Turned a dormant email list into a $1.65M ARR revenue channel for a technical B2B audience
Experts Exchange had an email list with a roughly 10% open rate. On paper, it looked like a reasonable asset — tens of thousands of contacts accumulated over years of campaigns and product activity.
In reality, it was underperforming in every way that mattered.
Most of the sends were transactional or promotional, and there was no consistent editorial identity that gave people a reason to open the emails each week. The list existed, but it wasn't truly engaged.
I saw a different opportunity.
The audience consisted largely of IT professionals and developers — people who follow industry news closely and care deeply about technical developments. If the content actually respected their time and intelligence, I believed the email channel could become far more valuable.
I created ByteSize from scratch.
I developed the concept, built the brand identity, designed the editorial voice, and built the operational system required to publish it every week.
Initially, I served as the primary writer. As the newsletter grew, I transitioned into the executive editor role — overseeing story selection, approving content, producing the visual assets, and managing the technical production of each send.
What began as an experiment quickly became one of the company's most important revenue channels.
The strategy behind ByteSize was based on a simple observation: a highly engaged niche audience is far more valuable than a large but disengaged one.
Instead of sending generic promotional emails, the newsletter needed to become something readers actually looked forward to.
I built the ByteSize brand from the ground up — name, visual identity, mascot, and editorial tone. The content format emphasized concise, high-signal updates on relevant technical developments, written with a voice that acknowledged the intelligence and skepticism of the audience.
Developers and IT professionals have a strong instinct for marketing fluff. The editorial tone leaned into humor, strong opinions, and practical relevance rather than corporate messaging.
On the operational side, I built a production workflow that allowed the entire system to run efficiently. I handled story curation, editing, production in the ESP, formatting QA, and performance tracking each week.
On the revenue side, I developed the advertising model. I created sponsorship packages, set pricing, and built the sales materials the commercial team used to sell placements to advertisers targeting technical audiences.
ByteSize grew from essentially zero engaged readers to 200,000 subscribers in under eight months.
Open rates increased from below 10% to roughly 60%, and that level of engagement remained stable over time.
The newsletter quickly became the company's top revenue channel. At a cadence of one send per week, the inventory supported roughly $800K in annual revenue at the rates advertisers were already paying. Based on audience growth and inventory pricing, the projected ARR potential reached $1.65M.
Early sponsorship deals exceeding $10K per placement confirmed that advertisers were willing to pay a premium to reach a highly engaged technical audience.