The Newsletter Conference by Ryan Sager & Jesse Watkins

First offline gathering about newsletters for newsletter professionals! Join and get insights on the newsletter world.

Interview Date: April 07, 2024

Table of Content

Founder Interview
Identity Card
Meet the Founders
Meet the Newsletter Conference
Speakers and Agenda

FOUNDER INTERVIEW

In February 2024, I wrote a newsletter issue where I mentioned my willingness to see more offline events for newsletter creators. Just a few days after, I saw a social media post where Ryan Sager announced they are organizing The Newsletter Conference.

Imagine how much I got excited!

The Newsletter Conference is the FIRST-EVER offline gathering organized only for newsletter creators. It tells a lot about the growth and potential of the newsletter industry and provides a great opportunity for newsletter creators around the world to meet and learn from each other.

I really want us to understand that this is a milestone for the newsletter space.

So, I thought we should listen to what it really means to newsletter creators from the founders of the event.

Today, you’ll read an exclusive interview with Ryan Sager, who is the co-founder of The Newsletter Conference. He kindly answered my questions about:

How they ended up deciding there was a need for an offline event specific to newsletter creators
Who should exactly come
What kind of networking opportunities they offer
How they shaped the speaker line-up
What they aim attendees say after the conference

Let’s dive in!

THE NEWSLETTER CONFERENCE IDENTITY CARD

SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR YOU

I’m thrilled to be a partner of The Newsletter Conference. Within the context of our partnership, the conference team kindly offered a special discount to you, Newsletter Circle subscribers.

I already bought my ticket. If you decide to join me after reading today’s interview, use CIRCLE codeto get $100 off your ticket.

I really hope to see you there!

MEET THE FOUNDERS

Welcome Ryan. Let’s start by getting to know you and hearing about how you came up with the idea of The Newsletter Conference.

Thanks for featuring us! My background is primarily in big media, at places like the Wall Street Journal and TIME Magazine.

I met my co-founder, Jesse, at a company called Ladders, where we stood up a media operation about the future of work. As part of that, we built out a large newsletter program, which drove all of our ad revenue. Jesse came in and just monetized the heck out of that. Ultimately, we built it into a multi-million-dollar media business per year.

After that, we did third-party sales for some big newsletters for a while, selling ad inventory for them. And, as part of doing that, we needed a way to track who was sponsoring what newsletters. Initially, I just built out a huge Airtable of sponsors for our internal use. But as the database grew, we realized that this was a data product that we should sell to newsletter publishers.

We then turned our internal product into what is now Who Sponsors Stuff.

Now, more than 60 newsletter publishers, from the big guys like Morning Brew and The Daily Upside, down to individual creators use us to power intelligence about the email ad market and to power their sales outreach.

“As we have operated in the newsletter industry, we ultimately became concerned that there was nowhere for newsletter people to connect with each other.

Individual newsletter publications were often very siloed, and newsletter people within bigger traditional places were also often siloed from the rest of their organizations.”

So, about a year and a half ago, along with Dan Oshinsky, we started doing a series of private dinners for newsletter operators called Dine & Deliver. These are small, intimate, off-the-record dinners with about 20 to 30 operators in the room. We had to set up an application process to manage the flow of people who wanted to attend. We ended up getting 700-plus applications last year, which really solidified our view that the industry needed some big ways to connect.

“The Newsletter Conference is really the culmination of our long-standing project to bring the newsletter industry and community together.”

MEET THE NEWSLETTER CONFERENCE

What is The Newsletter Conference all about? What is your main objective with it in a few sentences?

The Newsletter Conference is here to bring together the broad-ranging community of newsletter operators, professionals, and creators who have very few other avenues through which to connect with each other.

The programming will be serving all sorts of people in the industry, from editorial to revenue to growth to operations. We’ll be hitting B2C media, B2B media, local media, creators, and really everything under the sun.

We noticed several events aimed at content creators, but there wasn’t one specifically focused on the newsletter space.

What motivated you to organize the first offline gathering exclusively for newsletter creators?

