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Sep 10, 2026
Are newsletters the most valuable media assets right now?
Are newsletters the most valuable media assets right now?
00:00
36:42
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Transcript
0:00
That's a great question. No one ever asks me that, and it's, like, one of the hardest parts of [laughs] running the business. Welcome to yet another episode of the Letterstack Podcast.
0:09
You know what's better than actually building a business from zero to one? Acquiring an already established business.
0:16
You get revenue, you get customers who understand your product, and you get an audience which is validated before even you decide to start setting up shop. Th- there's only one catch, though:
0:29
you don't know how to accurately estimate value and buy a business. Alexis Grant is no exception to that scenario.
0:37
She has built and sold two huge content businesses, but she felt the same pinch when she started out thinking about selling these businesses on how to accurately value, and is she getting a fair estimate for her business?
0:51
So she decided to actually build education around the space with a venture and a media brand aptly called They Got Acquired.
1:01
They Got Acquired was started sometime in 2021, 2022, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the first early subscribers.
1:10
I devoured their reports with absolute enthusiasm, and I was thrilled to meet Alexis this year in February.
1:18
She's an exceptionally busy lady and she runs a very tight ship, so I was actually thrilled to know that she would be honored to come onto the podcast. So without much ado, Alexis, welcome to the podcast.
1:35
Yeah, thank you for that. I'm excited to chat. Awesome. Awesome.
1:39
Now, Alexis, before we get started about your journey and your career and building up to TGA, I wanted to know if you could give us some quick numbers around how many subscribers does TGA have on the newsletter? Mm-hmm.
1:53
Yeah, we have almost 10,000 subscribers. That's amazing, and I believe it's not just a newsletter. Obviously, there's a newsletter aspect to it, but I believe there are several aspects to the TGA media brand.
2:06
There's a course. There are these wonderful long-form reports. Uh, am I missing out on anything? I guess there's a consulting element as well? Yeah, I do a little bit of consulting. Um, I...
2:16
The newsletter is the main piece, though, and we have a podcast. Um, yeah, our reports.
2:22
Um, we send pretty much everything out through the newsletter, so if we ever release free resources, like we have a lot of templates, we send that out through the newsletter.
2:30
Awesome, and I believe this newsletter is twice a week at this point, correct? It's once a week, yep. It's once a week. Awesome. I, I believe it was twice a week earlier and didn't come out- It was at one point, yeah.
2:40
[laughs] Yes. It was at one point. Yeah. [laughs] I, I do follow that pretty closely- Mm-hmm... so which is why I was- Cool. [laughs]... surprised that it's pulled back to once a week. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but good to know.
2:49
But before we dive into the elements of how you built out They Got Acquired, one thing I know, and I'm sure you would agree too, Alexis, is buying and acquiring businesses, like I mentioned in the intro, is quite a bit of a black box.
3:05
And the marketplaces we know today, like Empire Flippers, Flippa- Mm... do a fair bit of education and evangelism, but there still remains a lot of enigma around how to accurately put a,
3:19
you know, cap to it or put a estimate to a business when you decide- Mm-hmm... to acquire it, right? I, I believe you went through that process, too, of searching around for reliable information- Mm-hmm...
3:31
and that the void of not having accurate or reliable information led to TGA. Mm-hmm. So would you mind talking a bit about what you went through when you built and sold these two businesses? Yeah, sure.
3:43
Yeah, I've sold two different content companies. The first one was a s- boutique agency, uh, content marketing agency, and I sold it in 2015.
3:53
And I sold that through what's called an acqui-hire, where I sold to a buyer and then myself and the members of my team, we all went in-house with that buyer, and I worked there for a number of years.
4:04
So that was my first experience, and then in 2021, I also sold a, um, a website for writers. It was called The Write Life. It was a site that I'd built, like, as a side project for years.
4:17
Um, and that was a very different experience because I sold to the buyer and then just kind of wiped my hands of it, and I passed it over- Yeah... and transitioned it, and I didn't have to do anything else with it.
4:26
But the common thread in both of these was I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing.
4:30
Of course, I knew a little bit more of what I was doing the second time, but when I looked, like, out there on the web for information, I really couldn't find a lot of people talking about smaller sales.
