The Creator Spotlight Podcast Creator Spotlight

Today's guest is PJ Milani, a high school animation teacher recently turned social media star. He’s known for his “visual metaphors” — single-panel illustrations featuring lessons about life and creativity. Across his socials he has over 200k followers, his newsletter has 16k subscribers, and he teaches a perennially sold-out cohort course about visual thinking on Maven.

In this issue, we discuss:
🌱 Organic growth🔜 Trusting the process, every day🎨 What it means to live a creative life🤝 Working in community with other creators
Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Ryan Broderick is the creator of Garbage Day, “A newsletter about having fun online.” He’s among the most popular journalists-turned-newsletter-creators out there. It’s clear by the numbers (68k subscribers, 3k of whom pay for premium content), praise from other creators, and the nearly 200 press clippings on his About page.
In this episode we discuss:
📰 There’s (almost) no difference between journalists and creators🛋️ Why you need a Simpsons couch gag in your newsletter🫵 Every American is a journalist (if they want to be)🚖 Creators are Uber drivers for content🧑‍🎓 Garbage Day is on the syllabusIntro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Jared Dashevsky runs Healthcare Huddle, a twice-weekly newsletter for physicians and other healthcare professionals. In just over four years, he’s built an audience of 30,000. He’s also built a team of 13, dismantled that team and been acquired. But today, Jared is once again a solo creator.
In this episode, we discuss:
🎓️ The cap on how far Healthcare Huddle can or should scale😍 Understanding your newsletter’s “true fans”✍️ Creating a sustainable newsletter workflow🧠 Jared’s four key lessons from four years of newslettering↩️ Pivoting from a B2C to B2B audienceIntro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Arielle Nissenblatt knows podcasts. She writes a weekly newsletter about podcasts, hosts a podcast version of that newsletter, co-hosts another weekly podcast and a daily podcast. She runs a Discord community for podcasters. On top of all that, she works full-time as a community marketing manager at Descript.
In this episode, we discuss:
🤝 How Arielle broke into the podcasting industry🎙️ Why you should not start a podcast (unless you should)🫂 What “community” means to brands and creators💖 The potential of creator advocacy organizations🏠 How brands should work with in-house creatorsIntro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Ryan Sneddon runs Naptown Scoop, a local newsletter serving Annapolis, Maryland. In three-and-a-half years, he’s built an audience of over 18,000 (nearly half the town’s population), and last year the business generated around $200,000 in revenue.
In this episode, we discuss:
🏘️ How Ryan got half the town to sign up for the Scoop👩 Exactly how Ryan defined his core reader 💲 How Ryan prices the newsletter’s ad spots👀 The Scoop’s simple and incredibly effective referral system📈 Ryan’s plans to increase revenue by 175% this year

Ali built an audience of over 7,000 subscribers before he even sent the first issue of his newsletter, AI for Work. He would only end up sending 13 issues before (at approximately 30,000 subscribers) he went looking for advice on how to monetize and ending up selling the whole thing instead.

We spent an hour discussing:

🧲 How he built an ingenious, highly successful lead magnet👀 Emailing every new subscriber to build relationships💰️ Experimenting with monetization🤖 Using TikTok to grow his email list (without making his own videos)📰 His plans to start a local news newsletterIntro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.