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We (Chenell & I) interviewed Olly Richards on the Growth In Reverse podcast this week.
Here’s why we wanted to chat with Olly:
All this is overwhelmingly impressive.
It’s clear when talking to him that Olly is smart, entrepreneurial, and disciplined. He did a lot of things the “right” way. But there’s one key part of Olly’s story that’s living rent-free in my mind.
And it’s something I believe strongly that newsletter operators — including myself — need to learn.
What is it?
It’s how Olly paid for the distribution of his 118-page Google Doc and grew his newsletter, in essence, for free to 18k+ subscribers in ~18 months.
And it’s called a Self-Liquidating Flywheel (or SLF for short).
But before I get too deep into the SLF, you should understand the potential impact this can have on your business.
Olly readily shares that he used paid growth (over $100k!) to market the free Google Doc, and grow his newsletter audience.
That’s right — he didn’t market his newsletter. He promoted a free resource.
You might be asking why the hell you’d spend $100k marketing a free resource 🤔
He marketed a free resource because it was the Trojan horse into his ecosystem. And he knew anyone who found the resource valuable would be an ideal fit to work with him in some capacity.
Olly shares in one post how he spent over $100,000 marketing the Doc.
Olly shared the image below in one of his blog posts about this.
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“Still, $100k is a lot of money. Most people can’t afford that!”
That’s right. That’s why you use other people’s money to fund it. And you do that with the Self-Liquidating Flywheel.
Back when I was working at SparkLoop, we interviewed Michael Houck of Houck’s Newsletter. He’s grown his newsletter to over 75k subscribers, mostly through paid growth & newsletter acquisitions.
Michael said something in that interview that stuck with me (I’m paraphrasing):
“Newsletter operators need to run their newsletters more like startup founders.”
What he meant was that operators should reinvest all net profits back into growth: Pay your bills first, then put everything back into the growth machine. Michael was doing that at the time with beehiiv Boosts & SparkLoop’s Partner Program.
And Olly was doing the same thing with his paid growth efforts — except he was using multiple channels to a more lucrative offer.
He’d created a “workshop” called the 7 Figure Marketing Stack.
Olly ran the 5-day paid workshop, recorded the whole thing, and built a sales page for it, selling it as an “evergreen” workshop.
Suddenly he had something to sell to newly acquired subscribers. Any purchases would help offset the cost of acquiring them.
And like magic…
A percentage of those subscribers converted and purchased the evergreen workshop. And the shiny red cherry on top was that it got to the point where the conversions were enough to cover his acquisition costs.
Then, Olly would use that revenue to buy ads to promote his Google Doc case study.
And that, my friends, is the self-liquidating flywheel.
Acquire subscribers → sell them a valuable evergreen resource → use revenue fund paid acquisition
You don’t need a full-blown course like Olly to build a self-liquidating flywheel. You just need a Self-Liquidating Offer (SLO) that helps your readers do what they already came to you to do.
Most newsletters fall into one of three Jobs-To-Be-Done buckets:
TIP: Some of the most popular newsletters combine multiple JTBD elements; for example, MarketBriefs does a great job keeping readers informed on daily finance news while adding humor as entertainment value.
So what does a revenue-generating asset for each of these look like?
Reader’s motivation: “Teach me how to do this faster/better”
Relevant asset: Template, checklist, swipe files, mini courses, toolkits
If you write a how-to newsletter on solopreneurship, your SLO could be a $17 bundle of business idea frameworks.
Reader’s motivation: “Keep me up-to-date/ahead of the curve”
Relevant asset: Deep dives, exclusive reports, curated databases
If you run a curated media industry newsletter, maybe it’s a paid directory of podcast booking agents.
Reader’s motivation: “Give me more of what I love/hit me with that dopamine”
Relevant asset: Bonus content, behind-the-scenes footage, merch, membership, patronage
If your newsletter is built on humor or storytelling, offer access to a behind-the-scenes micro-podcast or bonus content.
It’s important to remember in all of this the win with your SLO.
The win here is that you’re not asking your audience to change behavior. You’re just extending what they already value, and then monetizing it.
The obvious caveat here is whatever you are charging for needs to be valuable and solves a problem your audience is facing. I won’t get into selling vitamins vs. painkillers in this article, but remember people are most inclined to pay for a solution to a painful problem.
Let’s do a quick review based on Olly’s system.
There are three main components:
So the steps are pretty clear, but let’s review them for how you can replicate the SLF yourself.
Something that adds value, builds trust, and complements your newsletter’s JTBD. It could be:
Start small.
A bonfire starts with a spark. You need to spark paid growth with an initial investment.
So test newsletter sponsorships or Meta ads with a tight audience. You’re not trying to scale to $1M — you’re trying to break even (or close to it).
That’s it, that’s the flywheel.
Most newsletter operators will hit a ceiling with organic growth.
That’s just the reality in 2025 and the state of social media.
But if you want to keep growing — and you want to fund that growth without draining your savings — a self-liquidating flywheel might be the smartest play you’re not using yet.
And if you want more strategies like this…
Every week I share tactics to help you grow, optimize, and monetize your newsletter—without the gimmicks.
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Trust me. I’ve tried all the major ESPs.
Kit offers the most user-friendly and customizable features for creators like us. I’ve been using Kit for nearly 4 years and recommend it to everyone — and not just because I’m an affiliate. I sincerely love the product, their team, and vibe.
Get a FREE Kit plan that includes your first 10,000 subscribers →
→ Check out my brand new podcast about newsletters with Chenell from Growth In Reverse👇
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