4:41
So at They Got Acquired, we say we cover six, seven, and low eight figure sales.
4:45
All the examples I saw were much bigger companies, and I didn't know how that information applied to me, and I also didn't know how to find professionals that wanted to work on, you know, quote, unquote, "smaller deals."
4:57
And they do exist. Now that I've been in this ecosystem for [laughs] a few years, I can tell you that. But- Yeah...
5:02
yeah, I didn't know how to find that, and so that's why I set out to create what They Got Acquired as a resource of information for founders who wanna learn how to sell. Awesome, and that actually brings a great point.
5:13
We, the media or traditional media outlets, do celebrate large eight figure, nine figure exits or acquisitions, but the five figure, six figure ones always fly under the radar.
5:25
And not a lot of people know that there are different aspects to buying internet businesses. Mm-hmm. For example, people might not know how an agency acquisition happens- Mm... or an acqui-hire happens.
5:36
People usually feel that the product is sold, not necessarily the team or the talent. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right?
5:42
Now, I understand that this would have been quite a bit of soul searching for you as well to find out the ideal audience to build the email list for TGA. Mm-hmm.
5:53
How did you go about, you know, scouring both sides of the marketplace, not just the supply of, of companies which are likely to get acquired, but also- Mm... the demand behind it? Yeah.
6:06
So, well, we really try to serve founders who want to sell. Like, they're building a business with a sale in mind, so that's like the audience that we're trying to serve.
6:14
But I will say, um, our email list, we also have lots of, um, advisors and brokers who subscribe, and we have people- Yeah... who wanna buy a business who subscribe.
6:25
So even though we're not, um, specifically serving those people, they find the stories interesting as well. 'Cause primarily what we share is stories of founders who have sold their business.
6:34
Um, so you're right, like the audience is people who want to sell. That's who we're trying to c- create content for, but then the stories we write are founders who have sold.
6:42
And so we do need like a stable of those types of people who are willing to be interviewed, and I have a team of reporters who write those stories. So we ask them questions, they write the stories.
6:52
Um, but we, yeah, we definitely need like a group of, of... We need to keep finding founders who are willing to share their stories as well.
6:58
So you're right, there's kind of a couple of different audiences that we're going after. Right. And, and what channels have worked for you?
7:05
What have been the watering holes where people who are curious to buy or sell a business hang out on? Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, I use LinkedIn a lot. That's what I like. I really...
7:17
I'm personally kind of over social, a lot of social media [laughs] right now, so I haven't really built the business around a lot of social channels. Um, but yeah, I use LinkedIn a lot. Um,
7:29
and I'm tr- From, from the beginning, I think we h- collected like 1,000 email addresses before we even launched, which was helpful, and we just put up like o- a one-page, very short landing page that said, "Hey, subscribe if you wanna learn about this when we launch."
7:45
And that was great because it gave me some extra time to try and get people onto the list. Right.
7:49
And then I think there was like some intrigue there, 'cause like they didn't know what it was gonna be or what they were gonna get.
7:54
Um, so I think in the early days that's one, that was one of the most helpful things is like h- giving people the way to sign up even before we were sending the emails. And then when we started sending the emails,
8:04
you know, they were going out to at least 1,000 people, so it felt more worth the work instead of sending it out to a really small group at the beginning. Awesome.
8:12
And I believe that there's no way to accurately understand the signal behind people looking to buy or sell. Mm.
8:21
So I'm guessing that you arrived at certain elements which make you understand that this i- this quality of subscribers are the right ones to go after and then decide to segment them accordingly. Mm-hmm. Yes.
8:34
So we go after business owners, and really our, and our ideal business owner is someone who's not like just starting a business either. It's someone who's, um, been running a business for a while.
8:46
Because one of the, one of the ways that we make money is we connect, um, like the founder who wants to sell, we connect them to advisors who can help them sell, like a good fit advisor, we suggest them.
8:57
And then that- Right... can turn into a referral fee for us. So the best, um, really people to get on our list are experienced business owners.
9:07
Um, but you're right, it's like really hard to tell that when people come in.
9:11
What we do really well, and the, part of the reason is 'cause I love this part, is like when people come in, we give them a survey and we learn about them right away.
