From Zero to $1 Million — and Taking Readers Along for the Ride

Marcin Pogroszewski is a man with big dreams and a clear vision of his life’s purpose — but he’s already proven himself capable of making big things happen.

Here are the key takeaways from today’s Creator Spotlight:

• Exactly how Marcin is documenting his next multi-million dollar business in The Gentle Nudge newsletter.

• His tactical newsletter checklist (you can use this).

• How he’s using AI for marketing the newsletter.

• Using different offers to create more engagement (he has a 70% open rate).

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Background:

When he was in his 20s, some friends nudged him to start a company, and it changed his life.

After a successful exit, he says, "I became obsessed with entrepreneurship. And after a decade of building, investing, and supporting startups, I began to ask myself, 'What's my purpose in life?"

It’s an age-old existential question–one few people know how to answer. Pogroszewski suggested a starting point and shared his own answer.

"I think a good question to ask yourself is, what would you do even if you weren't paid [to do it]? I realized I was already doing it: helping my family and friends with launching their own businesses. I enjoy watching people transform into entrepreneurs."

Pogroszewski's newsletter, The Gentle Nudge, is the tool he's using to fulfill that mission. "I want to build the number one newsletter for first-time entrepreneurs."

Like many newsletter publishers, Pogroszewski started out writing on social media and only used his newsletter to share a weekly summary of his LinkedIn content. But after a few months, he decided to shift gears.

"[Social media] is very soul-sucking, and spending my days trying to get more shares and likes and hack the LinkedIn algorithm is not my cup of tea. So I realized it would be much better and more enjoyable for me if I focused my energy on writing more sophisticated, longer content in the newsletter.

Around November or December (2022), I switched over from MailerLite to beehiiv, and then I started intentionally writing what I think is a very good newsletter.

The move from MailerLite to beehiiv felt very natural to Pogroszewski. "I went with MailerLite originally…but beehiiv felt like a glove. I use each and every feature [on the dashboard], so it feels like the whole product is for me.”

An Entrepreneurial Journey in Real Time

Pogroszewski brings a unique twist to writing about entrepreneurship — one that gives his newsletter an intimacy and immediacy that's often lacking in business writing.

"At the beginning of the year, I decided that the best way to teach entrepreneurship is to show and don't tell. So I challenged myself to take a company from an idea — from zero — and grow it to $1 million in revenue by the end of the year."

The business he's decided to build is called Treat. It's a subscription box with sweet treats, like gourmet chocolates, that are divided into reasonable portions of around 200 calories and labeled with the days of the week. It helps people learn to manage their relationship with sweets by having "a healthy amount of unhealthy stuff" daily.

The business grew from Pogroszewski's own unhealthy relationship with snacking. "I'm solving my own problem here, and that's what I told my audience. A good way to start a new business is to solve your own problem."

His audience is following this journey in real time. "The weekly newsletter is basically me narrating and sharing the journey very transparently, with all the ups and downs, financial and marketing decisions, and all the mood swings you can expect from an entrepreneurial journey."

His goal is "to show people that it's not black magic. I believe that anyone can become an entrepreneur. It's a mindset and skillset that anyone can master. That belief is at the core of the newsletter."

A Tactical List

In addition to his real-time entrepreneurial journey, Pogroszewski wrote a list of core ideas to guide his content strategy. He keeps the list nearby when he works on each issue.

Good Vibes Only

"Sometimes my energy is low. Sometimes, on an entrepreneurial journey, I may feel a little scared or a little bit ambiguous about what to do. But I want to share it in a positive way and bring the good energy, because it'll help me, and then it'll ultimately help other entrepreneurs on their journey, too."

Control for Word Count

"I think people are tired. Even if you have amazing content, if it's [too] long, you will lose your readers. We're all busy, so I make it a target for myself to keep it short. Right now, I'm targeting 1200 words in a newsletter. I still think I should go a little shorter. I'm still playing with it."

'You' Language Instead of 'I' Language

"Instead of talking about me and myself, [I focus on] talking about the readers and what is valuable to them."

Always Add Value

"For example, numbers and math always add value. Links and tools — these are things people can take and run with. Not theory and big words."

Hook in the Subject Line

"I made a note to myself to remember [to put] a hook in the subject line to keep people engaged and keep the open rates high. Right now, I'm around 70%. I believe that's a pretty good number.”

A List of Sections

"I try to keep the newsletter fresh and interesting but also keep some predictability. One of the sections I have every week is a box that looks like an investor update where I share the revenue, costs, problems, and plans for what's happening in my million-dollar project. And then a series of other sections. I try to keep it somewhat predictable but also keep it interesting by adding new things, testing, and seeing what people love."

You can see exactly how all of these tactics come together in The Gentle Nudge.

An Authentic Voice

Pogroscewski has one other pet peeve regarding content strategy–particularly, writer’s voice for newsletter creators.

"The number one thing for me is don't try to write a great newsletter. Just write from your heart, like you were writing an email to your best friend."

In short, be yourself, and be natural. "If you're trying to pretend you're someone else, people can sense it. If you stick to being yourself, and maybe even a bit goofy, just be honest. People will enjoy it. And you'll also enjoy writing it because you'll feel at ease and aligned with yourself."

