POLINA POMPLIANO: THE HIDDEN GENIUS STUDYING THE WORLDS MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE

Morning!

Do you ever see someone online and wonder how they got to where they are today?

How they created money out of thin air? How they built an audience of that size? How they became the person they are today?

Me too.

Today, I’m going to break down someone who seemingly came out of left field and within a matter of years had:

- A Twitter following of 130,000 people.
- A global reputation for her work.
- And a newsletter making multi-6-figures in annual revenue.

All with a team of… no team actually, she does it all herself.

(I was amazed when I heard that too).

But before we get into it, Go-To-Millions is one of my favourite marketing newsletters. Amazing tone, great content and a genuinely enjoyable read.

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Breaking Down The Strategy

Everyone wants a 7-figure, one person business at the minute. The Justin Welsh’s and Jack Butcher’s of the world have convinced the world that it’s possible for us all.

Truthfully, I used to read their content I rolled my eyes.

Yeah, Just Welsh managed to do it, but he’s one in a million right?

How can anyone make enough money from a business that has:

- No marketing department
- No sales team
- No background/reputation

I thought it was impossible. Yet, again and again, and again I’m proved wrong.

Today, we have a perfect example of one of those people who proved me wrong.

Meet Polina Pompliano, the founder of The Profile - a newsletter that covers Profiles on the most successful people and companies.

You may not have heard of Polina or The Profile, but Polina is my current favourite writer and I am well and truly captivated by her work.

But this isn’t a writing newsletter, this is a marketing newsletter and the only thing more interesting than Polina’s writing is her journey to where she is today.

You see, Polina isn’t one of those people who built some tech start-up and then started a newsletter in a “find yourself” period after it was acquired by Google.

She actually has a pretty humble background. In fact, just 3 years ago in March 2020 (that month rings a bell!) she was still working a normal 9-5 job as a journalist.

So, how in the world did she amass:

- 75,000 newsletter subscribers. (estimated)
- 130,000 Twitter followers.
- Plus thousands of paid newsletter subscribers.

… all in the space of 3 years?

I spent the last 6 hours of my life figuring out (or at least getting an idea of) how it happened and I think it all comes down to these 4 stages of growth:

1) Failing quick

Most people don’t fail quickly enough when they start something. In fact, they avoid it at all costs.

Polina on the other hand did the complete opposite. Early on she understood that if she wanted to make this thing great she had to take on feedback and iterate.

So she did.

She wrote the first few editions of The Profile with sass, sarcasm, and even included some GIFs (the opposite of what it is today). Readers let her know that they weren’t a fan of the tone - so she iterated, mixed it up, and finally found a style she liked writing in and the reader loved reading.

If it wasn’t for Polina taking on that feedback and perfecting her art in the early days, she wouldn’t be here 3 years later.

2) Dominating distribution

At this point, Polina had the “product” nailed, but if she wasn’t able to get it in front of people’s eyes it was completely pointless.

This is a downfall of 95% of businesses in their first year - they lack distribution.

No matter how great your product/service/etc is, it truly does not matter unless you can get it in front of people. This is especially hard in the B2C space when you need so many more people to work with you if you ever want to make any money.

Polina’s solution to this distribution problem was Twitter. It ticked all the boxes:

- Has a network effect
- Can reach a mass audience
- Her target audience is on the platform

So she started packaging the gems she was writing to her email subscribers into Twitter threads.

It was a simple way to give people on Twitter the value she provides in her newsletter, without them having to move off the platform.

(Just like classic value-first marketing)

Her most popular thread on UFC fighter Francis Ngannou is a prime example of this:

These Twitter threads quickly gained traction and got thousands upon thousands of eyes on Polina and The Profile.

One pair of eyes also happened to be Dwayne "The Rock” Johnson, who clearly liked her work and went and posted it on his Instagram.

3) Leveraging other people’s audiences

Polina now had the positioning and she had her own distribution channel, but if she wanted to take The Profile to the next level she needed to think of new creative ways to get in front of her target audience.

She did this through leveraging other newsletter audiences - and she did it in 2 pretty awesome ways.

A) The Hustle Guest Post - The Hustle is a business newsletter that currently has millions of daily readers. If Polina wanted them to feature her she needed to bring something valuable to the table.

So she went and interviewed Josh Wolf, a venture investor and offered the full Q&A to The Hustle as an exclusive in return for them plugging The Profile in the article.

The Hustle agreed and Polina and The Profile were exposed to The Hustle’s millions of readers.

B) Morning Brew Swap - Morning Brew is an even bigger newsletter than The Hustle, once again with millions of readers. This time Polina offered them a newsletter swap.

She positioned it by saying “You have a lot of subscribers, but it's more of a general audience. I may have less [around 10K] but they're all really high quality and very engaged people.”

Morning Brew agreed and again Polina and The Profile grew.

4) Unbelievable work

All the other stages of growth are awesome and they got Polina to an amazing point. But what got her to where she is today is the fact she continually delivers unbelievable work week in and week out.

Whether it’s hosting exclusive Q&As for her subscribers or going the extra mile and recording video interviews, Polina is constantly overdelivering for her audience.

No matter what you say, there is no better marketing than that.

Because great work, always leads to great success.

And that brings us to where Polina is today.

In a recent interview she mentioned that she had tens of thousands of free subscribers and thousands of paid subscribers.

So a rough estimate from myself based on her $10 monthly subscription would be that she’s making well over $300,000 per year working on The Profile. But truthfully I’m probably heavily undershooting.

Not bad for a one-person business though right?

Ironically, she has a book coming out called Hidden Genius, but truthfully, I think she might be the Hidden Genius here!

But that’s enough about Polina, the real question is how can you emulate what she’s done.

Here’s the formula:

1) Fail quick - Get feedback, iterate, then keep perfecting.
2) Nail down distribution - Figure out where your audience is, then be there.
3) Leverage other’s audiences - It’s a simple way to get more attention.
4) Always overdeliver - Consistently being amazing is a growth hack.

And that’s all for today!

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown. A little different from usual, but I enjoyed writing it and hopefully you got something out of reading it.

If you did (or didn’t) reply to this email and let me know your thoughts - I promise I’ll reply!

Until next time.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of how The Profile grew viral. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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