9:18
So we do this over, like a lot of pe- a lot of people will, when someone comes in they'll also recommend other newsletters so they can make money. We don't do that because we want them to take our survey.
9:28
And in the survey we say, "Hey, who are you? Are you a business owner who wants to sell in the next year? Are you a business owner who's, uh, focused on building your business? Are you a buyer? Are you an advisor?"
9:39
And, um, and then we also like have other questions where we'll say like, "What kind of business are you building?" Or, um, you know, "What's your revenue level? How many people do you have?"
9:50
Um, and so this helps us know who we're serving. Um, so within like the, the subscribers that we have, we're really good at identifying like who is potentially the most valuable to us as a brand. Um- Awesome...
10:05
and also just like how can we serve them, 'cause based on those questions we'll serve them different content.
10:09
And we have different autoresponders that will go out to people based on what they say they, who they say they are, 'cause we can guess kind of what their needs are. Awesome.
10:17
That actually brings a good point that among these subscribers where you're actually collecting first party data as soon as- Mm-hmm...
10:23
they enroll into the email list, I'm assuming, and you could correct me if I'm wrong- Mm-hmm... that there is an invisible third party or a third persona in the mix where- Mm...
10:35
you get financiers who are willing to bankroll the acquisition as well. Of course, it wouldn't be large banks, but- Mm-hmm... there's always some element of credit which- Mm...
10:46
probably comes into the ecosystem even though the deal size might not be so big. Mm-hmm. Right? So do you also see a lot of people willing to put in money or bankroll or just invest in deal flow at this point?
10:57
Yeah, we have some investors. That's like one of the self-identifiers that we say, "Are you, who are you?" And some people will say, "I'm an investor." Um- Great...
11:06
that, yeah, they're definitely, they're definitely in there. [laughs] Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So wh- when these conversations happen, I know you have always been very transparent to the extent possible- Mm...
11:16
of the acquiring party, where you talk about terms and how did they actually split up the acquisition. Are there earn-outs? Mm. Did they have a deferred payment cycle, et cetera?
11:27
Uh, I'm assuming there's some bit of education and nurturing also to be done in this space where people are not very- Mm... vocal and transparent about what the terms were. Mm-hmm.
11:38
How much resistance have you faced in the initial days, and how were you able to overcome them to tell the story- Yeah... in, in full disclosure? That's a great question.
11:47
No one ever asked me that, and it's like one of the hardest parts [laughs] of running the business. Yeah.
11:51
So my background is in journalism, so I'm used to like telling stories and interviewing people and asking questions. Um-
11:58
And it's, it took a while to figure out, like, what was the best, um, kind of approach for this, 'cause it is a really tricky topic.
12:05
And we do get some founders who are willing to share their stories, and others who are really hesitant about it, and some of course who just refuse and they're not interested. Um- Right...
12:12
but what has worked best for us was say to them, "Hey, you don't have to share everything, but what can you share?" Right. "What are you interested in?
12:18
If you can't say what the sale price is, can you tell us it's a seven-figure sale? 'Cause that at least helps us put, like, a box around it.
12:24
Can you tell us what the revenue was, or what the sale multiple was when it sold, um, or how many employees you have?"
12:31
So we, like, look for details that they can share, even if they can't share the whole picture, 'cause that's helpful. And, and like sometimes- Right... someone will say, um,
12:41
you know, "I can't say the, share the sale price," but we'll say, "Oh, was there an earn-out component?"
12:45
Like, even just sharing those details, like there was an earn-out, that's helpful to other people in that space who are looking to sell to understand what's typical and what they can expect.
12:54
Um, but yeah, it's definitely tricky. Um, and it takes a lot of work reaching out to people, 'cause a lot of people say no. Right. Mm-hmm. Right. So, so,
13:07
you know, this actually has been a pet peeve when I started researching how to estimate value and acquire- Mm-hmm...
13:15
businesses too, is that I do understand there is a multiple associated for the future value of the business- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm... on which the sale is predicated. Mm-hmm.
13:25
But there are so many elements that people don't truly understand how to even value a business, even from a technical perspective. Forget about the business and the logistics- Mm... of acquiring it.
13:36
Uh, I assume you have been in the marketing space, so you understand a fair bit of how to understand SEO and- Mm-hmm... paid ads and all of this.
