The Self-Liquidating Flywheel Every Newsletter Operator Should Know

And how a solopreneur gained 18k subscribers — and $1.2M in revenue.

We (Chenell & myself) interviewed Olly Richards on the Growth In Reverse podcast and just published that episode this week.

Here’s why we wanted to chat with Olly:

• He founded StoryLearning.com in 2013.
• He grew it to a $10M online business with very little overhead.
• He now only works ~4 days per month in it.
• Giving him time to build a personal brand at OllyRichards.co (launched in 2023).
• Where he built a 118-page book (in a Google Doc) about how he built StoryLearning.com — and it’s FREE by the way.
• The Google Doc helped Olly grow his newsletter to over 18k subscribers.
• That same lead magnet has indirectly led to $1.2M in revenue for his personal brand.

All this is overwhelmingly impressive.

It’s clear when talking to him that Olly is smart, entrepreneurial, and disciplined. He did a lot of things the “right” way. But there’s one key part of Olly’s story that’s living…