How a free-to-read newsletter-first start-up The Nerve smashed its paid subscriber targets and is nearing sustainability

Welcome back to the latest season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best of the main stage sessions from The Publisher Summit. This week's guest is Sarah Donaldson, co-founder of news start-up The Nerve. In a bit of a twist, this isn’t actually audio from the Summit. We scheduled a 20 minute interview slot on stage with Sarah and barely scratched the surface of what we wanted to discuss as it’s such a fascinating case study, so we caught up with her again over the summer as The Nerve nears its first birthday for an extended interview. The Nerve was launched last September by a group of five former Observer journalists. In less than a week after launching, it had hit 8,000 sign-ups and more than 1,000 paying members, all without a paywall. As they turn one, they’ve continued to go from strength to strength, and significantly are now on the brink of sustainability. Sarah talks about the opportunity they spotted to launch a news and culture brand, which audience touchpoints they decided to focus on, and why they’ve seen such early success. Thanks to the Summit's premium sponsors; Pugpig and Beehiiv, and to the digital sponsors; qwoted, Adestra, Woodwing and Warners for their support.