13:45
But do you see a lot of that education missing when people come to get acquired or looking to acquire? Mm-hmm. And you see a lot of missing education in that space as well, which is probably a future opportunity for TGA?
14:00
Yeah, for sure. I mean, most people that... So I do a lot of calls with founders who have a business that they wanna sell. Right. And most of those people don't know that much about the process.
14:09
Some- sometimes someone will come in and they've read our whole site and, like, done a lot of research about it. But usually- Right... they come in not knowing that much about the process.
14:18
Um, we have a sale multiple guide, which is like a download. Actually, I print it out and I, like, keep this in my office so I can just- [laughs]... refer to it. That's nice.
14:25
Um, but like, yeah, we- that's a digital kind of freebie that we have behind an email, um, wall. So, um, sometimes I'll explain to them, like, "Here's how sale multiples work." Yeah, there's,
14:38
there's tons of education that has to be done around, um, selling businesses. And even sometimes when... Like, I had a call this week with a founder who was fairly educated. Like, she'd read a lot of our content.
14:52
Um- Right... and still she did not really have a realistic picture of what her business might sell for, so I kind of talked her through that.
15:01
Um, it's common for founders to, like, overvalue what their business will sell for.
15:05
[laughs] And sometimes people know all the rules and all the conventions, and they think for some reason, like, their business is not gonna, is gonna do better than most. And it- Right...
15:15
sometimes that happens, which is great. Um, but what I try to do is, like, set really realistic expectations of the founders, so they go into the process and they kind of know what they're getting into.
15:24
Um, and, and then, like, if I do put them in touch with an advisor, they're not surprised at what they might be able to get for the business. Awesome. Awesome.
15:33
So, so if you wouldn't mind us moving a bit into the kind of volume of the content that you actually end up producing for- Mm-hmm... documenting an acquisition or a set of acquisitions like these. Mm-hmm.
15:46
I'm guessing there's only going to be a finite number, or you could surprise me by saying that there's way more, at least 100 times more volume- Mm-hmm... than we get to see in the market. Mm-hmm.
15:57
But I'm guessing there's always a finite number of companies being, uh, sold or acquired. So how do you keep up, and how do you build your content pipeline to make it sustainable for the team to be able to produce it?
16:11
I mean, there are tons of acquisitions, honestly. If we wanted to, we could write many, many more stories than we are. And there's been- Awesome...
16:19
as you mentioned, times during the evolution of the brand where we've pumped out way more stories than we are now. Right now we do about one a week. Um, and the- Great...
16:28
only reason I chose that is because it lets us have a newsletter. So we send a newsletter once a week, and I really want there to be a new story in each one. Um, and, like, yeah, could we, [laughs]
16:41
could we post a, a story every day? Absolutely. But I'm of the mind that, like, uh, you know, I've worked on content companies for years, right?
16:53
And it used- volume used to work, but I don't think that that necessarily works anymore. Um- Right... and I don't think it'd help us to do a lot of these stories.
17:03
And they're not cheap to produce, 'cause this is, like, real reporting. It's, um- Right... and it's original reporting. Like, a lot of these people haven't told their story before, or maybe there was- Right...
17:12
a story written about their company, but never about, like, their acquisition through their eyes. So
17:16
we're cr- we're generating original content, and it takes a r- real reporter to ask the questions, and we have to edit it. So, um, you know, it's not cheap content to create. So I try to keep, um...
17:29
My goal as, as, like, a business owner is, like, what's the minimum amount of content we need to keep growing the brand? And so- Right... that's, sometimes that changes.
17:37
But for, for right now, it works for us to have a post a week. Great. And I understand, you know, you're no stranger to being able to build out a very efficient kind of pipeline. Even in The Write Life, I- Mm-hmm...
17:50
gather that you have had tons of writers who have been able to build for this. I devoured your talk at CEX, so I know you have had that- Mm-hmm... pipeline built into place before you even launched the brand for TGA.
18:02
Mm-hmm. I do understand that the reports, which are pretty long-form, are intense- Mm-hmm... and it's way more laborious to create a report like these than to- Mm-hmm...
18:12
be able to churn out a weekly newsletter in the same cadence. Mm. So how do you keep up? Uh, are there any secrets that you could spill without giving away too much on how you have been able to- Mm...
