How to build a newsletter business - Louis Nicholls, SparkLoop

Louis Nicholls is the co-founder of SparkLoop, a product that helps newsletter operators grow through referral partnerships. Indie hackers might know Louis from his Sales for Founders course which he ran a few years ago, as well as his many other projects.What we covered in this episode:How Sparkloop StartedHow Louis met his cofounder ManuelGoing Niche vs BroadPursuing a growing marketWhat is your unique competitive advantage?Avoiding shiny object syndromeSpeaking to your customersHow does a newsletter referral program work?Can you start a referral program from the beginning?What’s the value of a newsletter subscriber?Sparkloop calculatorSparkloop growth from day 1How big is Sparkloop?How to start and grow a newsletterLouis’ favourite newslettersLenny’s NewsletterMorning BrewWhy We BuyRecommendationsBook: Wuthering HeightsPodcast: Default AliveIndie Hacker: Josh HoFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)This Indie Life PodcastSponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools