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In today's newsletter:
Latest Podcasts: What You Missed
The 10 Money Skills Every Microteam Should Master - You’re great at what you do. But if the money side of your business feels confusing, stressful, or weirdly fragile, this episode is required listening.
What Can You Learn from 22 Microteam Success Stories? (…Plus 1) - Real microteams, real results, and the repeatable patterns behind outsized growth with tiny teams… and one notable failure.
Interview with Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier - How Zapier scaled with leverage, automation, and focus instead of hiring and organizational bloat.
Interview with Fabian Veit, CEO of Make - How advanced automation helps microteams remove busywork and scale faster without added headcount.
1440 Media: The $1M RPE Single-Channel Strategy
What if I told you there's a media company that:
Has zero social media presence
Doesn't do SEO
Runs no paid ads
Publishes only one thing, once a day
And generates over $50 million in annual revenue with just 50 employees?
Revenue per employee: Over $1 million.
You'd probably think I'm lying. But I'm not.
Meet 1440 Media: the most quietly profitable newsletter company you've never heard of.
And their strategy is shockingly simple: Do one thing. Do it exceptionally well. Ignore everything else.
The Newsletter That Reached 3.5 Million Subscribers Without Social Media
Most media companies chase every distribution channel:
Instagram reels
TikTok videos
Twitter threads
LinkedIn posts
YouTube clips
Blog SEO
Paid ads
1440 does none of that.
They publish a single daily newsletter called 1440. That's it.
No Instagram. No TikTok. No content marketing. Just email.
And yet:
3.5+ million subscribers (and growing)
40%+ open rates (industry average: 20%)
$50M+ annual revenue (from ads and sponsorships)
50 employees (that's $1M revenue per employee)
To put that in perspective, BuzzFeed—at its peak—had 1,700 employees and made $300K per employee.
1440 makes 3x more per person with a fraction of the complexity.
How?
By rejecting the "more channels = more growth" myth and going all-in on email.
The Single-Channel Strategy: Why It Works
Here's what most founders get wrong about growth:
They think: "I need to be everywhere to reach everyone."
So they spread thin:
Posting on 5 social platforms
Running ads on Google and Facebook
Publishing blogs for SEO
Trying to go viral on TikTok
Result? Mediocre performance across all channels. Burnout. No focus.
1440 did the opposite.
They asked: "What's the ONE channel that aligns with our strengths and our audience's behavior?"
Answer: Email.
Here's why:
1. Email ownership: Social platforms can change algorithms overnight. Email is owned distribution. You control the list.
2. Email monetization: Ad CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) for email newsletters are 10-50x higher than social media. Sponsors pay $40-$100 CPM for email ads vs. $2-10 CPM for social ads.
3. Email audience quality: Email subscribers are high-intent. They gave you their inbox. That's valuable. Social followers? They might've followed you by accident while scrolling.
4. Email scales with less complexity: One email per day = one piece of content. Compare that to posting 3x/day on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.
1440's bet: If we master email, we don't need anything else.
And they were right.
How 1440 Built a $50M Business on Email Alone
Let's break down the 1440 playbook: