Reaching 1,000 Subscribers and Growing a Business Publication in San Diego
A look back at the top performing posts and early days growing a media publication
Every week, receive startup and venture capital stories in your inbox by subscribing to Business of San Diego’s weekly newsletter. Written by Fred Grier, award-winning journalist and former technology reporter at The San Diego Business Journal.
At the end of 2022, after spending the previous year working in management consulting and working as a technology reporter for The San Diego Business Journal, I committed to go to business school to get an MBA and started a newsletter media publication to cover the quiet, yet lucrative venture capital scene in San Diego.
Business of San Diego, formerly known as SD founders, started as a small Substack with a 100-person email list, comprised of contacts that I interviewed during my time working as a business newspaper writer covering San Diego’s largest publicly-traded companies such as Qualcomm, Illumina, and Dexcom.
It has since evolved into a 10,000 monthly viewed media publication with nearly 50+ published articles, interviews, fundraising scoops, and a 1,000-plus reader community.
That readership includes startup founders, venture capitalists, family office investors, hedge fund managers and various readers who have deep interest in San Diego’s thriving technology, science and consumer industries.
Compared to similar newsletters, Business of San Diego is a relatively niche publication. The biggest difference is that roughly 90% of readers currently live in San Diego or have some underlying connection to America's finest city.
In addition to sharing new or breaking stories each week, I’ve been able to help countless founders generate more press, find new customers, as well as get in front of investors — all things which I likely couldn’t have done working in a corporate setting.
The newsletter growth and connections made so far has assured me that I’m building an important media property serving the San Diego business community, and ultimately creating “my own luck” for my career.
I’m excited about the years ahead and have set a goal to try to make Business of San Diego my life’s work. So with that, here’s a brief reflection on reaching 1,000 newsletter readers, sharing what stories you can expect, and highlighting which articles drove the most views.
High-Level Overview
Launched in Jan 2023, Business of San Diego aims to become a go-to media publication to learn about the important companies and key players in San Diego.
The newsletter is written weekly by Fred Grier, former technology reporter at The San Diego Business Journal who has written more than 800+ articles and built relationships with top deal-makers and founders in the San Diego area.
Over the last twelve months, we profiled under-the-radar investors, unicorn startup founders and VC firms rarely written about. We also curated trends in startup financing and provided exclusive data you can’t find anywhere else.
One way to describe Business of San Diego, is “TechCrunch for San Diego,” with the goal to make it easy to stay up to date on the local startup scene.
Launching a Paid Newsletter
Aside from the San Diego Union Tribune, which has laid off a number of its top business and tech reporters including Mike Freeman, far and few media outlets are publishing real-time news that is both original and written by a business journalist.
To fill this void, Business of San Diego is focused on delivering the most valuable news that is worth paying for — which is why in August, I decided to offer a paid subscription offering ($10 a month or $100 a year) to support independent journalism.
Since launching the publication, I’ve had numerous exchanges (a number of them off-the-record) with dozens of San Diego’s most influential executives and investors. That includes Social Leverage’s Howard Lindzon, the founder of Axos Bank, and a handful of fast-growing startups, including top CEOs who moved to the region during covid.
“You should interview every San Francisco, Bay Area startup founder or CEO that moves to San Diego during the pandemic,” Brian Mesic, Venture Capitalist and Managing Director at Ankona Capital told me in July at an event hosted by The Riverside Company. “Most media outlets and newsletters haven’t covered that, and would be really interesting to get their original take on — why San Diego?”
Top Performing Articles
By far the most popular article I’ve written was an interview series highlighting founder and CEO Andrew Gazdecki, titled “Prominent Silicon Valley Startup Founder Taking Its Talents to San Diego,” who allowed me to break the news that he was moving his company to La Jolla from San Francisco.
The second was a billion-dollar acquisition and startup scoop on a up-start biotech company called DTx Pharma, titled “San Diego's NuFund Achieves $1 Billion Exit” which detailed the inner workings of how the a small company generated significant outsized returns to NuFund, a 20-year plus angel investment group.
The third and forth spots fell under the Special Report category, where I curated which companies or startups received the highest funding during a single quarter, “Q2 VC Report: $1.1 Billion Invested in San Diego.” Followed by “San Diego's Most Active VC Firms,” which highlighted VC firms such as Qualcomm Ventures, Section 32, Social Leverage, among others.
Other well-performing articles I feel extremely proud of and spent at least 10+ hours researching so that they were thoughtfully written and analyzed included profiles on Linear, Vuori Clothing, Shield AI, Trust & Will, and many others.
In the 2024 pipeline, expect exclusive interviews with the CEO of Seismic, founder of unicorn startup ClickUp, profiles of prolific biotech leaders and investors, as well as special reports highlighting family office investors, billionaires, and much more.
Who Reads the Newsletter?
To better understand my readership, I have regularly met with lawyers, investment bankers, venture capitalists, public relation agency owners, recruiters, and even wealth management leaders to better understand their line of work.
Though this has certainly taken up some of my time from writing, it’s been worth it. Every conversation has reassured me that Business of San Diego is slowly becoming a must-read by a number of the top firms and leaders who are either making top M&A deals or want to capitalize on the next one.
Here’s some of the companies and organizations who currently read my work: Deloitte, Cooley, UBS, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Google, Biocom California, Startup San Diego, JP Morgan Chase, Robert Half, Wells Fargo. I’ve enjoyed getting to chat with a handful of readers either in-person, on Zoom, and occasionally at events. The plan is to continue that going into 2024.
Hosting In-Person Events
Business of San Diego is still in the very early days finding content-market fit, every month it seems to be growing interest from readers to find more ways to get further involved in the community to network and learn.
In February I'll be hosting a founder-focused event in Del Mar gathering 50 founders and investors, many who are new to the community. If you’re around the first week of February and want to attend, more details on that soon. The event will be sponsored by a consulting and law firm in San Diego.
In September, we hosted a group of 20+ early-stage entrepreneurs in Carlsbad for a private tour and conversation with Sarah Davis, Founder and CEO of Fashionphile.
It was my first time hosting an in-person event, and I am grateful that Sarah took the time to share her journey with the entrepreneurs who said “best event they attended all year” and Interlock Capital’s Neal Bloom who partnered with me to host it.
Last but certainly not least, thank you to all who have read, supported, enjoyed, and shared this publication this year. Excited for year two and hopefully doubling the readership next year!
Keep going, Fred! I enjoy keeping up with San Diego business happenings through your newsletter!