18:24
build out this content engine at scale, Alexis? Well, yeah, a few things. One is we repurpose a lot of stuff. So the reports are basically repurposed stories. They're stories we've already written, and we just- Right...
18:37
aggregate similar types of stories and put them into one report. Um, that's been really effective for us in growing our email list. We get a...
18:45
'Cause we have lots of reports, like we'll have a report on newsletter businesses that sold. We have one on media companies that sold, another on, like, e-commerce companies.
18:52
So people look for the one that applies to them, and they download it, and that's how we collect people's emails. Um, it- they are really nicely designed, but it's already in... It's information we've already collected.
19:03
We don't have to write anything new for them. Right. And that's evolved, too. Like, if you looked at the reports we did at the beginning, um, for example, we had, like, the stories in the report, and now- Right...
19:14
there's a link out to the story. Like, each story gets, like, a slide with the basic information, and you can link to the website to read the full story. Um, so- Okay...
19:22
my point is just, like, we try to repurpose it because...
19:25
And I mean, we could be doing so much repurposing than we do now, like if we [laughs] wanted to do it on social or whatever, but right now, like, we write a story for the website. It goes in the newsletter.
19:34
It might go in a report. So we think about, like, how can we get more mileage from it? Um- Right. I also...
19:42
I mean, the real secret is, like, I've been running content companies for years, and so I have a, a small stable of people that I like to work with, and they know what I'm looking for.
19:52
And, um, you know, I've trained them previously, so it's makes it easier to get people to create the content and, like, be on the same page with them.
20:02
But just, like, having really, um, reliable writers that do a great job, it makes a world of difference. Um- Yeah... I'm super organized, so we use ClickUp as project management. And we will move...
20:17
Like, for every piece of content, it goes through our content queue. So there's a step in ClickUp for every step of the process.
20:23
You know, it's either been assigned, or it's in the editing queue, or, um, it's ready to go into the newsletter, or it's ready to go on LinkedIn.
20:31
Like, all of that's tracked in ClickUp, which is really helpful because, um, like I've kind of... So in the old days, I would think... When...
20:41
The way I thought about content was, let's get it live on the website, and then it has to go, you know, out immediately in the newsletter and then on social. Like, you wanna do all those things at the same time.
20:51
And now I actually don't think it really matters at all, so we might publish...
20:55
We try, try to get things live on the website as soon as we can just because I wanna publish it while the story's fresh, and we've had some instances- Right...
21:03
if it sits there, the founder might change their mind or whatever. Right. So we try to get it live when it's ready, but then it just goes in the newsletter whenever there's space for it.
21:11
So it might sit on a website, not go in the newsletter for two months, and it doesn't really matter when we send it- Right... because it's not newsy. These are evergreen pieces. And, um, just, like, that's not...
21:24
it doesn't affect our monetization. Like, we have to have something to go in the newsletter that's helpful to people, but it doesn't matter when they get that. So it's really had- Right...
21:31
forced me to rethink, like, okay, what are the old ways of doing things that I had ingrained in me that, like, we still have to do it that way? And the truth is you don't. So, like, even,
21:41
you know, another example is I used to try to say I'll, I'll publish a post a week on the same time every day- Right... or same, or same day every week, and we just now, we just po- publish posts when they're ready.
21:52
Like, I know that we're...
21:53
I'm assigning about four for a month and about four a month are coming in, but whenever they're ready, even if it's two days in a row, we just push it live, and then we can share it whenever we want.
22:03
It doesn't really matter. Great. Yeah. Google wouldn't care when it gets published- [laughs]... so I'm guessing that this will help you- And no one's looking at a website.
22:11
Like, in the old days, people would be looking at a website- True... like, "Oh, what's the new, um, you know, story?" Or, like, I still do that with The New York Times, but just not many of us behave that way anymore.
22:20
True. True. Mm. Yeah. Old habits die hard, so yeah. [laughs] Mm-hmm. Yeah. [laughs] I, I definitely understand that. Mm-hmm.
22:26
Um, one thing that you touched upon on repurposing, and I wanted to just quickly check what your opinion was on that. Mm-hmm.
