The Creator Spotlight Podcast

Today’s guest is Akhil Chauhan, who runs The Writer’s Job Newsletter (TWJN). But he didn’t create the newsletter — he acquired it. The newsletter: https://www.thewritersjobnewsletter.com 00:00 Acquiring a newsletter 08:05 Researching solo 14:10 The differences in journalism in the UK vs US 15:35 Growing a newsletter to 10k+ subscribers 23:18 Work/life balance as a creator 29:23 Premium subscribers and monetisation 33:04 Keeping a distance from your audience 36:50 Advice to creators, from a creator 41:05 The future of TWJN 45:30 The biggest regret as a creator #podcast #creatoreconomy #sidehustle Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Peter Ramsey, writer and founder of builtformars.com joins us for episode 15 of The Creator Spotlight Podcast. 00:00 Who is Peter Ramsey and what is Built for Mars 05:30 The Mr Beast of UX 09:47 Using every bank in the UK 13:19 Who are Built for Mars readers? 16:30 How Peter monetizes the newsletter 19:30 Is the website fantastic, or does it suck? 25:20 Why start a newsletter? 27:43 The stats 30:23 Peter’s most viral posts 31:40 Why Peter hates social media 33:38 The gamification of education sites/apps 38:11 The different types of written content 40:46 Growing an online business 47:00 The future of Built for Mars #podcast #creatoreconomy #uxdesign

Caitlin Murray from Big Time Adulting joined us for episode 14 of the Creator Spotlight podcast and gave us the low-down on how she grew her audience of 1 million instagram followers. 00:00 Why Caitlin started Big Time Adulting 05:50 How to gain over 1 million followers 10:15 The 4 chapters of Big Time Adulting 14:15 Turning Instagram into a business 19:25 Building a positive community 24:08 Growing an Instagram following, organically 29:22 Podcasting is hard 33:41 Monetising as a creator 38:31 Starting and building a newsletter 47:45 Having multiple monetisation streams 51:53 Advice lightning round #podcast #creatoreconomy #interview

For episode 13 of the Creator Spotlight podcast we are joined by Tyler O'Shea, editor and founder of the website and newsletter Joker Mag. 00:00 Tyler’s motivation and the mentality of a creator 05:37 The inspiration to start writing 08:40 Is Google’s AI killing SEO 11:36 The average Joker Mag reader 14:44 How to find amazing sports stories 18:37 How to grow a loyal audience 23:25 How much time does it take to grow a newsletter? 27:38 The different monetisation channels 32:03 Hiring other writers 37:21 SEO tips: How to make your website the best 39:06 Advice for creators 43:40 Future goals 49:30 Quick Q&A #podcast #creatoreconomy #newsletter

Today's guest is Kate Samuelson, co-creator of Cheapskate London. Every Monday, they send out a newsletter built around free events, two for each day of the coming week. Over the last five years they’ve built an audience of over 19k, winning praise from longstanding media institutions in the process. All the while, Cheapskate is a side project; during the day, Kate works as a journalist. She specializes in newsletters. In this issue: 🍸️ Giving subscribers a free bottle of gin as a referral reward 📰 Operating a newsletter while working full-time in journalism 💷 Running paid ads for your newsletter is easier than it sounds 00:00 What is Cheapskate London? 06:10 Who is the average reader? 10:03 Choosing what content to include 17:36 Kate’s career 30:45 The stats - how to grow an audience 38:42 Kate’s unique referral program 41:58 Monetisation 52:49 Advice for newsletter creators Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ. #podcast #creatoreconomy #london

Today's guest is Haya Kaylani, creator of a curation-style newsletter called The Deep Dive. What does she curate? YouTube video essays, five of them every Wednesday. She’s built an audience of 92k TikTok followers and 13.5k newsletter subscribers in just 15 months — pure organic growth, with almost all of her newsletter subscribers coming over from TikTok. In this issue, we discuss: • 🎨 Curating, gatekeeping, and gatecreating • 📺️ Why writing about YouTube is a huge opportunity • 📢 Applying lessons from a career in PR to indie creator work • 🤳 Building a newsletter audience by building a TikTok audience 00:00 What is The Deep Dive 02:30 Being a curator 06:23 What is a video essay? 14:26 Going viral on TikTok 19:04 Why start a newsletter? 24:21 Why we need curators and gate-creators 28:22 The stats - How to grow subscribers 33:32 Haya’s premium newsletter, The Rabbit Hole 37:27 Monetisation and referrals 41:47 Advice for creators and lessons learned Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ. #podcast #creatoreconomy #newsletter

Today's guest is PJ Milani, a high school animation teacher recently turned social media star. He’s known for his “visual metaphors” — single-panel illustrations featuring lessons about life and creativity. Across his socials he has over 200k followers, his newsletter has 16k subscribers, and he teaches a perennially sold-out cohort course about visual thinking on Maven. In this issue, we discuss: • 🌱 Organic growth • 🔜 Trusting the process, every day • 🎨 What it means to live a creative life • 🤝 Working in community with other creators 00:00 Who is PJ Milani 01:25 Why PJ started creating — Getting on social media 09:04 How to gain 200k followers 14:48 Relationship between writing and drawing 19:39 Which social media platform is best — Twitter vs Instagram vs LinkedIn 23:57 How to convert social media followers into newsletter subs? 30:56 How PJ monetises his content 42:23 The long term plan Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Ryan Broderick is the creator of Garbage Day, “A newsletter about having fun online.” He’s among the most popular journalists-turned-newsletter-creators out there. It’s clear by the numbers (68k subscribers, 3k of whom pay for premium content), praise from other creators, and the nearly 200 press clippings on his About page. In this episode we discuss: 📰 There’s (almost) no difference between journalists and creators 🛋️ Why you need a Simpsons couch gag in your newsletter 🫵 Every American is a journalist (if they want to be) 🚖 Creators are Uber drivers for content 🧑‍🎓 Garbage Day is on the syllabus Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Jared Dashevsky runs Healthcare Huddle, a twice-weekly newsletter for physicians and other healthcare professionals. In just over four years, he’s built an audience of 30,000. He’s also built a team of 13, dismantled that team and been acquired. But today, Jared is once again a solo creator. In this episode, we discuss: 🎓️ The cap on how far Healthcare Huddle can or should scale 😍 Understanding your newsletter’s “true fans” ✍️ Creating a sustainable newsletter workflow 🧠 Jared’s four key lessons from four years of newslettering ↩️ Pivoting from a B2C to B2B audience Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Arielle Nissenblatt knows podcasts. She writes a weekly newsletter about podcasts, hosts a podcast version of that newsletter, co-hosts another weekly podcast and a daily podcast. She runs a Discord community for podcasters. On top of all that, she works full-time as a community marketing manager at Descript. In this episode, we discuss: 🤝 How Arielle broke into the podcasting industry 🎙️ Why you should not start a podcast (unless you should) 🫂 What “community” means to brands and creators 💖 The potential of creator advocacy organizations 🏠 How brands should work with in-house creators Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.