The Hustle
The Hustle was a daily business newsletter that Sam Parr built and sold to HubSpot in 2021. At its peak, it had between 1 and 1.5 million subscribers and spawned Trends.co, a paid research product, and My First Million, a podcast that outlived the newsletter as Sam’s primary creative outlet.
What makes The Hustle interesting is not the exit. It is the math that preceded it.
The $20 Million Spreadsheet
At 23 years old, Sam set a goal that sounds delusional until you hear him explain it: make 15 million in revenue that he could sell for roughly $30 million. After taxes, he would walk away with his target number.
This reverse-engineering shaped every subsequent decision. The Hustle was not born from a passion for newsletters. It was the answer to a spreadsheet problem: what business could realistically get to $15 million in revenue within seven years? (How To Get Ahead of 99% of People - 13:45)
He missed the deadline by one year, selling at 31 instead of 30. When he talks about this, there is no disappointment. The goal existed to create direction, not to create a scorecard. The point was breaking an intimidating number into something actionable. (How To Get Ahead of 99% of People - 16:00)
Three Percent Per Week
The Hustle’s growth strategy was almost comically simple: grow subscribers by 3% every single week. That was it. No complex funnels. No elaborate content calendars. Just one number, measured weekly.
Sam knew that if he built the audience, advertisers would follow. So every week reduced to a single question: did we grow 3% or not? (How To Get Ahead of 99% of People - 14:30)
The power of this approach is that it eliminated decision fatigue. When someone proposed a new initiative, the question was simple: will this help us grow 3% this week? If yes, do it. If unclear, probably skip it.
Three percent weekly does not sound dramatic. But compounded over 52 weeks, it is 4.7x annual growth. Do that for three years and you have multiplied by over 100. The math of consistency is counterintuitive.
Nine Months to $100K MRR
The Hustle reached 100K MRR. The Hustle did it in nine months. (20M In One Day - 09:30)
This speed came from the newsletter model itself. Once you have an email list, you have permission to communicate with people daily. You are not waiting for them to return to a website or remember to open an app. You are showing up in their inbox, which remains the most intimate real estate on the internet.
The Regret
Sam’s main regret from The Hustle years was being too conservative with growth spending. When Facebook ads were working, he held back.
He recalls being “overly cheap” when the numbers clearly showed they should have been spending more. The fear of overspending became the actual mistake. Looking back, he believes he should have spent significantly more during the windows when paid acquisition channels were profitable. (20M In One Day - 16:30)
This is a common founder trap. The same frugality that helps you survive the early years can choke your growth in the later years. The psychology that saves you at 500K MRR.
The HubSpot Exit
HubSpot acquired The Hustle in 2021. The deal included something that would prove more valuable to Sam’s next chapter than anyone realized at the time: My First Million, the podcast.
The podcast had started almost by accident. Sam thought podcasting was a waste of time. Shaan Puri was not a content person - he was running a gaming company. They ended up recording together only because a scheduled guest did not show up. (How Much We Make From A Podcast - 11:00)
What The Hustle’s email list did for the podcast launch was instructive. When they announced the first episode to 1-1.5 million subscribers, that episode got 50,000 to 60,000 downloads. The second episode dropped to 30,000-40,000. Then it settled into the 5,000-15,000 range. (How Much We Make From A Podcast - 10:00)
That initial blast bought them time. It got the podcast enough early traction that the algorithms noticed. The email list did not make the podcast successful - years of consistent episodes did that - but it gave them runway to find their voice.
What Sam Did With the Money
After the sale, Sam put almost all of his proceeds into a Vanguard index fund. Over the next five years, it grew 71%. He did nothing. (How To Get Ahead of 99% of People - 26:00)
There is something instructive here. A founder who built a newsletter empire through relentless optimization and weekly growth targets chose the most passive possible investment strategy for the proceeds. The same person who tracked 3% weekly growth decided that trying to beat the market was not worth the effort.
The hustle was for building. For preserving, simplicity won.