From Zero

“From zero?”
“Yeah.”
“Like… from nothing?”

That’s how From Zero, Linkin Park’s latest album, opens. It’s their first release since the band reunited, welcoming Emily Armstrong as the new lead singer.

That’s also how my journey (and, I suspect, most local newsletter journeys) begins.

From zero.

Despite what some people claim, there is no blueprint. No step-by-step playbook. There are common patterns, sure. But in the end, every local newsletter has to carve out its own path.

This is mine.

PS: Before getting into it, I want to thank everyone who sent me kind messages after the very first issue of this journey. I was seriously not expecting it. It’s hard to put into words how much that meant to me. You turned all the insecurities I felt before pressing send into renewed motivation and a big smile on my face (it’s been a week, smile still there!). Thanks, heroes.

Should I start or should I go?

When thinking about doing something new, I always ask myself a few questions:

• Why am I doing this?
• Where do I want it to go?
• Does this align with my values?

That’s a good starting point, and there are dozens of very similar questions I could tick. But there’s a core problem: I sometimes lie to convince myself.

I have a serious case of shiny object syndrome. I’m always looking at the next thing and asking, “What if…?”.

To counter that, I set the feeling aside and use a simple rule of thumb: if something stays in my mind for long enough, say a month, I start thinking about it more seriously.

Building a local newsletter has been on my mind for years. It’s time to trust my gut.

Bootstrapping solo

I’ve reached a point in life where completely owning my work really matters.

People constantly change their minds. That’s extremely stressful if your future depends entirely on it.

That’s why I decided to completely bootstrap my local newsletter and do it solo.

Bootstrapping provides the constrains I need to get creative and build a sustainable business. On top of that, with the level of AI and automation available today, building solo with a limited budget is more realistic than ever.

The Reality Check

I live in Ancona, Italy. It’s not my hometown. I barely know anyone.

My audience? Zero.

How do you get a local newsletter off the ground?

Overthinking is a blocker. Better be naive.

Writing the newsletter and pressing send seemed like a good idea.

So that’s exactly what I did. And I failed.

I set up a free Ghost account and defined a simple local newsletter format: news, events, housing, weather, and a future sponsor slot.

I manually researched and assembled everything. It took half a day. I reviewed it, hit send, and thought: First step done.

But my audience was still zero. No one was listening.

The next step was obvious: distribution.

The Facebook Groups Mistake

I’ve been on Facebook forever, even though I haven’t posted in nearly ten years. But other people do. Especially in local Facebook groups.

The biggest group in town has 40k members. Others have some thousands too.

So I thought: If I write a great post in the groups, share the newsletter with a solid CTA, people will subscribe.

Right?

BEEP ❌

I started the day with zero subscribers.
I ended the day with zero subscribers.

What went wrong?

I’ve been following Ryan Sneddon from Naptown Scoop, and he says it plainly: Facebook mods are gods. You can’t just join FB groups, offer little value, and expect people to care.

Most of my posts were never approved. The few that were received almost no engagement.

I’ll say it openly: I failed. I was impulsive, rushed, and naive.

But there’s a flip side. My subscribers were still at 0, but my journey was not.

What I Learned

• Sponsors won’t show up just because you added a CTA
• People hate spam
• Value always comes first
• Listening matters more than broadcasting

But the most important lesson I took home was this: be your own audience.

One of my biggest mistakes was thinking I could assemble some generic content, people would care, and sponsors would come flooding in. But if I were on the other side of the table, would I actually find it interesting? Gosh no. I would have scrolled right past it.

That is why dogfooding is incredibly powerful. Write the newsletter you would love to receive. Treat readers the way you want to be treated. Find people like you and let everything else grow from there.

Worst case? You build something genuinely useful for yourself that you always felt was missing.

Lesson learned. Back to the drawing board.

Let’s build this properly.

Keep shipping,
Michele