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The Triple Stack - Paid to Distribute His Own Writing

The Story

Around 3,000 subscribers, CJ Gustafson asked Brex if he could write a guest post for them. They said yes. The arrangement evolved from a free distribution play into a paid one, then into a productized package.

“The first time he got paid for this was a deal he did with Brex. He told Nathan Latka that Brex wanted to pay a lump sum for 6 posts in the beginning. While he didn’t disclose exact figures, he said it was between $1k and $2k per post, for a pack of 6 articles” (Source 1). The pricing later moved up: “He did say that he now charges a minimum of $5k-$10k per post” (Source 1).

The mechanic he built around it is the “Triple Stack.” From the original deep dive (Source 1):

  1. He gets paid by the brand to write a post
  2. The brand shares it to their readers via website and email
  3. The content lives on a high-domain-authority site for years
  4. He gets a backlink to mostlymetrics.com
  5. The piece is often something he already wrote and can republish to his own audience

His co-host described what made this lopsided in his favor: “He didn’t have to create any ‘net new’ content for this deal. They just republished the whole article, dad jokes and all” (Source 1).

The Niche Pursuits podcast called it the same way: “CJ leveraged his expertise to write guest posts for well-known financial brands like Brex and Mercury. These partnerships gave him credibility and helped him reach larger audiences” (Source 3).

The strategic reason brands accepted: “They need content for their website too. But oftentimes the content strategy for a B2B SaaS is pretty low priority. And their customers don’t want to read articles all the time where they are just tooting their own horn” (Source 1).

CJ has since stopped offering paid guest posts because they cannibalized current sponsorships, but the underlying logic survived. The newer V2 swaps guest posts for podcast appearances by sponsor CEOs, with the same mechanic: “He gets network effects from these high level C-Suite execs sharing out his interview” (Source 2).

His own one-line summary of the principle: “People are always looking for great content and if you can make someone’s life easier, they will give you the platform to do so and you may even get paid for it” (Source 2).

Lesson for Creators

Most creators charge for ads in their newsletter and stop there. CJ found a deal structure where the same piece of content generated four parallel payoffs from one buyer: sponsor cash, a backlink, a borrowed audience, and a republished essay he didn’t have to rewrite. The unlock is recognizing that a B2B brand’s content team is overworked and that high-quality outside writing is a relief, not a cost. The first ask is the awkward part. After Brex said yes, the rest was repetition.

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