Great points. From lean startups & cust dev principles, I think you should start charging from day one.
Well, the margins would come from venture backed startups looking for high growth.
I am also a huge fan of lean, so personally, I'd also like to hook up very small newsletters (less than 5,000 subscribers) with bootstrapped startups. I also think these newsletters would be easier to start with - since many aren't monetized yet.
I already have one newsletter signed up for this. This idea came from when I pitched a different startup to them and they thought I was talking about this idea. They said "if you do this, I'll be your biggest advocate". So that's why I'm considering the idea.
I'd caution against small newsletters which may have low-value audiences. The "CPM" you'll get will be low and so $20 CPM on a 5k newsletter is $100 and if $80 goes to newsletter, that gives you $20. (And $20 CPM may be very aggressive)
You have to find and get an absolute cr^pload of those newsletters on board to make any amount of real cashish.
And bootstrapped startups as advertisers strikes me as a terrible segment as they have little to no money and may often be PITAs.
Addressing your comment below as I couldn't find a reply on your comment.
Why go into a business with terrible margins from the start? Usually successful biz have great margins to start and then those get eroded with competition, technology, etc?
In general, it also seems easier to go from big to small vs the other way. If I'm a large newsletter owner, I want to know you've worked with folks like me. I don't care that you've done work for 100 newsletters of 5k people.
Waiting on bootstrapped startups to get funding and hoping they'll continue with you is dependent on lots of variables you have no control over. Business is already uncertain and this is just compounding that uncertainty.
I'm all for validating the market but do it in a lucrative area in my view where there is a real ROI on your effort.
I agree. The margins on this are pretty terrible, and it's not a long term scalable model, but I think it's an easy way to get a foothold in the market.
Here's my thinking (please feel free to tear my logic apart):
(1a) The very small newsletters will be much more likely to signup. (1b)The bootstrapped startups would be very interested in relatively inexpensive ways to target (other than Adwords).
I think 1A has been semi validated.
(2) Success with small newsletters will help show larger newsletters than this model can work. Will probably transition from very small newsletters to medium, to large.
(3) Some bootstrapped startups will grow, get funding and continue to use us.
There are some jumps in this logic, and it would need validation.
Well, the margins would come from venture backed startups looking for high growth.
I am also a huge fan of lean, so personally, I'd also like to hook up very small newsletters (less than 5,000 subscribers) with bootstrapped startups. I also think these newsletters would be easier to start with - since many aren't monetized yet.
I already have one newsletter signed up for this. This idea came from when I pitched a different startup to them and they thought I was talking about this idea. They said "if you do this, I'll be your biggest advocate". So that's why I'm considering the idea.