This is an important point, and it goes to the heart of why we are doing this. There are conferences for digital media, conferences for creators, conferences for email marketers. But there has long been a gap where there is not anything specifically aimed at newsletter publishers.

“Given the tremendous growth in the newsletter industry in the last three or four years, we saw this as a pretty big gap to fill.“

Obviously, we have seen some independent newsletter publishers blow up and even have huge exits.

“But another thing that I find interesting right now is how much traditional media is finally starting to realize the power of newsletters.“

In a world where cookies are going away and Facebook is increasingly unreliable, there is a tremendous amount to be said for an owned channel like email.

WHO SHOULD JOIN

Is there a particular group of newsletter creators you’re targeting with The Newsletter Conference? Or can any newsletter creator, whether they’re just starting out or a seasoned professional, benefit from attending?

“I truly think newsletter operators at almost any scale will find a lot that will benefit them at this conference.”

We have representatives of some of the biggest news brands in the world who will be on stage. And we have completely independent creators. The lessons about content, growth, monetizing through ads and memberships and events… all of these things are applicable in different ways for different-sized organizations.

On top of the programming from the main stage, there will also be some lunch-and-learn workshops in the middle of the day that will be much more nuts and bolts and hands-on for people to take away very practical lessons and speak one-on-one with some of the top people in the industry.

“If you own a newsletter, if you work at a newsletter, if you’re in charge of newsletters at a traditional media organization, if you’re a creator growing your audience with a newsletter, you will find a tremendous amount of value at this conference.”

SPEAKERS & AGENDA

There is an exceptional lineup of speakers with industry experts such as Dan Oshinsky (Inbox Collective), Adam Ryan (Workweek), Erika Burghardt (1440), Ryan Heafy (6AM city), Matt McGarry (Newsletter Operators) and many more.

What did you pay attention to the most while creating the speakers’ line-up?

I think I can say with no vanity whatsoever that this is just a tremendous All Star lineup. We were extraordinarily gratified by the people who quickly said yes to being on stage. Again, we think this just speaks to the incredible appetite out there for getting newsletter people together in a room and to talk shop and talk strategy and tactics and to talk about the big picture with the smartest people in the newsletter industry.

Which topics do you aim to be covered throughout the day?

“Suffice it to say there will be big panels on content, growth, ads and revenue, business models, the future of local news… did I mention growth? We will have you covered on growth!”

You can see the full agenda on the website.

NETWORKING

In addition to the opportunity to listen to valuable speakers, I believe this conference will provide an excellent opportunity for participants to network and connect with each other.

What networking opportunities are waiting for attendees throughout the event?

Networking will be a huge component of The Newsletter Conference.

We know you don’t just want to hear us talk, you want to meet and mingle with all the smart people coming from all over the world.

“For people who get the VIP ticket, we have a VIP welcome dinner on the evening before the conference (Thursday, May 2nd; the conference is on Friday, May 3).

And in addition to the ability to network throughout the day at the conference, we will also be hosting a drinks reception right after the conference around the corner from the venue.”

So, if you are most interested in networking and getting to know folks, there will be absolutely no shortage of opportunities to do so.

WHY NEWSLETTER CREATORS SHOULD COME

What do you imagine to hear from attendees at the end of the conference day?

“Ha – Well, I hope/imagine it will sound a lot like what we hear after our Dine & Deliver dinners:

“I learned so much and I met so many amazing people.”

As with all the events we have run in the space, the top thing we love hearing is that people are going to get together again—or that a wonderful partnership has sprung from the introductions we were able to make.

FINAL WORDS

Thank you so much for having me.

The whole process of starting and running The Newsletter Conference has just been tremendously gratifying, to see people responding in such an amazing way and to see people coming from not just around the country but around the world to meet the wonderful folks in this industry.

“We hope you’re able to join us May 3 in NYC, but if not we hope to catch you next year or at one of our dinners throughout the year.

Anyone who would like to get in touch, can reach me at this email address: ryan@whosponsorsstuff.com.”