2. Newsletter Glue's founder Lesley Sim is making it easier than ever to publish newsletters
Lesley Sim is the co-founder of Newsletter Glue, a WordPress plugin that lets you publish newsletters directly from your blog—reducing the time it takes to create and send newsletters. Prior to running Newsletter Glue, she once owned a craft beer brewery, taught freediving professionally, spent a few years working for the government, and ran her own digital marketing agency.
Below, Lesley shares:
The origins of Newsletter Glue, and how the idea came about
How Newsletter Glue differs from other players like Substack or Ghost
Her thoughts on maintaining momentum as a founder
How did the idea for Newsletter Glue come to you?
Before Newsletter Glue, I was running my own digital marketing agency and feeling kind of burnt out. I knew I wanted to build products but didn’t know much about software. People often say that creating a WordPress plugin (which is what Newsletter Glue is) is easier than a SaaS, so I decided to start there.
I met my co-founder on Indie Hackers. He had built a membership plugin that was similar to the paid membership side of Substack. The plugin allowed anyone to sign up and become a member of anything, whether it's a newsletter, interest group or forum. We hit it off and started working on that.
Quickly, we found that the plugin space was not only a mature market, but we hadn't done the initial work to ensure that our product would stand out and didn't really have a reputation in the market. We initially planned on going our separate ways. However, while building the plugin, we also built a small feature within it that allowed users to send blog posts as newsletters. While I wasn’t sad to lose the membership plugin, I was sad to lose that newsletter plugin feature, because I didn't know where else I could find something similar. (This was around the time Substack was popular, and I was also running my newsletter.)
And then I realized, if I was sad to lose that feature, maybe other people were looking for it. So we decided to pivot and focus on building out that feature into a full product. And that is how Newsletter Glue was started.
Could you tell us more about Newsletter Glue? What are some cool features brands, journalists or marketers might appreciate?
If you already do most of your article publication on WordPress, we make it significantly less tedious to distribute your content through newsletters. Through Newsletter Glue, you can send two types of emails.
A curated email: This is usually a round-up of your latest content or articles from the week.
An editorial-style email: Newsletter Glue allows you to send your long-form blog posts in an email to your subscribers (kind of like a Substack)
The third is a combination of the two: For example, you might share a portion of the long-form piece, along with a ‘Read More’ button, and a round-up of your latest posts.
For curated newsletters, we have a feature that lets users paste links and auto-generate them into a nice-looking template, complete with an image, a headline and an excerpt. This would otherwise be a manual process, from adding the headline and body copy to uploading an image. We cut that time down to five minutes, as opposed to two hours.
We also allow brands to have a more professional newsletter presence on their website. If you want someone to sign up for your newsletter, you’d want to link your archive on your website. Because Newsletter Glue allows you to create newsletters natively on your WordPress, the archive looks really professional and on-brand to the rest of your website (versus linking to a Mailchimp archive). This shows a lot of legitimacy to your newsletter offering and makes someone more likely to sign up. You can really tell the difference between the brands that care about their newsletters versus those that don't.
It shows a lot of legitimacy to your newsletter offering, and makes someone more likely to sign up. You can really tell the difference between the brands that care about their newsletters versus those that don't.
Who is Newsletter Glue for?
I would say medium to slightly larger content creators. Essentially, local newsrooms, media sites, content creators who want to monetize and content marketers. For someone just starting out with newsletters, I would suggest they’d go to Substack because it's easier to set up. There are a few things they have to figure out first—i.e. how to stay consistent, what to write, and who they’re writing for—before figuring out how to grow their audience. After they’ve launched and built (a good rhythm) with content, they're a good candidate for Newsletter Glue. We provide a lot more features that Substack doesn't.
What steps did you take to go from idea to launch?
We were lucky in the sense that we made a lot of mistakes with the original membership plugin. Having a second go this time, I was eager to put into practice all the things I learned and do better.
One of the first big things we did was building in public from day one. Before the new product setup was even ready, I started talking about it and wrote something on Indie Hackers. I asked people, “What if you could have Substack’s functionality but on WordPress?”
I also posted on a handful of newsletter-specific Facebook groups because I wanted to gauge what people thought. I got a bunch of good feedback, and some people even signed up for the From there, I got in touch with them and managed to do calls with about just under 10 of them. That really helped me understand the market better, and it also helped me get the word out there. And then we launched it!
It took us a month to build out the basic product, after which, we listed it on the WordPress Plugin Directory. I also got active on Twitter as well, talking to people in the WordPress industry, and tried joining a few WordPress professional groups as well. I wouldn't say we did any one big thing, but the combination of all those small things really helped us start.
How would you position Newsletter Glue to similar products like a Ghost or Substack?
Substack vs. Newsletter Glue: People graduate from Substack to us: we have people who are big on Substack, and then ran into some of the ceilings on the platform. For example, a Substack doesn't allow you to segment users. Let's say you're a pet shop, and you have customers who have dogs, those who have cats and others who have birds. It doesn't make sense to send them all the same newsletter, because they're not really the same kind of customer, but you can't send (segmented) emails with Substack.
The other issue is that because Substack is a platform, creators don't own anything there. Additionally, unlike Substack, Newsletter Glue allows to you have your newsletter content on your website, along with the archive—and you own everything. You can make it look as nice as you need to, in the exact branding and design that you want, none of which you can do with a Substack.
Ghost vs. Newsletter Glue: Ghost doesn't have as extensive an ecosystem—or a third-party plugin ecosystem—as WordPress. Some people don't like WordPress, because there are so many that you can fiddle with. It's also easy to accidentally “break” something if you're not a developer. WordPress is good and bad in that way. In contrast, Ghost is good and bad in the opposite way. It’s unlikely that you will accidentally break something; but the flip side is that if you want to do anything specific, you typically can’t and would have to settle for whatever features already exist.
