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How ChatGPT Central Hit 60,000 Subscribers With a ‘Give Back’ Strategy
The Story to 60,000 Subscribers in 20 Months
Kanishka & Brandon Storey
December 11th, 2024
Newsletters are all about numbers.
Email list size.
Open rates.
Revenue.
But, what if it isn’t always about the numbers?
ChatGPT Central recently reached over 60,000 subscribers and a total audience of 150,000 people— which is an incredible accomplishment.
But, Kris, the founder, shared how the key to her success has been to look beyond the numbers and instead, focus on the individual on the other side of the internet and give back to them.
ChatGPT Central is an AI newsletter that gives people the top AI resources, tools, prompts, and more to help them harness the power of AI to level up in their field.
In the weekly newsletter, the founder, Kris, shares the latest breakdowns of the best resources, tools, and guides to help you get more out of AI.
Now, let’s dive into how beehiiv helped her grow her newsletter list to 60,000 readers in 20 months by leveraging a “give-first” growth strategy.
Table of Contents
ChatGPT Central Backstory: Substack to beehiiv
ChatGPT Central is an AI publication on beehiiv that just reached 60,000 subscribers.
The newsletter was started by Kris, a former data scientist and mathematician.
Kris shared, “I started out as a data scientist. I’ve always been a technical person. My foundation is more of a mathematical, traditional approach. So when ChatGPT came out, I was super excited. At that time in my life, I had a little more free time. So I had the time to become super nerdy about it.”
What started as a passion project for Kris, quickly turned into a real business.
She recalled, “I started collecting thousands of PDF tutorials and articles. Since I'm a researcher at the core, I started creating my own library of content. Then I began sharing this library with my friends because they were also eager to learn. This was the trigger needed to start a publication.”
What Kris noticed, though, was that there were a lot of people entering the AI content space, but they typically didn’t have much of a background in AI. So, naturally, she saw she’d have an advantage.
She shared, “There were a lot of AI ‘overnight experts’ — people that sold the big opportunity of quickly monetizing with AI. I knew my library was valuable, so I said, ‘I'm going to open a LinkedIn page and only post documents from my library. I want to share it with the world, piece by piece.’”
And Kris was right. Her AI content was extremely valuable. The next thing she knew, her LinkedIn started taking off.
She shared, “My LinkedIn was growing fast in the beginning. We reached 15,000 followers on LinkedIn. Then I said, ‘Maybe there is some opportunity there to not only have this as a side project on the weekends – but really start creating and giving the attention that it deserves.’”
That’s where her newsletter came in.
She recalled, “I started on Substack in March 2023 and we grew to about 10,000 subscribers in six months.”
While Kris experienced solid growth on Substack, she had some issues with it.
She shared, “I don’t want to say bad things about the platform. But, it’s not a platform built for growth. I couldn’t use automations. I couldn’t monetize properly. So beehiiv made so much sense at the time. Substack also took 10% off each sale that I made with the paid subscription. So I said to myself, ‘Okay, let's switch over.’”
So, Kris started a brand new publication on beehiiv while continuing her original newsletter on Substack. 3 months later, she decided to move the entire thing solely onto beehiiv.
Kris admitted, “I was scared I was going to lose my subscribers, but that didn’t happen at all.”
And, she wasn’t just worried about losing subscribers in the migration process. She also wasn’t sure how her growth would be on beehiiv since most of her growth to 10,000 subscribers on Substack was organic.
But, since switching to beehiiv, her list is now more than five times bigger than it was on Substack, at over 60,000 subscribers.
She continued, “My vision (inside your vision) is that the real value proposition is that you can build your content architecture around beehiiv. And, you’re able to seamlessly monetize this process.”
beehiiv is Eating The Honey It’s Serving
One thing about beehiiv that stood out to Kris is how involved beehiiv’s team is with their product.
They don’t just talk the talk. They walk the walk.
Kris shared, “I see Tyler Denk (beehiiv’s CEO) using the product. I see him being a normal guy. He makes mistakes. And I see employees behind him using the product.”
Explained Kris, “This is the best marketing I’ve ever seen and it’s so underrepresented in the industry. You don't see Mailchimp’s CEO launching and running his own newsletter.”
Rewarding Subscribers & Fueling Engagement
With ChatGPT Central, Kris’ main job is to educate her audience on all things AI by grading different AI tools and resources to help them get the most out of their experience with AI.
She shared, “We follow a lot of creators. We review their content and then we independently publish this content.”
