Local Newsletters 101: What the Business Really Takes

This is the first episode of the show, recorded in early March 2025. TJ gives a quick overview of the local newsletter business: what it is, where the opportunity sits, what the money looks like, and what he thinks AI and new competition will do to it. He also shows the real stats and layout of Leander Scoop, which he started in October 2024. If you are thinking about starting one, watch this first.

Think media brand, not just a newsletter

TJ says the show is called "local newsletter insider" because that is what people search for. But he thinks of the business as a local media brand. The people doing this well treat it as a media company, and a newsletter that goes out once or twice a week is unlikely to get you where you want to go on its own.

The newsletter is the foundation. After that, he ranks Instagram as the second priority, with cross-posts to Facebook and maybe some TikTok. He has started a local podcast interviewing business owners and anyone doing something interesting. And he is working toward a full website that people can search like any normal news site, though he says giving the content away without an email signup has trade-offs he is still figuring out.

This matters because AI is going to get better at curation. A brand people recognize in several places is harder for AI to copy than an email list.

Local media is dying, and that leaves a gap

TJ's read on the opportunity is simple: local journalism is dying, especially outside big cities. Residents are tired of missing events. They hit save on a Facebook event and never get reminded, or they have to search Meetup, or they wonder whether the news is on the TV station or a poor local newspaper website.

His advice on where to start is specific. Avoid big cities like Houston, Los Angeles or New York unless you have a niche, such as families in Los Angeles or tech events in San Francisco. The play is in suburbs and smaller areas with at least 50,000 people. He would not do one under 75,000 to 100,000 himself, but he treats 50,000 as the floor.

The first job is curation. It takes time but it is not complicated, and it solves a real problem for residents. In TJ's words, you are giving people what they want on a silver platter.

Curation matters more with AI, but it is not a moat by itself

TJ believes curation will be 10 times, 100 times more important as AI spreads, whether you are curating local news or B2B content. But he is careful about one thing. AI will probably get better at curation too, so you need something else protecting you.

His answer is the brand around the newsletter: social media, a podcast, and a newsletter that looks good. He is betting AI is unlikely to put in the effort to make a newsletter visually appealing. That is also why he uses Canva for all of his designs, and why he says you do not need that polish to start, but should add it as you grow.

What a Leander Scoop issue looks like

Using his Beehiiv account, TJ shows the stats for Leander Scoop and walks through a recent issue. Open and click rates are high. Most email newsletters would get 25% if they were lucky, and 30 to 40% is very good, but in local newsletters people care about where they live, so high engagement comes more easily.

The issue runs in this order:

• Editorial: with a photo or GIF so it is not too much text.
• Polls: newly added, good for engagement and clicks.
• Featured event of the week: TJ wants to charge for this placement eventually.
• Local news: curated, Morning Brew style, quick to read.
• Ad slot: that week it was an ad for advertising with the newsletter itself.
• Restaurants, featured businesses and a fancy home: the home is a slot a real estate agent could use for their own listings.
• Events: which he says is the piece people love most.
• Podcast: that issue was the first to include it.

What a subscriber costs, and why monetizing is the real problem

Almost everyone grows with Facebook ads. Around 20 cents a subscriber is incredible and most people cannot stay there. 30 to 50 cents is very good, 50 to 75 cents is manageable, 75 cents to a dollar is viable but not great, and anything over a dollar is a bad idea. TJ says you need to figure out how to get under a dollar.

Then comes the downside. TJ says plainly that they have not monetized yet. They are getting more inbound interest and he is sending some cold emails, but he has not made it a priority. With almost 7,000 subscribers on each newsletter, he says 14,000 is too many to have without advertisers.

His warning is for anyone who plans to throw $10 a day at ads and hope for $50,000 a year from advertisers. He does not think that will happen. If you are good at sales and understand the game, advertising might get you to low six figures at scale. If you just want to be the person in a small town who provides value, that is a fine reason to do it too.

The better play: own a business the newsletter can advertise

TJ's stronger recommendation is to own a business that you can advertise inside your own newsletter, ideally one with high lifetime value per client. Real estate agents, mortgage brokers and insurance brokers fit. He thinks home service owners may be the best fit of all, such as lawn care, HVAC, roofing or window cleaning, because lifetime value may be lower but every reader might be a client.

His own business is a digital marketing agency, which he says is not as good a fit because only businesses need that. He still thinks it could pay off.

The idea is to make money indirectly. Most newsletters run two ads as a standard, so one slot can be your own company and the other can be one you sell. Because your company is in front of readers constantly, they learn to trust it.

How to get started

TJ says getting started is actually quite easy. There are three main steps.

You also have a lot of freedom in what goes in. TJ has seen newsletters that are events only, and says that is probably the 80/20 of the model: you get about 80% of the value for 20% of the time. Smaller steps like welcome emails, tracking and ad copy matter too, but he skipped them in this overview.

The challenges that make people quit

If you dabble, TJ thinks you will burn out, because the return on effort is low for quite a while. He says he hates to push people away, but you should know what you are getting into.

For him that means at least $8 to 10 grand on Facebook ads alone, plus the Beehiiv fee and an assistant who also helps with other things. He and his wife work about 60 hours a week between them, for five months, with nothing to show financially. He can afford that because he sold his last company. He also admits they overdo things and are probably the slowest in the industry because they are perfectionists. You can move faster, though quality may suffer, and he thinks that probably does not matter at the start.

Competition, AI and 6AM City

TJ had just come back from a newsletter conference in Austin. He is very bullish on the industry, but he says competition is coming, which is part of why he started the channel. More entrepreneurs will try it, and the risk depends on where you live. In a town of 50,000 to 75,000 people it is less of a concern, but a really good market could get crowded.

AI cuts both ways. It should make life easier with tools that streamline manual work, but easier also means more people starting. And bigger players are expanding: TJ calls 6AM City the biggest company doing this kind of thing, says its CEO spoke at the conference, and believes they have raised funds and are building tools.

His conclusion is the same as the rest of the episode. Do not do this if you are dabbling, because you need to go all in to make it work over the long term.