In a sense, his switch from LinkedIn content to newsletter creation was him taking his own advice. "When I think about the content of LinkedIn, it's just so much virtue signalling and high-horse preaching. Being authentic to yourself and simple, you'll win by authenticity."

Bold Ambitions

The content strategy resonates with The Gentle Nudge's readers. The newsletter boasts an impressive open rate of 70 percent with a very low churn rate.

Now that Pogroscewski knows his content strategy is solid, It's time to increase the readership. The entrepreneur is challenging himself to achieve serious subscriber growth in the next few weeks, to grow his list to 10,000 subscribers in four to six weeks. At the time of our interview, The Gentle Nudge was sitting at around 1300 subscribers, today it’s already over 2000.

When it comes to marketing the newsletter to new readers, Pogroszewski says, "I'm still trying to crack exactly how to do it. I've pulled back from the content I was producing on LinkedIn, but I got a lot of subscribers from that channel.”

That doesn’t mean he’s abandoned it altogether, though–at least, not yet. “I still try to play with it, but to be honest, I don't like it. It's so busy on LinkedIn; every time I do it, I feel like a part of me is dying a little bit. So I'm trying to figure out a better way to [market]."

One strategy that is working well is referrals. "I'm using the amazing referral program on beehiiv," Pogroszewski says, "and I'm pretty surprised at how well it's working! From the beginning, I had a reward: you can refer The Gentle Nudge newsletter to three people and get an invite link to the Slack community. It makes people a little bit more invested in the project."

He's exploring other referral ideas based on the success of that effort. "Just yesterday, I made it even easier, with just one referral. I learned that from the Milk Road newsletter; I believe they only had one referral. For just one referral, I will send you a link to a list of questions I always ask startups before investing in them.

I’ve invested around a million dollars over the past six years; as of now, it's around $5 million. A very decent result, which I'm proud of. So the list [of questions] is, I think, useful, and I'm making it available to people if they refer another person. And I think it's working because today was pretty good in terms of new subscribers."

"Also, I saw an amazing Twitter thread about paid promotion for newsletters. I want to give it a try. I do have a background in online advertising, after all," grins Progroszewski, who started his career in online marketing for Groupon.

An AI Marketing Hack

In his quest for better marketing ideas, Pogroszewski developed a creative AI-based strategy. "I've been trying to utilize AI a bit, like everyone else. I went to ChatGPT and asked it to list 20 nonprofits that support entrepreneurship in the US. It gave me a list, and then I asked it to give me the public-facing email addresses of these organizations. It gave me twenty, and then I asked for twenty more."

Considering how time consuming, and often costly, it can be to do this kind of market research via more traditional methods, his strategy is pretty genius.

"So, in a few minutes, I generated 50 email addresses for nonprofit organizations supporting entrepreneurs. Then I created a nice-looking email for outreach. I emailed these organizations, told them my mission and my story, and asked them if they were excited to partner with or support what I'm doing. I did that a few days ago, so the jury is still out on whether this is a productive way of growing the list. But it's something that someone can use in any context."

Long-Term Goals

In the short term, building his business to $1 million in revenue. "That's the biggest thing. It's a challenge, but I really want to make it work. That's going to be huge. I think the story of how I started from zero and built a $1 million business will be great content."

If he achieves it, Pogroszewski knows the story will bring attention to his mission. "I will go on some podcasts and talk about it. I will try to sign up for a TEDx talk or actual TED. I have some grand plans, and all that will hopefully fuel the growth of the newsletter."

The newsletter is only the first step in his mission to make entrepreneurship accessible. "The much longer-term vision is to build The Gentle Nudge as a much bigger movement. The way I see it, it's something that happens before someone applies to Y Combinator. So for people who don't even know what Y Combinator is yet, I would love to unlock their entrepreneurial potential."

"So, the journey is much longer than just a year for me. I hope for the next ten years it'll be a movement with hundreds, or thousands, or maybe millions of people. But what would be an amazing result for this year? Why not 50,000 subscribers? That would be a very decent-sized community and newsletter.”

Exactly the Right Place

All those dreams are a long way down the road, but that’s okay with Pogroszewski. He is prepared to play a long game.

"I want this newsletter to be a cash-flowing business, but it's not the top priority right now. I want first to grow and figure out what people find useful. So for now, I'm not doing any outreach [towards monetization]."

Taking things one step at a time makes sense for a creator who is growing a newsletter while simultaneously building the business he writes about — especially since both projects are one-person operations. "I'm trying to build a business, and then I write about it every Sunday."

But the business and the newsletter aren't his only commitments. "I'm helping my wife with her podcast. I have a small fund. I have a bunch of startups that I invested in or created. So I'm quite busy, but I'm really enjoying it."

"Sometimes," he says with a delighted grin, "you find this project that makes you feel like you are exactly in the right place. And that's how I'm feeling right now. I love writing this newsletter. My Sunday is basically writing the newsletter. It takes me several hours. But it's so much fun."

If you’re interested in following Marcin Pogroszewski’s journey from zero to $1 Million, you can sign up for The Gentle Nudge or check out recent topics, like 5 Rules for Building a Website or Is Kickstarter Worth It?