Kris shares that content in a premium newsletter via paid subscription. But, Kris isn’t just in it for the money. A core part of her newsletter vision is to ensure she’s always giving back, especially for people who can’t necessarily afford the subscription.
She shared, “One part is, ‘How can we ensure that a part of the revenue we are making can be given back to our subscribers?’ We want as many people to access this content as possible. So, we have given more than 200 people a free subscription to our platform.”
So, Kris set up ChatGPT Central to allow people to complete certain actions to get free access. For example, if you refer a friend, if you share the newsletter, etc, then you’ll get rewarded with different perks like a free subscription.
She shared, “For example, in every newsletter, we put a disclaimer saying, ‘Hey, do you want your subscription for free? Every time you engage we keep track of that.’”
How exactly does Kris keep track of all her subscribers’ actions?
She explained, “I have a very complex Excel spreadsheet. In every newsletter that we send, we keep track of people who clicked on different links. All of this goes into a master Excel file, and then we rank everyone in a scoring system. That’s one of the features my subscribers love the most because they know that eventually, we’ll do giveaways for them.”
Enjoying this beehiiv case study? Learn how Captain Yar generated $65,000 with his newsletter in just 7 months.
Kris’ goal with the newsletter isn’t to build up her kingdom. Instead, she truly wants to help people, whether they’re willing to pay or not.
She shared, “It's a faceless publication. It's not something for my personal brand and it's not something for my own glory. It's a point of reference in the AI world that promotes less visible creators. It's a source of independent content. And I have a sort of moral commitment in which a percentage of the revenue we earn will be invested in the subscribers.”
Kris explained, “I offer free office hours when I have the time. I’ll send my most engaged subscribers an email saying, ‘Hey, I'm open a couple of hours over the weekend if you have something I can help you with.’”
And, Kris has found the more she gives, the more she gets back when it comes to growth.
She shared, “This ‘giving back’ is a strange form of investment because when you give back, you get 10 times the return. And now we’re on pace to reach over 200,000 followers on LinkedIn and roughly 80,000 subscribers on beehiiv by the end of the year.”
Plus, she’s not just growing her audience. She’s also been able to generate notable revenue from her publication.
Kris shared, “We made roughly $40,000 since November 2023. I don't know if it's a lot or not. But, I know it's in line with the kind of ethics that we’re putting into the project.”
She continued, “If I wanted to squeeze the juice out of my newsletter, I would probably have made more than $100,000. But this would not have given me the same happiness in enjoying the process, in building this with my partner in hiring people and having a clear vision, and clear, ethics, and building with a team behind me that shares the same values.”
💡 As an early Xmas gift, Kris has also decided to train 100 people for free on how to use beehiiv. If that sounds of interest to you, you can sign up here!
Long Term Branding vs. Short Term Revenue Gains
Kris’ mindset about building a newsletter isn’t about making a quick buck. Instead, it’s about building something made to last for the long haul.
That’s why she’s intentional about giving her audience the best experience possible with her newsletter, even if it means foregoing revenue today.
She shared, “People subscribe to your newsletter and every time you send it, they have a chance to drop you. There is this underlying hypothesis in the newsletter industry which is like ‘Give me subscribers. They will click on everything.”
But, Kris’ take is different. She thinks newsletter subscribers are more aware than ever before when it comes to ads, and maintaining trust is crucial to keeping them.
She shared, “I had a cannabis ad opportunity early on. But, I thought maybe it wouldn’t perform with my audience. So during office hours, I asked a subscriber if he’d care if that was in the newsletter or not and she said, ‘Yeah, I don't like that kind of ad.’”
She continued, “I realized you must build this connection with your audience. If you're not able to establish a connection, they will see your newsletter as fast food stuff. You will just be trashed and then there's no way to win back the trust.”
Giving back to her audience is a key part of Kris’ mission with her publication. And, this doesn’t just mean gifting out free subscriptions to her premium newsletter. Sometimes it means coming up with custom-tailored solutions for her readers.
She recalled, “There’s this person, Stephanie, who is a teacher for children under 12 years old that have difficulties with learning. She was one of my first paid subscribers. And I remember seeing this person upgrading and I was saying to my partner. ‘Hey, can you really believe someone paid 20 pounds for this? I don't believe it.’
So Kris offered to hop on a free call with her to ask her some questions.
She shared, “My first question was, ‘Why did you subscribe?’ And she was like, ‘I'm a teacher. I teach people that have difficulties in learning. And I believe ChatGPT can have the potential in helping that.’ And I was like, ‘How do you plan on using ChatGPT to do that?’ And she was like, ‘I don't know, I just upgraded because maybe you guys have a solution.