22:33
I, I knew that you had started out repurposing some of that content and also putting a unique perspective on it on your audio podcast. Mm-hmm. But I believe that you put that on pause for a while- Mm-hmm...
22:45
but revived it again this year. Uh, what made you come back to the medium, and what's your thought behind reviving it again so that- Mm...
22:54
you know, I'm sure there are folks in the audience who have gone on and off on podcasting but- Mm-hmm... wanted to know your thoughts on it so that they get some new incentive to do that again too. Yeah.
23:06
So my thinking is that most of our audience only hears from me in my written voice because I don't do very many, like, video id- interviews like this. I don't share video on social. I just write.
23:21
I share photos so people might see, see what I look like, but, um, I think there's, like, such a level of trust that you can get when you can hear someone's voice, and so I wanted to kind of instill that again.
23:32
We ran a... We did a, um, a season of our podcast when we first launched the brand, which was really well-received, and actually I loved doing it.
23:39
We did an interview podcast, but it was a narrative style, so there's a story there. Right.
23:43
Anyways, it was really, um, expensive and energy-consuming to produce, and, um, so when I was trying to think about, like, is it worth bringing back, I realized my main goal here is just, like, let people hear my voice.
23:58
Let them see that I know what I'm talking about. You know, give them a chance to, like, get to know me a little bit since I am the face of the brand. Um-
24:09
And I want them to know, like, when someone wants to sell their business, it's like a really high-stakes position to be in.
24:14
You wanna feel like, "Oh, I can trust the person that I'm asking for advice," so I want to feel- them to feel that. True.
24:19
And so we relaunched the podcast this year, and we're just doing kind of a season, so it's not gonna be, like, indefinite.
24:26
But, um, instead of doing the interview narrative style format, it's just me talking and explaining a concept with some stories. It's usually between five and nine minutes long.
24:40
So it's like a quick way that you can learn something about M&A on your walk. You can hear my voice. Um,
24:47
so a- and also, like, I consume via podcasts a lot, and I want to make it easy for someone else to consume our information.
24:55
So I, I figure by putting this out there, it's like giving them another opportunity to hear from us in a different way. True. True.
25:03
And, and if I could probably correlate what you've probably talked about in previous interviews- Mm-hmm... uh, Alex says, "I know that you're a fan of How I Build This by Guy Raz." Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
25:14
And I, I sense some of that has rubbed off into- Mm... the narrative style that you do on the podcast too. So I wanna know if that is truly a thing, because I'm a big fan of How I Build This. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
25:25
Uh, um, Guy Raz is the reason why I stepped into media as well. Mm-hmm. Oh, cool. I'm hugely inspired- Mm-hmm... by his work. Mm-hmm. So I wanna know if that was a subconscious influence on, on your work too.
25:36
Uh, just curious. I mean, I love that podcast, so I'm sure it had some influence.
25:42
And, and honestly, like, I didn't do this intentionally, but I do think the style of our first season, where we interview people, is similar. Um- Okay...
25:50
and we w- we allowed to be th- bring this to this idea that, like, um, small- people who run smaller businesses are also worth hearing from.
26:00
So I think that's, like, the thing that we can do differently is, like, the type of guests that we bring on is maybe more relatable to many of us. 'Cause, like, lots of people run small businesses, right? And- True...
26:13
I would love to be as big as all of Guy Raz's guests, but [laughs] you know, many of us are not. And also, many of us want, like, a different lifestyle, where we wanna bootstrap a business- Yeah...
26:21
or we wanna, you know, pick our kids up from school. And so how can you build it at way, in a way that works for you? Hey, I'm a living example of that dream, so yeah. [laughs] Mm-hmm.
26:31
I'm, I'm building it as, as we, as we go, so- Mm-hmm... I'm in no position to just scale and burn fast. Mm-hmm. [laughs] So I'm just taking it slow. Mm-hmm. So I totally understand that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um,
26:44
this is a bit meta, and- Mm-hmm... I know we have talked about newsletter, and Letterstack is very focused on newsletters. Mm-hmm. I do understand that you cover newsletters as- Mm-hmm...
26:54
any other content acquisition would look like. I know that you've covered a couple in the past. I guess you have covered the Neuron in detail. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
27:02
Um, do you see a lot of newsletters also getting built substantially enough to get acquired?
