Lenny's Podcast · Mar 12A behind-the-scenes interview with Lenny Rachitsky on building his newsletter and podcast
Lenny explains how a series of small signals led him from Airbnb PM to a 1.2 million subscriber newsletter and a top 10 tech podcast, and how he keeps it going weekly. He covers when he added the paywall, his quality bar, the treadmill behind weekly shipping, a fraud attack on his Product Pass, and why he keeps the business small.
What to take from it
- Follow the pull where enjoyment, value to others and skill overlap▶ 7:47His first Medium post on what he learned at Airbnb was featured and shared company-wide, which led to a newsletter that now has 1.2 million subscribers.
- Commit to a weekly publishing cadence for nine months before adding a paywall▶ 8:54He made meaningful dollars about a month after launching the paywall.
- Source content from practitioners doing the real work, not people pontificating▶ 1:01:52Michelle's first children's book attempt before she had kids wasn't good; after real parenting experience she made something great.
- Iterate dozens of times, then add an editor, copy editor and designer▶ 1:03:20He estimates around 50 passes per post; Michelle estimates her charts take at least five, probably closer to 100.
- Judge your work by whether it moves you, not by waiting for approval▶ 23:00