When Andrev (Andy) Austin started the Growth Catalyst Club in 2023, he did what most newsletter founders do: he tried to get his first readers. With only 36 subscribers, the new publication was just another email in a crowded inbox, fighting for attention with thousands of other newsletters that had been around for a while.
Austin sold that same newsletter thirteen months later. It had more than 13,000 subscribers and made more than $29,000 in revenue. Profitably. The exit wasn’t a matter of luck or timing; it was the result of careful testing, disciplined execution, and a method that would eventually make Austin one of the most sought-after experts in newsletter growth strategy.
That knowledge now helps some of the biggest independent newsletters in the US get new subscribers. Austin’s company, Adsora, works with publications that reach more than 1 million readers in the US. These include AI Report, The Offer Sheet, and Techpresso. The company added more than 900,000 newsletter subscribers for media clients by using the same methods that Austin used to grow his own publications.
The laboratory: Three newsletters, three exits
Austin didn’t sit on the sidelines and think about how to grow the newsletter. He learned the hard way how to be an expert by starting, growing, and successfully selling three different media businesses in San Francisco between 2024 and 2025.
His first lab was the Growth Catalyst Club. Austin carefully tested every variable with those first 36 subscribers, including the design of the landing page, the mechanics of referrals, social distribution, paid acquisition channels, and conversion optimisation. The newsletter turned into a real-time test of what really works to grow a subscriber base.
Beehiiv, the newsletter platform that runs his publication, was interested in the results. The company used Growth Catalyst Club in several case studies to show how Austin optimised landing pages, got new subscribers, and made money. His formula for newsletter landing pages, which was later published on Beehiiv’s blog, became a must-read for people who run newsletters and want to get more people to sign up.
Austin didn’t stop after one win. He copied the model two more times, starting and growing two more newsletters before leaving each one with a profit. The pattern showed something important: his method didn’t rely on luck, timing, or a single viral moment. The systems worked over and over again for different topics and groups of people.
From publisher to growth partner
It was a natural progression from running a newsletter to becoming a growth consultant. Austin’s public documentation of his methods through Beehiiv case studies and industry appearances led to newsletter publishers contacting him. They wanted to get the same number of new subscribers that Austin had.
But Austin didn’t want to use the traditional consulting model. He insisted on performance alignment from the start because he had seen how agencies that put their own profits ahead of their clients’ needs don’t work as well. When he started Adsora, the company’s approach to newsletter clients was the same as his philosophy in other areas: share the risk, make sure results, and only win when clients win.
Austin’s approach to client work came directly from his own experiences with newsletters. High-volume creative testing was the same method he used to find successful ads for Growth Catalyst Club. Landing page optimisation based on real conversion data from thousands of people who signed up for a newsletter. Tested the mechanics of a referral program in several publications. Paid acquisition strategies improved through real media buying, not just ideas.
Austin had been inside the machine, unlike consultants who give advice from the outside. He knew how to run a newsletter business because he had done the math himself. He knew which growth strategies brought in real subscribers instead of just numbers because he had looked at his own retention data.
The Austin formula for the size of a newsletter
Austin’s three main principles for growing his newsletters are based on what he learned from running his own publications.
First, a lot of creativity is better than a lot of genius. Austin’s newsletters were constantly tested with different ad angles, messaging frameworks, visual approaches, and calls to action. Most of them failed. The winners climbed very quickly. Adsora now works with media clients in the same way, sending out over 30,000 ad creatives a year across its portfolio.
Second, conversion optimisation compounds. A landing page that converts at 40% instead of 25% doesn’t just add 15 percentage points; it changes the whole economics of acquiring customers. Austin was obsessed with these conversion points in his own newsletters, A/B testing layouts, copy, where to put social proof, and what information to include in the subscription field. His published case study on the Growth Catalyst Club talks about specific changes that made it easier to get new subscribers.