27:10
And if yes, you know, what has been your learning in, in this space, especially when it comes to this as a newer media asset compared to blogs or YouTube channels which have been around for a while? Yeah, so
27:24
newsletters and really any media business has, like, a really interesting component to it, which is you can be valuable for the revenue or, or more the profit that you bring in.
27:34
And, and that's typically, like, when someone buys a business, they're buying it for the cashflow, right? For, for their EBITDA. Um- Right...
27:42
but when it, for a media business, you also have the audience, and it's, it's like... And many times it's just as valuable as or more valuable than the money that you bring in.
27:52
Um, I mean, what I always suggest to people who are running media companies is you wanna have the financial side set as well, 'cause it gives, it makes you much more appealing. Um,
28:01
but we have seen instances of, um, newsletters that have sold really for their audience, even if the financial piece hasn't been super strong.
28:09
Now, I, like, ha- almost hes- hesitate to say that, 'cause I sometimes hear from people who are like, "But I built a great, I built a great newsletter. It's a great audience.
28:16
You know, I should be able to sell this for tons of money." Yeah.
28:19
And the truth is, you know, it's, it's most valuable if it's also, if it is bringing in money, [laughs] if it is a solid business and you have solid business foundations.
28:29
Um, but in, sometimes in the right hands, the audience can also be valuable. And what I think is super interesting going into this next year is because it's becoming increasingly hard to build an organic audience online,
28:44
I think that more, um, more businesses that want those audiences but have trouble building it themselves will go out and acquire them.
28:57
And I actually think it's a super smart strategy, but if there's, like, a product business that doesn't have a huge audience to buy a newsletter, because most newsletter operators, they've
29:08
generated all this goodwill from their audience. They have, like, a loyal readership. People wanna hear from them.
29:14
And, like, if you can then translate that, translate that layer on top, a really solid monetization strategy, then that's can be a win for a brand. Awesome. And this is actually something that I've always wanted to know.
29:28
Mm-hmm. When you see these newsletters be on the brink of, you know, announcing that they would be up for sale or they're getting acquired- Mm-hmm...
29:36
do they usually go just for their email list as an asset, or they typically have multiple aspects to the media business, like a YouTube channel- Mm-hmm... and a podcast? Or have you seen,
29:51
you know, companies just build it off an email list and their audience quality itself- Mm-hmm... and they've been able to make, you know, reasonable money for that? Yeah, it really depends. I mean,
30:03
I talked to a guy last week who's selling a YouTube channel, and he doesn't have much else. It's a YouTube channel. It's a, it's a big one, so you know, I'm sure he'll make a lot of money when he sells it. Um- Right...
30:12
but then there are other media companies that really are more diversified. I mean, I think, like- Newsletter lists are the most valuable piece 'cause you own that, and it's not at the whim of an algorithm.
30:23
So whilst, with the exception of, like, some very social-focused communities, for most companies, the social presence is, like, a nice-to-have, but it's not gonna really add a lot of value to, like- Right...
30:38
how much you're getting paid in the deal because it just, you can't trust it. Like, it might work one way today, and then tomorrow it works differently.
30:46
I mean, I think in this moment right now, YouTube's a little different 'cause it is pretty reliable, and it's, like, I'd say, one of the only channels, if not the only one left, that's really like that.
30:57
I mean, we used to have, um, search. I know search isn't a, um, a channel per se, but it is a way of acquiring users.
31:06
And like, you know, back when I sold The Write Life, search was, I think, the most reliable way of acquiring users organically.
31:14
And in fact, like, that website was almost entire- almost all the traffic was search traffic, and that was so valuable, and that's why all these buyers wanted it.
31:23
Now you fast-forward to today, and no one would buy an asset that only has search traffic. Like, it would not be- Sure... it's too risky, right? So I think it really changes over time. Um- Mm...
31:34
and it, like, that's why I say, like, okay, that YouTube channel, right now I think that's a good bet. Will it definitely be that way in three years? I don't know. Might be different.
31:43
But that's another reason why newsletters and, like, the email list specifically is still valuable, because you do own that. I mean- Right...
31:50
I think we could see changes there too where, like, if Google continues to bury marketing emails, it makes it more difficult to make that work. But of all the options- The primary inbox. Yeah, yeah.
