those people and giving them posts to show their wife or their spouse and be like, hey, this is why I do this. And so it's kind of like taking that and providing value to that niche. Um Dickie Bush? Same thing. He's the guy for digital writing. He'll help you learn how to write. But since then, he's been expanding his topic. So you have to start niche, and then you can kind of widen what you talk about later.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:31:02]:

This last example of Dickie Bush is particularly interesting because it seems to contradict another prolific creator’s generalist worldview. Back in episode 37, Khe Hy mentioned how he doesn’t like to box himself into one particular niche because you and your interests BOTH evolve with time.

Khe Hy [00:31:16]:

I've always taken the opposite tack, which is I'm going to share things that I am interested in and they're going to change because I'm going to change.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:31:25]:

With Dickie's method, you could theoretically begin by claiming a niche for yourself and then expand outward into related subjects and domains. Of course, it would require buy-in from your audience but I feel like there is a way to make that happen. Especially with this other pattern that Chenell brought up as being common among all good creators.

Chenell Basilio [00:31:51]:

I think one of the things that you need to do is be creating your own community, if you will. So get on Twitter, get on LinkedIn, find the people who are in your niche or two steps ahead of you and start just commenting on their posts. And once you do that, you're going to start engaging with each other's content. People will share your stuff, and you kind of find that core group of people that you see online regularly. You know, you're both growing all. Of your, um, growing your social channels so that you can grow your newsletter. I think that is really understated sometimes, like just the power of spending two to 3 hours a day on Twitter. Like constant find these people, engage with them, share their stuff, and then they're going to return the favor eventually once they see you there enough. So that's like a really big one that I don't think enough people do. Um, and it's a lot of work. Like it takes time, but after a while you start lifting each other up and you're all growing together.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:32:50]:

Having a core group of followers is a great way to amplify your message, which is something you will definitely need if you are hoping to - like Dickie Bush - expand your niche and grow outward.This also happens to be the moment in your growth trajectory where paid ads *might* come in handy...

Chenell Basilio [00:33:00]:

I think once you have that initial core group of followers, or core group of subscribers, if you will, um, you can definitely start using paid ads. I haven't seen a lot of people don't. Some do and some who knows if they do, I don't know. You don't have to use paid ads necessarily. But I think a couple of ways to pour fuel on the fire, so to speak, are like expanding into a different vertical once you have a good base of people on that. So once you hit like 50,000 Twitter followers, which is going to take a lot of time, but you learn things by getting to those follower counts on Twitter that you can then transfer over to a LinkedIn or an Instagram or even a YouTube or something like Dan Koe has done. And he's exploded because he's gotten really good at writing and really good at scripting out videos and doing that. And so now he's just like kind of taking off.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:33:40]:

Again, I found this example to be interesting because we have always spoken about how each platform has its own audience and how difficult it is to move from one platform to another. In fact, I can say with confidence that only a few people have managed to 'move' their followers - Dan Koe, clearly, being one of them.But, to think of it as a potential growth lever is something I hadn't considered until Chenell mentioned it explicitly. In fact, I'm still thinking about it and I'll probably - no, definitely - make another episode on it at some later point! But, speaking of growth levers, I couldn't NOT ask her about using cross-promos as a growth lever. Earlier in the episode, she had mentioned how cross-promos hadn't really worked for her. But, had they worked for any of these amazing creators she had profiled?

Chenell Basilio [00:34:32]:

Cross promotions are definitely more effective as you grow your email list. When you're small and the other person only has 1000 subscribers, you might only get two, three, 5% of those. So if you're working with another person who has 50,000 subscribers, that percentage exponentially takes off and you get a lot more out of those cross promotions.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:34:51]:

Yeah, but getting a person with fifty thousand subscribers to cross-promote with a five-thousand subscriber newsletter is quite difficult. 

Chenell Basilio [00:34:59]:

A lot of creators just go on other podcasts. You have to get in front of other audiences in different ways. So cross promotions, podcast, interviews, um, doing guest takeovers. So, I don't know if you wanted to write Growth in Reverse one week or something like that. I don't know. I'm just giving an example. But kind of getting in front of those other audiences is really important. Essentially, larger companies like Business Insider will pay her to take the content she's already writing and post it on their own site. And so that publicity is just huge. You couldn't try and get that if you wanted to. As you grow, you get these connections, and you start having more opportunities that you need to take advantage of.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:35:45]:

And the ONE thing that definitely made it possible was (drumroll) constant growth. If you think that sounds like a circular argument, that's because it is. Because what we just outlined is a flywheel of growth, with all of these elements - paid ads, cross-promos, podcasts, guest-takeovers, syndication, and licensing - essentially things that add velocity to your flywheel by bringing your content in front of other audiences.Which, I think makes for a pretty good takeaway for this episode. TAKEAWAY NUMBER THREE: Build your flywheel of audience growth and accelerate it using different growth levers. Finally, I asked Chenell what advice she would give to newsletter creators who were just starting their journey.

