$63K/Year With a Paid Newsletter About Food Policy

Helena Bottemiller Evich is the founder of Food Fix 🥦

That’s a premium newsletter which aims to be “the go-to source for food policy news and analysis, for insiders and consumers alike.”

📝 Per a recent article…

In 2013, Politico recruited Helena to help launch its food safety coverage…

While at Politico, Helena saw the power of a subscription-based site and newsletter…

Writing for Politico Pro (paid) and Politico.com (free), Helena gained valuable experience in subscription-based writing.

She also saw that the paid site attracted a bigger B2B audience while the free side was more B2C.

Then…

In 2022, Helena made the bold decision to leave Politico and start a content business – Food Fix, a weekly newsletter for food policy news and analysis.

Helena’s motivation…

There was nowhere to go to just focus on food policy. It is barely covered by the mainstream media but extremely important. I knew I could fill this gap.

🚀 To get started…

Helena sent out batch emails to her industry contacts, letting them know she was starting a newsletter and directing them to a landing page to subscribe to an unpublished newsletter.

Then she began publishing…

Helena formally launched Food Fix in August 2022… All content was free in the first month…

In September, the Friday edition remained free, and Tuesday editions were available to paid subscribers, mostly professionals who need the information she covers and analyzes for their jobs…

Fortunately, Helena’s content and expert knowledge led to paid subscribers almost immediately. She made her first dollar within a month of launching her business and four months after leaving her full-time gig.

The article notes… ”a big part of her success is her writing style” ✍️

Here’s a recent free edition of Helena’s newsletter so you can get a feel for it.

A paid subscription to Food Fix starts at $500/year. Helena also offers academia and student discount pricing at $300/year and $50/year respectively.

Food Fix apparently has 6,000 subscribers, but it’s unclear how many are free vs paid 🧐

Simon Ovens writes that 5% is a realistic conversion rate for paid newsletters.

But let’s be conservative and say Food Fix has a 3% conversion rate and the average paid subscriber pays $350/year.

180 x $350 = $63,000 in annual revenue 💰

Impressive for a 1.5-year-old niche newsletter.

And I like how Helena basically started a business doing the same thing she did as an employee: writing about food policy.

She got paid by Politico for 10 years to hone her skills and build a reputation, then struck out on her own.

What work have you done as an employee that could be the basis of your own business? 🤔

Get 10 more business ideas in your inbox each week