The Nathan Barry Show I built a $100K Newsletter Business (Here's How) | 124
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Apr 16, 2026 
Marissa Lavelle, editor and founder-operator of From Boise, builds community through long-form local stories and events. She talks about growing a newsletter to 24,000+ subscribers, creative monetization experiments like a Dinner Club and discount card, and treating projects as hands-on experiments that turn local trust into a six-figure business.
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How From Boise Was Started
- Nathan started From Boise as a concept after seeing a local Victoria newsletter and recruited Marissa via a job listing to run it.
- Marissa had a decade of local writing experience and hit the ground running with long-form stories and a Tuesday/Thursday cadence.
Newsletter Format Built For Direct Connection
- The newsletter format lets creators push content directly into readers' inboxes, creating a personal connection that blogs lacked.
- Nathan and Marissa kept a consistent Tuesday longform plus Thursday events format from day one to build habit and trust.
Dinner Club Validated By Reader Poll
- Marissa used a Kit poll to validate a dinner club idea and set an internal trigger: if 100 said yes they'd run it.
- 656 people responded yes and the first dinners sold out at ~96–120 attendees, proving strong audience trust.
