How Ian Vorbach of SpaceDotBiz Gets 50% Open Rates

Space: The Final Frontier.

While there are endless exploration possibilities beyond our atmosphere, one space expert has decided to take people along for the ride: Ian Vorbach.

He’s a space and financial wiz who has joined the two worlds together within the fringe universe of space investments.

And his results are impressive – he’s built up a highly engaged space investment newsletter with an open rate over 50%.

We recently sat down with Ian Vorbach, the founder of the SpaceDotBiz newsletter, to discuss how he managed to create a space for himself in a unique sub-niche and create an engaged readership.

Ian was enthusiastic to share how his passion for the space industry accelerated his audience engagement. He shared plenty of advice for creators on his content strategy, how he found his community within other digital communities, and how diving into a small niche is the key to owning a space.

If you’re interested in starting your own newsletter, or you’re trying to improve your own publication, then keep reading. Ian’s story is unique in that he built his newsletter from the ground up by focusing on highly curated content rather than a daily news-style newsletter.

The SpaceDotBiz Backstory

Ian Vorbach is not like most people. He’s half spaceman and half business wiz.

He has a Masters in Aeronautical, Astronomical, and Aerospace engineering from Stanford University.

Not to mention, he also has an MBA from the Wharton School.

We asked Ian to share a bit about his background and what led him to create such a niche newsletter.

He shared, “My background is in aerospace engineering and rocket propulsion engineering, but I also have a business background in startups and in the space world.”

“I [also] have an MBA from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. I live in this world between building space technology, selling it, and finding the business for it. My newsletter is called SpaceDotBiz, and it's about startups in the space industry and also investing in startups in the space industry.”

Ian shared that it was his passion that drove him to launch his own newsletter.

“It really came a lot out of my own interests. I was just really passionate about this world. I live in this world. I'm a co-founder of a startup in the space industry. And what got me writing about it was [that] I was doing my MBA program at Wharton, and I had kind of become the space person at school because I was just thinking about this and living this, and it was a unique niche within the general finance community.”

Talking Space: Offline to Online

Like many people who start a newsletter, Ian started to realize he was the person his friends would always come to with questions about his passion.

“I had a lot of friends asking me, ‘How should I be thinking about the space industry?’ This was maybe 20201. I was having a lot of similar conversations talking about how I was thinking about the industry, talking about major players, and companies like SpaceX, and where are they positioning themselves, and where do they want to go?”

“The conversations were so similar. I thought, ‘What if I just write this out, and I have something I can share, and it almost becomes a more scalable way to have the discussions that I'm already having?’ The newsletter was really born out of that. I just enjoyed it so much.”

So, Ian took his conversations online with a newsletter to connect with more people in the small niche.

“Fortunately, there was early traction—a very small amount of traction—but it was there… Like 50 people at first who were just very passionate about this, and it's just sort of organically grown from there.”

Similar to others’ stories in the newsletter world, he started on Substack but switched over to beehiiv after hearing about it online.

“[The newsletter] started in late 20201, and then I moved it to beehiiv really early—I think in February or March of 2022, so maybe 15 months ago.”

Grinding Away to the Inflection Point

Ian describes his experience with his newsletter as a “grind.” While he lived and breathed this startup space world, it’s still work. He knew that if it was going to work, he’d have to put in some level of sweat equity.

He shared, “It starts off very much as a grind. So you really have to enjoy whatever the topic is. I've had a few friends who have started writing since I did. Some of them have continued doing it and some of them haven't. And what I tell people is, ‘If you can have the perspective that this is something you see yourself doing for five or ten years, that's really what you want to have.’”

Ian shared that the key to getting through and working away when you don’t want to is by picking a topic you love.

“There's going to be extended periods of time where you're like, ‘Why aren't I growing the way I want to?’ And in that case, it's really just got to be an interesting thing for you to keep doing.”

Eventually, Ian’s hard work started paying off. Eventually, he reached his inflection point–a point at which a change in the direction occurs on a curve.

“It took me about two years to get to my first 1000 subscribers,” he shared “It was a pretty gradual process, with periods of time where an article would get picked up by someone and that would get a little more traction. I'd get maybe a hundred subscribers or fifty subscribers [that way].”

“Those were big moments for me. Since then, it's hit an inflection point. It took me another six months to get to 2,000.”

“There are people who post something, and they have an existing audience, and they have a thousand subscribers in their first week. That was not my experience. But I'm living in this world professionally already, so there's really nothing else I want to write about. There's nothing else. It's a grind, but the people have been very passionate about it.”

50% Open Rates

While Ian’s growth is accelerating, that’s not all. His passion for the industry, and his ability to create high quality content, has led to some incredible engagement metrics.

He shared, “I've had an over 50% open rate since I started it.”

“One of the things I started doing recently to try to maintain a good open rate is to unsubscribe people who are not reading it. And I’m trying to remember that the total number of subscribers is a vanity metric and you're really more focused on engagement.”

Fortunately, he chose a niche people already love…