Janel Loi is a maker and marketer. She is an advocate of the build in public philosophy and is very active on Twitter. She loves exploring the intersection of business and tech.
Newsletters
BrainPint
BrainPint is medley-style newsletter covering personal growth tips, interesting digital tools, business & tech content and even random, rabbit hole internet finds.
She shares the sources and tools she uses to pick the best links and bring it all together at How I Curate A Weekly Newsletter. She also wrote a Twitter thread about why she started BrainPint
After 21 issues, she had 355 subscribers. At week 22, she shared her subscriber growth. At this point, she was getting around 50 new subs each week.
In August, she moved BrainPint to her own domain. She created a Twitter thread about the benefits. She hit the 500 subscriber mark mid September. She posted 5 Things I Learned From Getting to 500 Subscribers on Indie Hackers.
By mid November, she had 1,339 subscribers. She hit 2k subscribers on December 25.
SaaS Investing Digest
A weekly digest for investors in publicly listed SaaS companies. The newsletter rounds up the best writing and analysis about SaaS.
Janet launched this newsletter on October 15. She hit 100 subscribers within 2 hours. The first edition went out the next day to 380 subscribers.
Janel was able to get 497 subscribers within 3 days. BrainPint took a few months to reach the same amount.
Products
Janel sells her products on Gumroad.
She created a Twitter thread about why she used Gumroad. She also reported that Gumroad Discover helped to drive sales.
She created a Twitter thread detailing how she handles pirating of her products.
Newsletter Operating System
Newsletter OS is a comprehensive Notion dashboard that helps newsletter creators curate, write & grow their newsletters.
Prelaunch
She prelaunched the product in October. Within 90 minutes, she had sold 15 copies. ehe crossed $1k in pre-orders in less than 24 hours. She posted about the milestone on Indie hackers.
Within a week, she’d hit $2k in pre-orders. This was largely due to Twitter, where she had a conversion rate of 14%.
Launch
She launched the dashboard at the end of October. She published a thread about what she’d learned that day. By November 5, she had crossed 260 customers. By November 14, she had 300 customers (Indie Hackers post). She hit 500 customers in early December. She created a Twitter thread sharing the lessons learned after selling 500 copies.
Prior to launch, she posted a couple of build in public updates. This thread covers her thoughts on pricing and imposter syndrome. Her tool stack cost just $21.80.
She hit $10k revenue one month after launching.
Product Hunt Launch
Janel launched Newsletter OS on Product Hunt on November 19. It ended up being the #7 product of the day, with 519 upvotes and 157 comments. She made 60 sales from the launch, earning her $2535 in revenue.
She kept followers updated throughout the launch. She shared the launch day dashboard on Twitter. It became the #1 most commented on Product Of The Week on Product Hunt. It became the #1 most commented on Product Of The Week on Product Hunt.
She shared 5 quick lessons she learned 12 hours into the launch at Indie Hackers. After the launch, she created a Twitter thread about the lessons learned.
Podcast Operating System
Podcast OS comprehensive Notion dashboard that helps podcasters pitch, produce, publish, promote & monetize their podcasts.
In January, 2021, Janel joined forces with Josh Kaplan to launch the Podcast Operating System. They sold their first 10 copies within an hour. Within two hours, they had sold 20. They sold 50 copies within 4 hours.
Janet started using Twitter properly in July, 2020. Prior to that she sat at under 40 followers for years. By August 3, she had grown her followers to 300 and had received 253K impressions. She reached 400 followers on August 6.
She regularly shares her Twitter statistics:
Twitter Threads:
- Actionable tips on how to grow your Twitter audience
- A story about belief capital This thread focuses on how KP influenced and supported Janel on her makers jouney.
- 5 quick tips for you to save money on your side projects.
- She learned and grew a lot in September, 2020. This thread shares the lessons learned.
- In October, she launched two projects (an information and newsletter) that got a lot of traction. She created a Twitter thread to share what she had learned.
- 2020 was a year of immense personal growth. Janel created a thread with some of her reflections.
Projects
Pheedback
Pheedback is a community and safe space for independent creators to give & get actionable feedback on their projects
Check it out at Pheedback.co
Janel created this project with Pablo Heredia as part of the Maker T30 challenge.
She regularly shared her progress.
- In this Twitter thread, she shared how they we got the landing page up in under 30 minutes.
- She shared the progress they made on the second day of the challenge.
- Within 24 hours of launch, they were able to get 20 people on the Pheedback waitlist.
- Day 3 @makerpad #T30 Challenge Update (mini thread)
Spanish Learning Resources
Janel made a Glide app that featured the best Spanish learning resources she knew.
Check it out at spanish.glideapp.io
Features
Interviews
How Janel went from no audience to launching newsletter OS within 5 months by building in public