Lessons learned while growing Exploding Topics from a side project to significant revenue

Thursday was my last day with Exploding Topics (a newsletter for discovering emerging trends).

Working with Brian Dean and @joshahowarth was an incredible privilege. And it was exciting to help grow something that started out as Josh's side project into a full-blown business.

Here are some things I learned from the experience.

#1: Test your pricing. Lots.

I think we went through 5 pricing options in just a few months after launching our paid product.

Plus we tested annual only plans vs annual + monthly. Plus added an alternate payment method.

And we offer trials, which made the testing process more complex.

But all that testing probably ~doubled our sales.

#2: NHTC.

This is something Brian and the Backlinko team say internally. But we stole it for Exploding Topics.

It means "never hurts to check".

Like: "Is X in place for tomorrow's launch? I bet yes but NHTC."

It's a great way to normalize "dumb questions". And it saved us more than once.

#3: Tactics need to evolve.

Initially, one of our main growth tactics was email sponsor partnerships. Trading ad slots with other newsletters.

It was great for early momentum. But once we hit around 50k subscribers, we started getting diminishing returns.

Now our ad slots point to our paid product, which pays off much better.

#4: Meetings matter.

I hate meetings. But jumping on a Zoom or voice call at least ~1x/mo is super important.

Even though we mostly goofed off during them, they also generated some great ideas.

And regularly seeing each others' faces keeps everyone connected on a human level.

#5: Focus, focus, focus.

We often disagreed about what to do next. But we always favored doing less — but better.

Sure, we added some great tool features over time. And the newsletters evolved quite a bit.

But the vast majority of ideas we had just didn't make the cut. Instead, we kept growing by focusing on the few things that made a bigger difference.

#6: Never stop improving.

Kind of silly to say this about a 1-year-old startup. But there were a bunch of times we could've just let things be "good enough". But didn't.

Like the weekly Pro reports (paid newsletter).

Each one took ~2 days to make at first. And they were good! But over time, we made them MUCH better.

Now they're incredibly research-heavy. Dozens of hours go into each. Plus a rigorous editing process. And it 100% shows.

That level of quality isn't super easy to sustain for a small team.

But when something is that hard to make, it also gives you a clue about its value. You're saving your customers a ton of time and effort by doing all that work for them.

Doing hard things can also be a competitive advantage: it makes it difficult for others to offer the same value.

#7: 3 votes are faster than 2.

Most co-founder teams are 2 people. The problem in that case is that you run into ties. Especially when you're both super passionate.

But with 3, there's always a tiebreaker.

#8: Customer service = great insights.

At first we only offered annual plans. BUT if a customer wanted to cancel, we'd let them downgrade from annual to monthly.

It reduced churn by a lot.

But more importantly, it ultimately convinced us to offer monthly plans to everyone.

Listening to your customers sounds obvious. But it's easy to forget.

And here's the thing:

You shouldn't necessarily listen to unsatisfied customers' complaints about your core product. Because changing your core product can alienate your happy customers.

Instead, think about why your marketing brought in the wrong people. Or promised the wrong thing.

Okay, I'm going to wrap this up.

I'd be remiss if I didn't plug Exploding Topics real quick. Even though I've moved on, it's still going strong and growing fast. Definitely check it out if you want to stay ahead of the curve or base your next project on an upcoming trend.

As for me: I'll be blogging about growth strategies over at GrowthBadger. Big things coming there soon.