Daniella Pierson: Turning an Email Newsletter Side Hustle into a $40 Million per Year Business

In today's world, side hustles are becoming more common as people seek to supplement their income or turn their passion projects into profitable ventures. However, few side hustles achieve the level of success that Daniella Pierson's side hustle did.

At just 27 years old, Daniella Pierson turned her newsletter, The Newsette, into a multimillion-dollar business that brought in over $40 million in revenue in just one year. She also launched another successful newsletter, Wondermind, in 2022.

In this article, we'll dive into the strategies Daniella used to scale her side hustle into a thriving business. Her story is an inspiration to anyone looking to turn their side hustle into a successful and sustainable business.

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Getting Started

Daniella Pierson started The Newsette, a daily newsletter covering the latest news in beauty, fashion, and business, in 2015, during her sophomore year at Boston University.

She always thought she was an average student and hoped that working on a passion project could help her get a job or internship after finishing college. Since she loved magazines, she decided to create a news-like publication of her own.

When Daniella sent the first issue of her newsletter called The Newsette, only 11 people read it. There were several typos, the format was a Mailchimp template that she had customized, and the landing page was a Wix site that she had built. Despite all of this, she felt that she had found something that she was passionate about.

Even though she was a full-time student, Daniella woke up at 6 a.m. every day to create her daily edition of The Newsette. She worked until 9 a.m. in between classes, and then she would work again in the evenings from 8:00 p.m. to midnight. She would also work on the weekends, but only during the day. The first 100 subscribers came from her own social network.

Instead of asking people directly to subscribe, Daniella created an unpaid ambassador program to encourage subscribers to bring in additional readers. She would tell people that if they referred 10 people, they could become an official ambassador and add it to their résumé or LinkedIn. Ambassadors received incentives like T-shirts.

Daniella told potential new readers and clients that she was an intern at The Newsette because she didn't have the confidence to tell them that it was her side gig. She even thought that using the word "CEO" seemed silly when she first started. However, her aggressive marketing strategy, which included messaging friends of friends on Facebook, paid off. By the end of its first year, The Newsette had 14 000 subscribers.

Branding the Newsletter Business

According to Daniella, the Newsette is just a newsletter and nothing more. Although the brand does have a website, Pierson and her team are currently working to conceal it and eventually remove it. The website only contains a few old articles and interviews.

The creators of the Newsette newsletter mostly gather their content from other websites, by linking to publishers such as People and Vogue. While they do occasionally publish original interviews and features, the primary focus is on providing readers with useful resources, rather than generating their own material.

Newsette also has a presence on Instagram and Twitter, but their content mostly consists of republishing newsletter content or sharing posts from their peers. There are no podcasts, Patreons, or Discord channels associated with the brand. By maintaining a minimalist approach, Pierson has been able to use her resources more effectively. A small team can either attempt to do several things adequately or focus on a few things and excel at them.

Growing the Newsletter

When The Newsette was first launched, newsletters were still a new idea, and there were limited resources that Daniella Pierson could use for guidance. As a result, she turned to marketing-related podcasts and blogs to gain more knowledge on how to grow subscribers and increase engagement.

As The Newsette continued to grow, she began interviewing public figures with substantial followings, including Selena Gomez. These connections played an important role in bringing her newsletter into the mainstream media.

Turning Newsette into a Business

In the first three years of The Newsette, Daniella was the only person on her team, and she made most of her money through affiliate marketing. She worked with smaller brands and shared links to their products in her newsletter, while also relying on ads and brand partnerships.

When Daniella was a student, she used RewardStyle for affiliate deals, but she no longer does that kind of partnership. Instead, The Newsette gets requests for proposals and emails from top brands, and also does some outreach of its own.

One big break for The Newsette came when Ulta Beauty, a huge brand, reached out to Daniella and gave her a six-figure deal. The publication grew without venture capital, thanks in part to readers who worked for Ulta and advocated for The Newsette. Daniella also reached out to other brands through cold emailing and by leveraging her readership.

As The Newsette grew, Daniella gained confidence and became a strong leader. She credits the publication with helping her overcome mental-health challenges and learning disabilities, and for giving her the courage to do things her own way.

After three years, Daniella was able to hire an assistant, and within five years, she had an editorial team. Today, she manages a team of more than 50 full-time employees.

Daniella believes that newsletters are a great way for people to share their stories and build relationships with their audience. Unlike social media posts, newsletters are more intimate and personal when they land in your inbox.

Advice from Daniella

Her advice to those wanting to build a successful newsletter is to be clear about why you want to do it. Are you trying to become an expert in a particular area, or maybe you're hoping to turn it into a book deal or start your own media company? Once you know your goals, you can figure out how to engage your audience and what kind of content to include.

If your goal is to use your newsletter as a way to promote another business, then you might not be as focused on growing your subscriber list quickly. Instead, you'll want to make sure you're consistently emailing your audience. But if you want to make money from your newsletter, then of course you'll want to get as many people signed up as possible!

Daniella also emphasized the importance of standing out and establishing yourself as an authority in your field. She suggests focusing on a specific niche, being unique, and always adding value to your newsletter.

Conclusion

It wasn’t until after she graduated that Daniella started looking for companies to advertise in her newsletter. According to her, the earnings increased significantly from $1 million in 2019 to $7 million in 2020 and $40 million in 2021, thanks to partnerships with companies such as Bumble, Fidelity, Old Navy, Twitter, and Walmart.

She made it to the Media category of the Forbes Under 30 list in 2020, at the age of 24. Currently, her free newsletter is subscribed to by over 500 000 people, mostly women aged between 18 and 35, and it offers a mix of news and links to articles about topics like natural beauty products.