32:02
But- Of all the options, though, having an email list I think is definitely the most, um, low risk. Right. So you see most of these newsletter business operators- Mm-hmm...
32:13
just base their valuation solely on the email list, not on the ancillary channels that they have been growing on socials- Mm... as, as such. It really depends. I mean, yeah.
32:23
Well, I just, I mean, they, it also would be based, it's not just email. It's the email list, but it's how much money are they bringing in and what's their EBITDA- Sure...
32:30
or, or how much are they taking, how much is that owner taking home at the end of the day- Great... after expenses. Um, and the brand they've built plays in. Um,
32:42
but yeah, I think just specifically when it comes to social channels, they're just not that valuable. I mean, if they're regularly, on their own they're not that valuable.
32:53
If they are bringing you in money or subscribers on a- Right... consistently, then they can be valuable, but just kind of having them is not, like, doesn't do anything to move the needle for the business owner. For sure.
33:08
Um, one last question, and I know, you know, this is Letterstack, we're talking about new newsletter creators, not the ones- Mm-hmm... who have built an established business. Mm-hmm.
33:18
Uh, the reason why I ask this is I know every time I've seen you speak in conferences, you stress on being very intentional- Mm-hmm... about audience development.
33:28
So if somebody were to start out today and build a newsletter for a very niche audience, like, you know, buying and selling business acquisitions or newsletter acquisitions, you know, how would you advise that they go about developing that audience to in the first place, yeah?
33:46
I think the biggest thing is just creating content that they can't get anywhere else. And I mean, everyone thinks everything's been covered, but it really hasn't, especially if you niche down one more layer.
33:57
I mean- Right... I feel like there were a few people talking about M&A out there, but no one was really, like, the go-to resource for M&O. Right. Before we started, They Got Acquired, right?
34:06
And if someone, there aren't that many places where p- that people have to go to get this information. So what can you- Sure... create that is that valuable to someone that they will wanna subscribe and stay subscribed?
34:19
So I think it starts with that. It's like before you even try to find the people is, like, what can you give them that they care so much about that they're gonna wanna stay with you?
34:29
So that's the first thing I think about is, like, what value can I create? Um, and yeah, I think finding them is just gets harder and harder every year.
34:37
Like, I used to think I was, this was, like, what I was good at, and now, um, I feel like a dinosaur in terms of acquisition. A lot of people have moved to paid because organic's just really hard. Right.
34:48
It's really hard. Um- Yeah. I still love LinkedIn, but- I agree with you on that as well. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] It's hard. Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that definitely helps.
34:57
But this has been an amazing treasure trove of information that I'm sure anybody who's listening in will be, you know, super amazed to hear from you. Mm.
35:08
And I understand that you're speaking at a conference in February again. Mm-hmm. And I would be there in the audience to be listening to you. Okay, awesome. Yeah.
35:16
But if you wouldn't mind just letting the audience know where to find you. I mean, I'm sure there's LinkedIn and, and, uh, the site, which is theygotacquired.com. Mm-hmm.
35:27
But I also understand that there are other elements to this. You briefly mentioned having a course- Mm-hmm... for people who are looking to buy businesses. Mm. Uh, is that right?
35:36
So we have w- the course is for people who are running a business who wanna build it with a sale in mind, and it's, it's- Great... that's launching in January. So hopefully we'll have it out. Good. Yeah.
35:46
If you get on our email list, which you can do at theygotacquired.com, then you'll hear about the course when it's ready. And I'm also on LinkedIn if anyone wants to connect there. Perfect. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
35:56
So for everybody who's listening in, this was the lowdown on how They Got Acquired got built. And reach out to Alexis Grant if you're ever interested in buying or acquiring a business.
36:10
Uh, it could be a media brand, it could be an agency, it could be a newsletter for that matter.
36:15
So I would love if you have any questions about this particular niche in particular or how Alexis built out the TGA newsletter, I would be happy to send it to her.
36:25
But feel free to reach out to her on LinkedIn and of course, theygotacquired.com. Thank you so much for listening in, and we will see you in another episode of Letterstack Podcast. Goodbye. Thank you, Alexis.
36:38
Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun. [outro music]
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