Can a local newsletter compete with 6AM City, Axios Local and AI newsletter chains?

I get this question a lot, especially when someone hears a company is launching hundreds or thousands of AI newsletters. I don't stress about it. This isn't a winner-take-all market.

"a big difference in my mind between an employee just make it 60k, you know, running this thing versus a local entrepreneur on the ground, you know, meeting people in person, going to the chamber, really, you know, making custom content, whether, know, also leveraging social media."

What's the weakness of the chain model?

Nobody local has a stake in the outcome. In some markets 6AM City doesn't even have anybody on the ground; it's AI or someone in a corporate office. Where they do, it's an employee whose job is editing, probably with AI news fed to them. A writer who doesn't live there has no vested interest in whether the newsletter succeeds.

I've watched well-funded attempts at this raise millions and run on employees only, garbage content and no personality. The difference between us and Axios Local or 6AM City is that they do general stuff. We make it human.

How is a chain an advantage for me?

You get to be the opposite. A real person people can reach. Show up: chamber events, grand openings, and when you eat at a restaurant, ask to talk to the owner. Once you have an audience, they'll want to talk to you, because you have the readers they want to reach.

What about a company launching 2,000 AI newsletters?

2,000 cities is almost every US city over 50,000. My guess is they're running my model backwards: launch first, then try to find franchise-style operators after the fact. I find the local person first. And if you launch that many at once, how are you doing acquisition? It all comes back to the same thing. You've got to be a human who lives there.

Where should I compete?

Below them. The venture-backed networks go to big cities like Austin, Chicago and Charlotte. I'd go to the mid-size markets and smaller towns underneath. By niching down into a smaller area, you own that area.

There's a cleanup opportunity too. Plenty of people will start local newsletters after hearing people like me, not know what they're doing and quit within 6 to 12 months. You can scoop those up cheap. More on that in should you buy struggling local newsletters.

Can't a big company just copy the playbook?

In theory they could wipe us out. They don't, for two reasons. A big company can't pivot even a little; it's like turning the Titanic. And the work is in the weeds. Even if someone realized what an opportunity this is, that doesn't mean they can go execute it. An executive at a large local news app told me their newsletter picks the five biggest stories in an area. He admitted he wouldn't read it either. That's the problem.

Does bootstrapping beat venture money?

On profit, for me, yes. The funded brands may bring in more revenue, but they raised too much and carry too much staff and infrastructure. I came in AI first and entrepreneur first. On one call I put it at roughly a third of their revenue and five times the profit, that kind of thing. It's a rough comparison, not an audit.