From Side Hustle to One Million ARR
The Story
Marketing Examined grew to 25,000+ subscribers in less than six months after launching in November 2020 (Source 1). At 150,000 subscribers, Garcia was making between $65,000 and $75,000 per month from sponsorships alone (Source 1). The business reached $1 million+ ARR (Source 1).
At the end of May 2023, Garcia quit his job as CMO at Kollective, an elite fitness facility in Austin, Texas, to go all-in on Marketing Examined. “Was the best decision,” he wrote. “We quickly scaled it from a side hustle to a 7-figure run rate” (Source 2).
The business now has over 200,000 subscribers across 5 different newsletters and an estimated team of around 10 people (Source 1). Monthly revenue from sponsorships likely pushes $80,000-$90,000+ at current subscriber levels (Source 1).
Garcia’s revenue is almost entirely from sponsorships, not paid subscriptions. He launched a paid newsletter (Growth Marketing Examined, $297/year) in 2021 but shut it down in 2023 (Source 3).
Lesson for Creators
Garcia’s revenue trajectory shows the newsletter sponsorship model at scale: at 150K subscribers, sponsorships alone generate $65-75K/month. That’s before consulting, podcast revenue, or brand work. The decision to shut down the paid newsletter in 2023 is notable. He chose to keep all content free and monetize through sponsors and services rather than gating knowledge. The math worked: sponsorship revenue from 200K free subscribers exceeded what a paid tier would generate from a fraction of that audience.
Related
- Learning Growth at The Hustle Before Building His Own — how he learned the newsletter business
- The Gumroad Bridge Between Jobs — the funding strategy before going all-in
- Sixty-Five Thousand Dollars in Year One — Lenny Rachitsky’s different monetization path (paid subs)
- From 150 Per Year to 950 Lifetime - The Pricing Experiments — Milly Tamati: community pricing vs newsletter sponsorships
- Two Years to Land Notion - The Sponsorship Patience Play — Milly Tamati: sponsorship strategy at smaller scale
- The Sponsor Deck Tweet That Sold Out Months of Ads — Packy McCormick: same free + sponsors model with transparency twist
- The Media Mullet - Free Up Front, High-LTV Out Back — Nathan May: the pattern this revenue model exemplifies