[ Tl;dr: Today we’re launching the new Inside.com — a network of high-quality email newsletters. We have eight live newsletters, and we’re launching an exciting system that allows intelligent readers like yourself to decide which newsletter we launch next. Thanks to Rocketship for building the new platform. We’re also on Product Hunt today!]
When I started Inside as an app, our idea was that if we could do an exceptional job curating the news, then millions of people would download our product and use it daily.
We learned that, while a dedicated base of fans couldn’t get enough of it, most folks didn’t have space for another app in their lives. This is a lesson that has been hard-learned by a whole crop of “news-reader” style apps — from tiny startups like Circa to mega-brands like Facebook, both of which folded their news apps.
The facts are simple: people are adding an average of ZERO new apps to their phones each month, and most modern news consumption happens in social media) places like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, and, of course, email).
Meanwhile, publishers increasingly rely on viral traffic — which incentivizes silly clickbait, or worse they focus on writing headlines that rank in Google (best iPhone cases FTW!).
Email incentivizes the opposite — it drives us to build a lasting relationship with our readers who demand we deliver massive value. If we don’t they click unsubscribe.
I love that newsletters are held to such a high standard — it makes our writers focused on what matters most.
When it comes to news curation, here’s what we think matters:
1) Content selected by real-world relevance, not catchy titles or more-searched terms.
2) Content selected and presented in a fair way without obvious bias or added commentary.
3) Transparency. No hidden agendas. Literally email us and ask us why we ran a story and we’ll tell you.
We’re going all in with email newsletters because I think we can save journalism by putting 99 cents of every dollar we spend on writers. Our business has close to zero infrastructure costs and massive consumer feedback.
Nine months ago, we started with the Inside Daily Brief, a twice-daily roundup of the most interesting news in the world, which had 10,000 subscribers and just one writer/editor. Now, we have an audience of 100,000 subscribers across eight newsletters, with six people on our editorial team (and it’s growing!).
We’re just getting started.
In addition to letting you subscribe to our existing newsletters, the new site also lets you vote for which newsletters we’ll launch next. Do you want us to hire a top notch writer and launch Inside Golf or Inside Space or Inside Video Games?
Cast your vote, and tell your friends — when we hit 5,000 “early adopters” we’ll launch it.
So, here’s my ask:
- Head over to inside.com and subscribe/vote for all the newsletters you find most interesting
- Check out our post today on Product Hunt and leave some feedback
- Tell your friends! If we can keep growing the readership of these newsletters, we can keep improving and launching new ones. That starts with you spreading the word.
- Hit reply to the emails we send and tell us what you love, if we make a mistake and share an intelligent response to the question of the day. I read every email reply!
- Reccomend this post on Medium so more people will see it
– @jason
PS — Here’s our subscriber growth in the past few months:
If you have a newsletter and you want to join our network, please email partners@inside.com. We’re looking to not only launch our own newsletters, but host and sell the advertising in other ones too.
