Touristy by Noor Chopra

Learn behind the scenes of a huge newsletter that reaches more than 92,000 subscribers every week!

Interview Date: June 18, 2023

Table of Content

Newsletter Identity Card
Start
Growth
Monetization
System and Productivity
Recommendations

CREATOR INTERVIEW

Today you will learn behind the scenes of a huge newsletter that reaches more than 92,000 subscribers every week!

Noor Chopra has successfully turned her passion for business to create a business out of it. She has been building her newsletter “Touristy” since Apr’20 and is fully committed to it. She covers business, tech and consumer-related news in Touristy with an easy-to-read format and an authentic tone of voice.

Let’s discover

how she got into the writing
why she switched from writing a travel blog to a global news newsletter
the secret recipe behind her newsletter’s growth
tips about running a newsletter that is NOT niched-based

and learnings, mistakes, recommendations and more about her newsletter journey.

NEWSLETTER IDENTITY CARD

TOOL STACK

ESP → Substack
Design → Canva

MEET THE CREATOR

Welcome Noor. Let’s start with getting to know you.

Hey, I’m Noor. I’m the founder of Touristy- a short-form newsletter on Business & Tech.

I founded Touristy in April 2020 as soon as Covid hit and we all went into lockdown. Besides my interest in business media, I’m very passionate about fashion and travel.

Obsessed with traveling especially- but who isn’t right? I love exploring new places and am grateful for all my experiences so far.

I also love outdoor activities- tennis, swimming, hiking, running to name a few. Basically, anything that allows me to be outdoors and switch off.

Having said that, while I love the calm of nature, for me nothing can compare the energy of a big city. It’s one of the reasons why I love New York so much. The energy in NY is incomparable.

In terms of my background- I was born and brought up in New Delhi, India. I went to NYU for my undergrad where I studied Economics. I then went on to do a Masters in Entrepreneurship from Cass Business School in London.

I started Touristy shortly after.

START

What is Touristy all about?

Touristy is a weekly newsletter that uses a witty sense of humor to break down the most important and culturally relevant ideas in Business, Tech, and Consumer Trends to an audience of 90,000+ subscribers.

Why and how did you decide to start Touristy in the first place?

So, Touristy was actually a travel blog that I started during my final year at NYU. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the world, so I started to pen down my experiences at luxury hotels to fine dining, culture and inspiring experiences!

That’s how I really got into writing and Touristy was born. However, in the pandemic, travel shut and I pivoted to business news.

“I didn’t change the name ‘Touristy’ as a reminder of how my business newsletter actually came out of struggling for +4 years of building a travel blog that didn’t go anywhere. No overnight successes here.”

In 2020, Touristy was born out of an obvious insight, that young people want news to be fun and I built a product around categories I love thinking, curating and conversing around. In addition, traditional news had become extremely negative during the pandemic.

All of this combined just naturally drew me to start a newsletter to cover global news- but with an informal tone and a sense of sarcasm to keep it light and fun.

To be honest, I was not expecting to monetize it when I began in March end/early April 2020. I was 26 when I started and it was just an authentic and fun way to deliver news in a format that my friends and I would actually want to read.

Can you take us through the process of creating the first version of your newsletter?

My first version is so different to what the newsletter is today!

I’d use 5 different fonts, colored backgrounds and barely wrote much! It had more images with catchy headlines that would redirect the user to my website.

I have no website now, just a landing page on Substack. So, a lot has changed!

GROWTH

How did you gain your first 1000 subscribers?

I had finished my Masters in London the year before I started Touristy.

I leveraged my college network to get going; Linkedin and Whatsapp groups I was a part of, were big for me that year.

“Most importantly, I did things that don’t scale for months. I reached out to hundreds of people online (friends and randoms) asking them if they’d like to subscribe.

You’d be surprised at how simply being genuine and kind can work like a charm for new readers. Finally, I built trust by being consistent which allowed word-of-mouth to spread organically.”

Which growth channels do you mainly use? Which ones are the most effective?

1. Substack platform features: have been extremely effective. Readers who have subscribed as a direct result of the leaderboard and recommendations have been significant. I’ve actually had tens of Substack writers recommend me to their audience, which has been awesome for organic growth.

