Newsletter Circle is the newsletter all about newsletters for indie creators.

👉 Every Sunday, you will read the unique journey of a different newsletter creator and learn more about how to start, grow and monetize your own newsletter.

🙏 From You

Hi everyone!

From now on, I would like to start with your tweets about Newsletter Circle.

It is the best feeling to see that you spare some portion of your precious time to comment on my work so; this is my way of thanking you.

Reminder: Don’t forget to follow and tag me while posting on Twitter.

Here is a great newsletter growth and happy to see Newsletter Circle helps. Thank you, The Geordie Traveller!

🎙CREATOR INTERVIEW

Hi everyone!

In today’s issue, we’re welcoming , reaching an impressive 250,000+ subscribers every day!

Refind is far more than just a newsletter.

It is an advanced algorithm that analyzes thousands of articles spanning over 100 topics. Based on each subscriber's interests, it delivers only the most relevant content—pretty cool, right?

But wait, there’s more.

Refind isn't just a valuable resource for lifelong learners; it's also a unique platform for newsletter creators looking to grow on autopilot. We'll delve into the Conversion Ads feature, which I personally find quite useful to grow Newsletter Circle as well.

Here is our conversation with Dominik Grolimund, the founder of Refind. Expect concise answers that get straight to the point.

Let’s start!

🏷 NEWSLETTER IDENTITY CARD

🛠 Tool Stack

• ESP → Amazon SES

• Curation → Algorithm

• Website → Web app hosted on Heroku

• Team Communication → Slack

• Design → In-house

• Growth → In-house

• Payment → Stripe

👋 MEET THE CREATOR

Welcome Dominik. Let’s start with getting to know you.

I studied computer science at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and founded, built, and sold three startups.

Refind is my fourth company – it started as a passion project that turned into a business. Currently, I’m living in Bali with my wife and my four kids.

🥁 START

What is Refind all about?

Brain food, delivered daily. Every day we analyze thousands of articles and send you only the best, tailored to your interests.

Why and how did you decide to start Refind in the first place?

Refind started as a passion project. After three startups, I wanted to get back to coding and to work on a problem I’m passionate about.

It started with the algorithm – the newsletter came (much) later.

🚀 GROWTH

How did you gain your first 1000 subscribers?

Initially, I built Refind for myself but of course, I wanted to see if others find it interesting too, so I invited my friends to a closed beta, and they invited theirs… After some time in closed beta, I launched on Product Hunt.

Which growth strategies do you mainly use?

Today we use Referrals + paid.

Paid is the most effective one – if unit economics work out, it’s one of the easiest ways to scale.

Regarding growth efforts, what would you do differently if you had a chance to start over?

Start with paid growth earlier.

Do you track your unsubscribe rate?

Retention is our main focus so we closely look at engagement over time (i.e., if people perform key actions, including link opens) and tend to ignore secondary effects like open or unsubscribe rates.

💸 MONETIZATION

How do you make money with your newsletter?

Ads + Premium.

Let’s talk about “Conversion Ads”. How did you build it? How does it work?

Conversion Ads are designed to help other newsletters grow at a fixed CPA – something we always wanted to exist. The way it works is simple:

1. We recommend your newsletter in our daily newsletter (250k subs).

2. People can subscribe to your newsletter directly from within Refind.

3. We automatically send subscribers to the newsletter via API. They can start sending their first email immediately.

All you need to do is to enter your newsletter URL, your CPA (e.g., $1.5), and your daily budget, and you’ll grow with us on auto-pilot.

📩 E-MAIL SERVICE PROVIDER

Which ESP do you use you?

We render all email on our servers (since every email is personalized) and use Amazon SES to send them.

🧩 SYSTEM & PRODUCTIVITY

What is your key weekly task for running Refind?

Still mostly coding, improving the product and the algorithm.

🎯 FUTURE

What is next on Refind’s journey?

Our goal is to reach millions of active users.

Thank you so much, Dominik. I’m sure we’ll see you reaching millions. Good luck!

🔗 Where to find Dominik Grolimund and his work

• Refind Twitter

• Dominik Grolimund Twitter

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading and don’t be shy to leave your comment by clicking the below button.

See you next week.

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