What’s been your most successful tactic in growing Newsletter Glue?
The best thing I’ve done is leverage other people's audiences. It's very hard to grow your own audience. Rather than start my own podcast, I would go to somebody else's; instead of starting my own newsletter, I’d collaborate with someone else within the industry.
If you’re trying to grow your newsletter, don't just shout about it into the void. Instead, write a guest post on somebody who already has an audience. Some of those audiences will convert to your newsletter if they like what you have to say.
You’re fairly active on Twitter and openly share your work at Newsletter Glue. Why is building in public important to you?
I think it’s really important to share your story as you go along because it gives people a reason to use and believe in your product. If you're out there earnestly sharing what you're doing, people learn to trust you and your story better. They might get curious to check out your product because they’ve been following you for a while. In my opinion, that's a better way of doing things rather than, say, trying to do a press release.
If you're out there earnestly sharing what you're doing, people learn to trust you and your story and get curious to see the thing that you’ve built, because they’ve been following you for a while. That's a better way of doing things rather than, say, trying to do a press release.
Prior to Newsletter Glue, you ran your own digital marketing agency, owned a craft beer brewery and also taught freediving professionally. No doubt, your career path has been anything but linear. What are your thoughts about “traditional” career trajectories?
I think everyone’s different. For some people, “linear” career paths work for them because doing something non-traditional would probably give them a lot of stress. I'm the opposite. I fit very poorly in a linear path—it actually gives me a lot of stress. (laughs) Obviously, there are trade-offs on both sides, I don’t think there’s a prescriptive. It depends on your personality and the resources you have. I've been lucky I’ve had the flexibility to try more things in life, which not everyone has.
What’s your favourite part about what you’re doing right now? Conversely, what’s been the most challenging?
I didn't know how to design products before starting Newsletter Glue, and I've really, really enjoyed learning how to do that. All my websites are done by me, for instance. What I’ve found challenging is that remote working can be quite lonely. My co-founder is based in Egypt, and we've never met. Our relationship works well, but I’ve kind of missed going into the office and having that rapport with colleagues. This is why I’m active on Twitter: I can find a remote tribe of friends to hang out with and have “water cooler” talks with.
How do you build or maintain momentum as a founder?
Very badly. (laughs) Building good habits help a lot, though. A simple example is: up until last year, my co-founder and I didn't have regular meetings and would just talk generally on Slack every day. While it was good that we were keeping in touch frequently, the downside was that there was no clear structure or planning. Eventually, we implemented weekly meetings on Mondays where we discuss what was key for us that week. This sounds so obvious, right? But when your status quo is a blank slate, you have to purposefully add these rituals into your game. If not, they just don't exist.
Another habit I’ve started is going to a cafe in the morning at the start of the week and planning out my week. Again, that sounds so obvious but because I don't have customers or clients keeping me accountable for deadlines, I have to create them for myself.
What I suggest to people is give yourself a deadline of one week (not more, not less), scope down based on that one-week deadline, and then launch it. What you mean by “launch” could be anything: launching could mean posting about it on Facebook or telling 10 people about your product.
What advice would you give to someone who’s been looking to launch an idea they’ve been sitting on?
These people actually really frustrate me. The easiest way to differentiate between someone who launches an idea and someone who doesn’t is simply whether they do it or not. What I suggest to people is to give themselves a deadline of one week (not more, not less): scope down what you need to do based on that one-week deadline, and then launch it.
What you define as a “launch” could be anything: it could mean posting about it on Facebook or telling 10 people about your product. You decide what that means to you, and what you need to get done within that week to get you there. I give this piece of advice very often and find that maybe less than 10% of people actually do it.
You’ve bootstrapped Newsletter Glue so far. Would you be interested in raising money at some point?
It’s something I’ve thought about. I’ve learnt to never say never, but I like being independent and not having to answer to anybody. I enjoy having my own independence and having the ability to do chats like this in the middle of the day, rather than feverishly work on how to get another XYZ customer, because I have some investor report I have to write. That’s how I'm thinking about it now, but I could be wrong.
What’s next for Newsletter Glue?
I don’t want to verbally commit to anything as of yet, but what I can say is that we are committed to building features for newsrooms, media companies and content marketers. When these people reach out to me with an idea, we’d typically build them. So if there’s an add-on or functionality you’d like, feel free to reach out.
Favourite newsletter? Dense Discovery
Go-to earworm while working? Lofi.cafe
When do your best ideas come to you? Having constant contact with different people helps a lot. Talking to friends in the same space or publishing things on Twitter, that’s been really helpful for me. If you don't expose your ideas or your work to people, you don't know if it's working and you don't know what you're missing.
Something you watched or listened to recently that left a mark? This video by YC Combinator about setbacks. In the video, they likened the setbacks you face as a founder to boxing. A founder who doesn’t have to deal with setbacks is like a boxer who thinks, “When I get good enough, I’ll never get punched again.” That’s not true because as long as you’re a boxer, you’re gonna get punched, right? I shared this with a friend and he added that the better the boxer you are, the harder the punches are going to be. The video reminds me that I’m not alone and my problems as a founder are normal and only part of the process.
A product or item you can’t live without? I really like watches. I wear them all the time; I don't really like checking the time on my phone.
Follow Lesley on Twitter @lesley_pizza to learn more about what she’s building at Newsletter Glue.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Subscribe to Hatched in Asia to stay up to date with must-know women founders, creators and creatives in Asia.