She recalled, “Then something that struck me was like, ‘Maybe we can teach her how to use some prompts to turn old-style literature like Shakespeare that isn’t easy to read to reduce the complexity.’”
So, Kris got to work and ran a few tests. Then she sent her a solution.
She shared, “She started calling me on my personal number saying, ‘Hey, this is amazing. Now I can teach a lot of this stuff because otherwise, all these children would not have been allowed to read this text because it would have been difficult for them.”
Kris continued, “This is how I grasped that maybe that 20 pounds were worth more like 2,000 pounds, And then she started doing that. And now sometimes we catch up. Now, she's the one teaching other teachers in her school how to use AI, and they created the other stuff.”
Seeing Subscribers As People, Not Numbers
Stephanie isn’t the only subscriber Kris has been able to hop on a call with to help. One subscriber, a mother of two young children from South Africa, upgraded as well. Kris thought it was strange that someone from South Africa was paying for her publication.
She recalled, “Two days after she upgraded, she wrote me an email saying. ‘Hey, I could not afford this subscription. Could you please give me a refund?’ And I was like, ‘Sure. But can we have a call please so that I can understand the situation?’
Kris explained how she told him, “‘I thought maybe accessing a library could help me land a new job. Now I lost my job, but saw that there are a lot of websites like Fiverr and Upwork that might be good because I had children at home.’ I was like, ‘Hey, just take the subscription for free. I'm going to give you this subscription.’”
Next thing you know, Kris is giving her career advice to help her land some work she could do from home.
She shared, “We stayed on the call for one hour, and I was like, ‘What can you do? Let me look at Fiverr, what are the best-paying jobs? And I started caring about this subscriber. And then after a while she got a couple of jobs writing copy.”
Kris explained, “Being able to have subscribers from all over the world, deliver some value, deliver a content distribution network, and that this job of yours is translating into something that can sometimes change people's lives — this cannot be measured in annual recurring revenue (ARR). This should be measured in happiness.”
Favorite beehiiv Feature
We asked Kris to share what her favorite beehiiv feature is. But, she explained how she has two: one she finds most useful and the other she enjoys the most, personally.
She shared, “The feature that is solving the most problems is typing ‘slash’ and adding an advertisement to the newsletter. I’ve done other sponsorships with third parties and the Ad Network feels like magic.”
Next Kris explained how beehiiv’s built-in website builder is her favorite feature overall.
Kris explained, “The feature that I love the most is how the website builder is shaping up. I believe this is a killer feature: being able to provide that 360 degrees between the content creation, automation, and web design. You can build core architecture which you can build your own content castle around.
She also mentioned another feature he’s loving is beehiiv Boosts, which lets you grow your email list with paid recommendations native to beehiiv.
Advice for Creators Thinking of Starting a Newsletter
Kris had one more piece of advice for creators…
She shared, “If you go into the newsletter business in 2024 and only do it for the money, you're only going to last a few days. But, if you're doing it for a greater purpose, then this ‘good’ that you’re putting into your publication will be given back to you somehow, somewhere.”
Kris explained how you need to choose which of these two groups you want to be part of.
She shared, “When subscribers know there’s someone that cares about them, and there’s no algorithm, and you're able to show you care, (either with gifts or with your own time), then there will be loyalty. Otherwise, it’ll be very difficult. Before beehiiv, It was very difficult to make this choice. But, with beehiiv, you now have that choice. Then, it's up to you to choose the path you want to take.”
Key Takeaways
ChatGPT Central launched 20 months ago as a way to help people leverage AI with highly vetted resources, guides, tutorials, and prompts. Since then, it’s grown to over 60,000 engaged subscribers and has generated over $40,000 in revenue.
Here are some key takeaways:
Leverage Your Expertise: Not sure what kind of publication you should create? Look at what you’re an expert in already. Kris is a data scientist, so she had a headstart on other AI publications. What’s your career background? Do you have a degree or certifications in a niche field?
Start With Social Media: Kris started sharing her content on LinkedIn to validate her ideas. And, the validation paid off, so she expanded into email. Find a social media platform and start posting content to gain traction. Then, pull your followers onto your email list.
Give Without Expecting Anything Back: If you want to build a lasting brand with loyal fans, then try to look beyond the money. Ask yourself, what are the things (that don’t scale) that can create an unforgettable experience for my subscribers? Lean into that and you’ll never have to worry about low engagement or high unsubscribe rates.
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