Niche Freelance Community Earning $20-30K Per Month

A couple of weeks ago Kyle Chayka announced that StudyHall.xyz, “the freelance journalism newsletter and community” that he co-founded in 2015 had been acquired.

Exact details are undisclosed but apparently it was a 6-figure deal 🤑

The founder of the acquiring company “said [Study Hall] has raised $2 million and has six employees.”

Looks like Study Hall started out as a physical coworking space in Brooklyn, but quickly became more of an online community monetized via Patreon.

One article referred to Study Hall as “the gossipy media site for freelancers” 💬

Here’s the blurb on their Patreon page back in 2018…

Instead of spending endless hours scrolling through Twitter to keep up on the latest in the media world, sign up for Study Hall!

Our $2/month weekly newsletter, the Digest, is a vital recap of digital media news, with original reporting and commentary (gossip) on magazines, social media, podcasts, and more.

We also offer a job opportunity newsletter, editor databases, online community, and tools ($4-$18/month) for people who work in the media industry, especially freelance writers.

By mid-2020 they had almost 5000 patrons 😎

Then they moved off Patreon to their own platform.

They now have “over 3,000 subscribers” and their pricing starts at $10/month or $99/year. 

They may have grandfathered in their old patrons at the original prices, but current revenue is still likely to be in the range of $20-30K per month.

If they were acquired for 2-3x annual revenue that would put the sale price at the high end of 6-figures. I’m going to guess $800,000 💰

It strikes me that this kind of premium newsletter/community model could work for a lot of different niches.

If there isn’t already, there should be similar for…

• Graphic designers
• Veterinarians
• Copywriters
• Social media managers
• Architects
• Etc.

The tough part would be spreading the word and getting people to sign up. 

I couldn’t find any good info on how Study Hall did that, but I get the impression it was mostly organic, word of mouth 🧐

Co-founders Kyle and P.E. Moskowitz are freelance journalists who have written for a bunch of big publications, and both have strong online followings. So that surely helped attract new members to Study Hall.

If I were going to try this business model, I’d either stick to an industry I’m very familiar with, or partner with someone well-known in the industry I want to target 🤝