A deep dive into Curiosity Chronicle

Insideletter

Deel’s latest policy template on IT Equipment Policies can help HR teams stay organized when handling requests across time zones (and even languages). This free template gives you:

This free equipment provisioning policy will enable you to adjust to any state or country you hire from instead of producing a new policy every time. That means less complexity and more time for greater priorities.

Get the template for free today.

Welcome to the first edition of February. I thought, how about I make it interesting and value-driven, and promise to make your newsletter grow like never before in February.

Well, have you seen the social media posts around the ‘perfect February’? It is all squared.

Today, I am diving deep into Sahil Bloom’s newsletter, Curiosity Chronicle. Before I jump into the newsletter, I need to give a clarification, Undelivered my personal newsletter was inspired by 2 persons, one is Sahil and the other is Dan.

When it comes to newsletters, as you know, it is a closed-source platform, and no one can know about the newsletter if you do not actively promote it. Yes, SEO might help, but that is a different ball game.

Sahil Bloom used to work in a private equity firm, and during the COVID era, he started writing on Twitter.

In 2021, he launched his newsletter to a small group of family and friends.

Here’s how he grew on Twitter.

As I was saying the other day, go deep, not wide. Sahil actually executed that. He started writing on Twitter and built his email list first. Once it became big, he then expanded to LinkedIn and Instagram.

Here are 5 main growth levers.

I do not know if I should actually count this as a growth lever, but he is delusional, he works really hard, and the same reflects in his newsletter.

He shares his personal, unfiltered thoughts, and that helps him get attention like no one else.

If you closely observe his posts, you will notice a pattern. Every time he posts, he uses a similar hook and framework, and that has become his signature style.

As I have said before, distribution is ten times more important than writing the newsletter. If no one knows your newsletter exists, no matter how valuable it is, does it even matter?

Sahil writes a tweet, then broadens it, then writes the newsletter, and then shares insights from the edition on LinkedIn and Instagram.

He also refers to his old content in his current content, so every piece stays evergreen.

One more thing that helped him in the early days was a community called the 100K community.

This was not a formal community built by a single founder, but rather an informal text group chat formed by several ambitious creators who were all aiming to reach 100k followers on Twitter.

There was a referral program that he later closed. I assume this happened because he was more focused on the book, or maybe the referral subscribers were not high-quality. He used SparkLoop for the referral part.

Cross-promotion helped him grow his newsletter. He promoted it in Codie Sanchez’s newsletter.

If you read Sahil Bloom’s newsletter, you will understand that he does not do anything dramatically different, but he does it in a different way, which is what sets him apart from others.

He runs the newsletter as a curator-led personal newsletter. First, he shares what he read or learned, and then he connects it with his personal insights.

I have been reading his emails for a long time, and I noticed a shift with AI-assisted content. It seems like his team might be using AI, but the quality has not dropped.

Sahil Bloom traveled to India and other countries before and after his book launch, including the UK, Australia, and various parts of the USA. He also received a large number of podcast invitations. Content-led newsletters and brands do not fail.

This is the primary direct income stream. Bloom reportedly generates upwards of $70,000 per month in sponsorship revenue.

He outsources ad sales to the ConvertKit Sponsor Network, which handles brand outreach and placements in exchange for a percentage of sales.

Bloom uses the newsletter as top-of-funnel attention for higher-margin businesses.

A personal holding company consisting of over ten cash-flowing business assets. This includes service agencies like Paperboy Studios for newsletter growth, HeyFriends! for YouTube growth, and Viralcuts for short-form video. These agencies generated over $10 million in revenue in 2023.

A $10 million investment fund where he uses his distribution to source and win competitive startup deals.

He occasionally promotes micro-courses, such as productivity workshops, that run on autopilot and generate $3,000 to $5,000 per month.

Book sales:

He leveraged his 900K+ subscribers to launch his New York Times bestseller, The 5 Types of Wealth.

Paid speaking and advisory:

He participates in high-profile events in London and various US cities and takes on advisory roles for portfolio companies.

Sahil Bloom hasn’t done anything new, he did it in a different way, and the most important thing for him? He stayed consistent and built everything around content.

Anirban ‘helping you make money with newsletters’ Das