Browse Case Studies

Darren Rouse built Pro Blogger starting in 2002 as a personal blog, eventually consolidating 20-30 topic-specific blogs into his two main properties: Pro Blogger and Digital Photography School. Pro Blogger generates ~$4,000-5,000/month from eBooks plus six-figure event profits, while Digital Photography School reaches 4 million monthly visitors and generates over $1M annually through eBooks, affiliate marketing, and advertising. Growth is driven primarily through organic search, content marketing (7-8 pieces per week), and an email list of 950,000 subscribers adding 800 new emails daily.

Harry Campbell quit a six-figure aerospace engineering job at Boeing to build The Ride Share Guy, a leading content platform serving ride share drivers. Starting with a blog and podcast, he's grown to 450,000 monthly page views and 10,000 email subscribers, generating $25K/month through driver referrals, direct advertising, and an insurance marketplace.

John Lee Dumas built Entrepreneur on Fire, a daily podcast interviewing successful entrepreneurs, which generates over $300,000 annually with over 1 billion unique monthly listens. Recognizing a gap in helping his audience actually accomplish their goals (not just be inspired), he created the Freedom Journal, a physical goal-setting workbook priced at $35 with a $6.50 production cost, launching via Kickstarter with a partnership to donate $25,000 per funding level to pencils of promise charity.

Chat with Traders is a weekly podcast launched by 25-year-old Aaron Feifield in January 2015 that interviews successful traders to help others learn trading. Starting from zero monetization but focused on audience growth, the podcast reached over 620,000 cumulative downloads in its first year with nearly 5,800 email subscribers, primarily driven by consistent weekly episodes and active Twitter engagement.

Shelf Media is a digital-only publishing company founded by Margaret Brown in 2010 that creates niche magazines including Shelf Unbound (indie book reviews with 125,000 readers across 75+ countries), Middle Shelf, and newly launched Podster (about podcasts). The company generates revenue through advertising and competitions, with Shelf Unbound alone generating approximately $120,000 annually from ad sales at $20,000 per bi-monthly issue, plus $40,000 annually from a book competition with 1,000 entries per year.

Stacking Benjamins is a financial entertainment podcast launched in March 2012 by Joe Saul-Sehy that grew to 152,000 monthly downloads by featuring accessible, magazine-style money content with personality. The show generates approximately $5,500 monthly from two main sponsors (Magnify Money and SoFi) at an 18 CPM rate, operates with minimal production costs (~$480/month), and is expanding into online courses to monetize the audience attention.

Nathan Chan launched Founder Magazine in 2015 as a digital publication featuring interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Through aggressive Instagram growth strategies (posting 5-10 times daily with a virtual assistant), he built the account from zero to 700K followers in 16 months, generating 150,000+ email subscribers. Revenue comes from multiple streams including magazine subscriptions, digital courses (Instagram course and Founders Club membership with 400 paying members), and a weekly podcast with 70,000 monthly downloads.

The Slow Hustle is a long-form interview podcast launched in January 2015 by Peter Awad, who juggles podcasting alongside three other businesses (Import Auto Performance, Mission Meats food brand, and a previous failed startup). The show generates approximately 8,000-10,000 downloads per month with around 2,000 downloads per episode, and recently landed on the iTunes Podcasts homepage through authentic relationships rather than gaming the system. Peter has secured two sponsors (Iowa Startup Accelerator and a law firm) charging $3,000 per 16-episode package, generating roughly $187 per episode, covering costs while maintaining the show as a labor of love.

CJ built Mostly Metrics, a newsletter for CFOs launched in December 2020, starting from zero subscribers by obsessively engaging on Twitter around relevant keywords and partnering with B2B companies like Ramp and Brex. The newsletter grew to 35,000 subscribers (7,000 of whom are actual CFOs) in 1.5 years with a 46% open rate and 5-7% click-through rate, attracting sponsorships of $5-10k per post and up to $100k for bundled deals. He also launched a podcast called Run the Numbers with Turpentine Network while maintaining his full-time role as CFO at Parts Tech, planning to transition fully to media within three years.