Third, economics, not just tactics, are needed for long-term growth. Austin made money from his newsletters not by getting as many subscribers as possible, but by knowing how much it cost to get a new customer compared to how much they would be worth over time. This financial discipline set his method apart from growth-at-all-costs strategies that leave publishers with big audiences but bad unit economics.
Why media companies pick Austin
AI Report, Techpresso, and The Offer Sheet didn’t hire generic growth marketers to help them grow their subscriber bases. They picked someone who had made and sold successful newsletters himself.
The value proposition is clear: Austin has already made the costly mistakes in his own publications. He has already tried the strategies that don’t work. He has already improved the systems that do. Media clients get to use that knowledge without having to go through the trial-and-error process.
Adsora’s work with clients who send out newsletters is now very big. They add over three hundred thousand new subscribers each year across the portfolio. Publications that reach more than 1.1 million readers. Several independent case studies have documented his growth strategies. The past speaks for itself.
Austin’s background in the media also helps him align his strategies in a way that pure performance marketers can’t. He knows how to think about editorial issues, how to build a brand over time, and how to grow a business quickly. Newsletter publishers aren’t just paying for new subscribers; they’re working with someone who’s been in their shoes.
The bigger picture of performance marketing
The principles that helped Austin’s newsletter succeed—testing with discipline, making the most of capital, and holding people accountable for their performance—also apply to small businesses in the United States. Adsora’s performance marketing strategy works for more than just big media clients. It also helps e-commerce, B2B, and local service businesses improve their results, such as bringing in over 18,000 leads a month for home service businesses. Adsora helps these smaller businesses grow in a predictable and sustainable way by making sure that every marketing dollar makes a profit and optimising capital spending. This creates jobs in the community and directly contributes to the health and growth of the US small business economy.
Learning from 18 failures
Austin’s success with newsletters is a big change from the eighteen businesses he started before he found one that worked. Those failures weren’t a waste of time; they were costly lessons in how to spot patterns.
Every failed project taught us what doesn’t work when done on a large scale. The successes of the newsletter showed that those lessons were being used in a systematic way. Austin learned to tell the difference between patterns that happen over and over and ones that happen only once. He learned to tell the difference between growth signals that mattered and those that didn’t. He made mental models for economics that really worked.
He tells clients of his newsletter that some growth strategies won’t work in the long term because he has tried and failed at them himself. When he suggests certain testing frameworks, they get better through repeated use in different publications. The knowledge isn’t just in your head—it’s in your scars.
The effect of the newsletter authority
Austin’s status as an expert on growing newsletters creates a cycle that keeps going. Clients in the media do well and become case studies. More advanced media clients are drawn to case studies. More client work means more data and insights. Those insights make the method better. The better method leads to better results.
The multiple case study features in beehiiv made this effect even stronger. Adsora was added to beehiiv expert directory.
When newsletter operators look for ways to grow their businesses, they find Austin’s documented successes before they even look for his company. The authority comes before the sales talk.
Austin’s approach to new media partnerships is also shaped by that authority. Adsora doesn’t try to get every newsletter client. The company only works with publications where the current method will lead to some improvement. This selectivity keeps the perfect retention rate and the good name that brings in new business.
Where performance marketing meets newsletter growth
Austin’s newsletter skills are especially useful because they fit into Adsora’s larger performance marketing system. The same creative testing systems that get people to sign up for newsletters also bring in leads for home service companies. The same frameworks for optimising landing pages work in all fields. Any channel that is focused on performance can use the same rules for allocating capital.
Infrastructure built for scale is good for newsletter clients. They’re not working with a small newsletter consultant; they’re using enterprise-level performance marketing systems that are specifically designed to help media grow.
Austin’s vision for Adsora was to bring together specialised knowledge and systematic execution. This integration is exactly what he had in mind. The business model is guaranteed results, the delivery method is performance marketing, and the discipline is newsletter growth.
Adsora’s work to get subscribers for the newsletters, which now have over 1.1 million readers, gives them something that is hard to find in media growth: predictable, profitable, and sustainable scale. This is backed by someone who has already built several successful newsletters.
