Building a $400k newsletter business ft. Fernando Caralt

Fernando Caralt (0:00)

Day one, ran ads, I had no newsletter. I was like, let me see, people signed up for this. And then when I had a few hundred, I was like, gosh, I need to write something.

SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

In your first year, you did 50K.

Fernando Caralt (0:09)

We've doubled year over year. At this rate, we should be closer to the 400

SPEAKER_2 (0:14)

I'm interested, though, in like what you see as the ceilings of this business.

Fernando Caralt (0:18)

Originally, my thesis was like, can I do this? Do it for four years, I sell, I'm a millionaire, I'm good to go. So I've had to settle expectations.

SPEAKER_2 (0:27)

I want to give the listener a quick rundown of the average Espresso Montutino newsletter issue. So here's what I see. I went over a recent one, just going to list out all the sections. This is a section-based newsletter. So typically over a dozen sections.

Most recent one I looked at, there was an intro note, a stock market update, a news story about AI companies, different chatbots. Then there was an ad, a business section, a Mexico news roundup section, a tech section, a world news roundup section, a number of the day, links from around the web, a CTA to inquire about advertising, a feedback poll, an image of the day, and then this credits signature section. Obviously, all of this is in Spanish. Listener, if you have seen a hustle or a morning brew, it's sort of that section format.

Am I missing anything? Does that give an accurate picture of the average issue?

Fernando Caralt (1:18)

Yeah, that covers it. We did not reinvent the wheel. When it comes to formats, we've kind of tested sections in and out over time, and this is what we've landed on right now. And we do quarterly reviews with subscribers and see what kind of comes in and out. So this is what we have right now.

SPEAKER_2 (1:34)

Yeah. The newsletter right now is also around 150,000 subscribers, correct?

Fernando Caralt (1:40)

Yeah, 156 if we're going to get exact right now. Yes.

SPEAKER_2 (1:45)

I do love exactitudes.

When you did an interview with Claire Zolke for Inbox Collective, I'll probably reference this interview a few times. You did that interview in March of 2025 So around 16 months ago, you were at 100K, and that was around two years in, a little over two years to 100, and then another about year and a half, and you've added another 50K.

Fernando Caralt (2:07)

Yeah. Yes. If growth has not as been as fast kind of this last year, the previous year, we're putting kind of shifting gears again right now.

SPEAKER_2 (2:17)

Yeah. Tell me more about the shape of that growth chart.

Has it been mostly sort of a smooth like 20, 25 degree slope, and then it's kind of eased off a bit? What's the growth chart look like?

Fernando Caralt (2:32)

Yeah. So it's probably pretty consistent up to maybe August last year.

And then we had a few creatives that were working really well. Then we milked to the max, and then they were not working as well, or CPAs started going up, to be honest. The spend has stayed mostly constant. So at that point, kind of the churn catches up to you. So then growth is kind of plateaued for a few months, and now we're starting to iterate a little more on the creative. And you can usually tell right now for us, because we haven't really gone all out with the budget. It kind of stayed a consistent spend, and if the creators are better, we definitely see the increase in subscribers.

SPEAKER_2 (3:17)

Yeah. So you're talking almost entirely about meta ads here. I know that you used to be, I think, a marketing manager at Friend of the Pod, former Spotlight guest, Matt McGarry's newsletter growth agency. You learned a lot about growing newsletters with meta ads there.

Is that the only way you're growing now? Is that just like the majority of the way you've grown that 156k list?

Fernando Caralt (3:40)

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's probably, yeah, definitely over half, maybe 60-70% according to the numbers I track. A lot of it is meta, I mean, everyone knows, dirty secrets of the industry.

SPEAKER_2 (3:54)

Not even a dirty nor a secret at this point.

Fernando Caralt (3:56)

And not, it used to be, yeah. But yeah, what I learned from Matt working there a few months, can I help me understand the growth behind it. And I'm really, I love the numbers, and especially, it's not all, of course, CPAs. It's like, what does it cost per clicker? It costs per clicker on a sponsor ad. So it's like trying to get the numbers to make sense when it comes to growth. Can I put some charts or some dashboards to track a lot of that? But yeah, it's a lot of meta. We have a lot more presence in social media these days.