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A searchable email inspiration library turns campaign examples into subscriptions, sponsorships, and events.
approximately 400K 2019 revenue (currency unspecified)
Publish the reference library people already ask you to send, then sell tools and community around the habit it creates.
Fewer bars = easier, cheaper, or faster for an AI-assisted solo builder. Editorial judgments based on the case details.
Really Good Emails began as a side project by Mike Nelson and cofounder Matthew, who both worked in email marketing and saw people asking for examples after conference talks. They started with a simple blog catalog of campaigns, first on Blogger and then WordPress, and combined their efforts rather than competing. A cold email to Mailchimp led to an early advertiser relationship, and a Product Hunt launch brought a large traffic spike that stayed. The founders reinvested advertising income into developers and the site rather than paying themselves while they kept full-time jobs. Over time, the business added paid placements, team collaboration software for saving and discussing emails, and Unspam, an intimate conference capped at 250 attendees. Mike says the business was doing around 400,000 in 2019 revenue, currency unspecified, before traffic exceeded one million monthly visitors during Covid. The host reports a 6–7 million exit range; Mike confirms the 2024 sale to Growens but no transaction records or currency are shown. The business took roughly ten years to grow and was built alongside other careers.
Really Good Emails found its first audience by turning a repeated conference question into a public reference library. Mike spoke about email marketing, and people asked him to forward examples; a simple blog made those examples easier to find and share.
The quick-reference card — acquisition channels, replication playbook, and risk map — is members-only.
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Two production-grade prompts per idea — a full build spec and an SEO growth plan — plus 10 tailored build specs a week. Members only.
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Data credibility: The host reports an exit range of 6–7 million, which Mike acknowledges while confirming the 2024 sale to Growens; the currency is not stated and no transaction documents are shown, so the exit is creator-reported. Mike describes 2019 revenue as around half a million, then says 400,000; currency is unspecified. He also reports more than one million monthly visitors during Covid and a bot-affected month with roughly one-third of traffic compromised. These are interview statements, not independently audited figures.
The first meaningful cash came from selling placement around an audience the founders had already attracted. They cold-emailed Mailchimp, received an interested response, and then approached other advertisers as site traffic grew.
The archive made traffic useful, and traffic made the next revenue stream easier to sell. Really Good Emails launched on Product Hunt, kept attracting visitors, and then used that audience to approach more advertisers.
Really Good Emails was built while the founders held full-time jobs, so progress depended on protecting a small but regular block of time and reinvesting early cash. When a city had only five or ten interested marketers, Mike still organized a small meetup and used the conversation to learn about their email problems.
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