WHY BUILDING A FREE AUDIENCE IS KEEPING YOU BROKE

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

Free audiences are much harder to monetize than paying customers. A campaign generated 3 paid subscribers from 7,500+ free readers versus 34 from roughly 350 existing customers. Instead of building an audience or product in isolation, build a small product, share the process publicly, and build relationships with potential customers. This creates distribution and trust while validating demand before scaling.