Chenell Basilio [00:36:27]:

Start writing. Um, it's such simple advice, but you could spend months and months deciding on the best logo or the best color for your buttons, or is this the right avenue to go down? But without actually doing the thing, you're never going to know if it's the right move. So you're going to be able to learn faster if you just start writing. Like, create a beehive account and just start writing.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:37:07]:

Standard advice but the fact that so many people say the same thing tells me that a lot of people still don't follow it. Let me put it this way. If you would rather spend your time playing with the small details of your  newsletter than actually creating content for it, then (a) you either DON'T have a clue about what you want to write or (b) you are afraid to take the first step.If it is (a) then you need to stop and listen to all my newsletter episodes - that's 22, 23, and 27 - immediately. If it is (b), then you need to listen to Chenell's advice - which also happens to be Clint's advice, and Khe's advice, and... MY advice. Just start. Before we wrap up today's episode, let's quickly summarize the three  key takeaways... TAKEAWAY NUMBER ONE: To grow as a creator, you need to get your work seen by other like-minded creators. So don’t be afraid to share your work and build your tribe of supporters. TAKEAWAY NUMBER TWO: Don't be afraid to try out different growth levers - some will work, some won't, but you never know unless you try. TAKEAWAY NUMBER THREE: Build your flywheel of audience growth and accelerate it using different growth levers. You can find out more about Chenell and reach her on...

Chenell Basilio [00:38:04]:

Growthinreverse.com or I am Chenellco on all of the other things. So that's C-H-E-N-E-L-L-C-O and yeah, that's on Twitter and LinkedIn. I don't know. I have an Instagram, but I'm not really active there yet.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:38:14]:

And, one last thing before I go... If you're a new listener and you enjoyed this episode, you can also add YOUR voice to the show by leaving a message on firstclassfounders.com - for example, what did you think of this episode specifically? Like, how listener Ryan Gutierrez from crosscounter.tv left us this wonderful message after listening to Jackson Fall’s episode - that’s number 32 if you want to queue it up - on the website.

Listener [00:38:43]:

You have one unheard message. So I just finished listening to the Jackson Fall episode. It was... so worth it! Because I learned so much especially the part about how to build a driving community through vision, team, road map, and congruency. Like, I've had similar experiences with ChatGPT, obviously, like, not to, you know, the level that he had, but, I've been using it to take voice memos with the transcript and then run it through ChatGPT. and then essentially turn those into book chapters. So, the idea of the most enthusiastic intern ever? Yeah, I I totally get it. End of messages.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:39:29]:

Thank you, Ryan, for those wonderful words. Alright, that wraps up today's show! In the next episode of First Class Founders we’re talking to Colin Chung. As a Founder, communication is the most important skill set to have and with everything moving online, copywriting is king. So, I went off and found one of the best copywriters in the world. Colin has hired, trained, mentored, and written direct response copy (DRC) for 15 years. His clients include: Agora, Jim Kwik, John Carlton, Brian Tracy, and Ava Jane Kitchens. In fact, the stuff that Colin has written and consulted on has driven an estimated $250M in direct sales. Yeah, that’s a quarter of a billion dollars. You don’t want to miss out on this one! And, when you get a chance, could you also head over to FirstClassFounders.com/review and leave the podcast a five-star review? It really helps boost credibility for the show which means more incredible guests for you! And why wouldn’t you want that? I’ll leave a link in the show notes to leave us a 5-star review. Thank you so much! If you wanna connect with me, you can hit me up on Twitter @YongSooChung. I’m pretty active there and would love to connect with you. You can find links to all my social accounts in the show notes.Follow the show by going to FirstClassFounders.com and clicking on the link that matches your preferred podcast player - like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'll see you on the next episode of First Class Founders.

Chenell Basilio [00:41:02]:

Am I hiding another degree? No, that's about it.