I’ve also been very active on Substack chat and Notes the past few months. I post news in real-time everyday so my subscribers can stay updated daily, rather than just read my newsletter once a week.

2. Referral Program: I keep running referral programs; an opportunity for my readers to refer Touristy and earn rewards.For months, I gave away Amazon gift cards. Users get to choose anything from the Everything store. I had some great success there.

“Always remember- your users are your biggest marketers. All they need is a little motivation.“

3. Do the unscalable: this can be very uncomfortable in the beginning but it’s been key to my growth, as I mentioned earlier.

4. Existing (albeit, small) community from my travel blog from the years prior to joining Substack

5. Social media: LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram are my core channels.

All channels have been incredibly effective. I invest quite a bit of time on my personal accounts, which have been a great way to promote the newsletter and engage with subscribers.

“I’ve come to notice people are way more likely to subscribe if they can put a face behind the content/ product.“

I make sure that the link to subscribe to my newsletter is permanently in my bio on all channels.

You’re active both on Instagram and Twitter. Based on your experience so far, which one has a higher conversion?

I have not been regularly active on Twitter over the years. Having said that, I’ve doubled down this year and investing time daily.

I think it’s pretty obvious that anyone in business and tech could greatly benefit from Twitter in terms of positioning themselves and their brand.

I also started a Touristy Twitter account.

Regarding growth efforts, what would you do differently if you had a chance to start over?

I would have definitely spent more time on Twitter in terms of building a bigger community there- for my personal and newsletter account.

How do you track evolving needs of your subscriber base and ensure retention?

Keeping it once a week has been great for retention. No one likes their inbox to be bombarded by yet another newsletter every morning.

“I also like to mix it up and cover a range from Big Tech and Business to Fashion and Finance.

My newsletter is not niche-based, so it’s good to keep the content diverse and well-rounded.“

MONETIZATION

How do you make money with your newsletter currently?

My newsletter makes all of its money via newsletter ads/ sponsorships and affiliate deals.

How do you find your sponsors? How did your pricing evolve?

Initially, cold outreach but I get more inbound requests now.

As my community has grown, so has my pricing.

Sponsored ads range from $2000 and can go up to $5000 depending on goals and placement specifics.

E-MAIL SERVICE PROVIDER

Why did you choose Substack? Pros and cons?

I had been reading a lot about Substack when I joined. It was a simple, no-code newsletter-first solution for everything a creator needs. Plus, it was free.

Pros:

– Easy to use.
– Landing page and overall interface makes it frictionless to subscribe.
– Their community feature has been a gamechanger for growth.

Cons:

– They have a walled API which makes it difficult to integrate third-party platforms. This is the biggest disadvantage.

SYSTEM & PRODUCTIVITY

What is your typical weekly content curation system?

So, the only tool I use is Canva for graphics. If you go through my newsletter issues, you’ll see Touristy uses plenty of images & GIFS to make it more visually appealing and to make the content come alive.

I make sure to stay updated with what’s happening globally every day so I don’t need to cramp research all at once. When it comes to writing my newsletter, I simply choose the topics I believe to be most relevant to my community.

My news is also short-form, so it’s more about curation rather than in-depth research.

NEWSLETTER EXPERIENCE

How did writing Touristy contribute to your life professionally & personally?

It’s given me a sense of purpose and fulfillment like I’ve never had before.

It’s also given me the opportunity to connect with new people- like you 🙂. I think a huge part of being an entrepreneur is the opportunity of connecting with like-minded people.

“Just waking up everyday excited to build value for my community is the most underrated feeling in the world.”

What is the most challenging part of writing a newsletter and how do you handle it?

Personally, writing the newsletter comes naturally to me. It’s scaling it organically which is challenging. I think most people in this business would agree.

“I handle it by reminding myself that nothing (literally nothing) worth doing in life is easy.“

Can you tell us one mistake you made during your newsletter journey?

Don’t know if this counts as a mistake but the constant second-guessing myself during my first year took a massive toll on me. It’s a waste of time and energy to focus on things you cannot control.

FUTURE

What is next on your newsletter journey?

I want to keep growing Touristy. I have no plans to do anything else in the immediate short-term. I love creating value for my community, so I’m just going to stay at it.

“Long-term, I am contemplating starting a podcast for female entrepreneurs. It’s been on my mind of late—lots of young women are building great companies today.”