
Upstart – Find newsletters to promote your business or side projects - pixelfeeder
http://upstart.me/?ups
======
TekMol
This is not a Show HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

"Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with"

"Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't
be Show HNs."

~~~
dang
Yeah, in this case I think we have to agree with you. An email list isn't
really "something you've made that other people can play with".

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theprop
I wish you'd just write out (at least some of) the newsletters,
reach/audience, and pricing. I'm hesitant to give you my email address without
knowing any of that.

~~~
erikig
I'm also not likely to submit my email unless the form requests some info on
the categories of audience I'd be targeting - e.g music, gaming, startups etc.

I'd rather receive one or two newsletters every couple of months that match my
audience interests rather than 3 ever week that don't.

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pixelfeeder
Maker here. Side note: Took all the feedback from HN on my previous demo.
Still working hard on a searchable database with a ton of curated newsletters.
My goal is to make it easier for fellow creators to share their startup & side
projects with thousands of potential customers. And to have newsletter owners
monetise their emails. Creating a win-win situation for both sides.

~~~
LukasRos
Promoting newsletter sponsorships as a vehicle for side project growth is a
great idea. I think using an email newsletter itself is not the right format
but looking forward to a searchable database.

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pixelfeeder
The searchable database is the real product, but to protect myself from
procrastinating on this I forced myself to launch quickly. Hence the v0.5
solution.

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SyneRyder
So awesome. I was about to say the same about the searchable database, but I
_love_ this launch quickly / minimal viable approach. (I think I remember your
previous iteration.) Still eager to follow this one!

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jchin
I used to be in this space.

My company was LaunchBit
[https://www.launchbit.com/](https://www.launchbit.com/), which was acquired
by BuySellAds. We helped people buy/sell advertising space in newsletters.
After a while, newsletters were getting hard to find so we also created a
newsletter directory.
[http://www.newsletterdirectory.co/](http://www.newsletterdirectory.co/)

It's been several years now and I haven't kept up with how they are both being
maintained. Anyway, you may find it helpful.

~~~
wolfgang42
> It's been several years now and I haven't kept up with how they are both
> being maintained.

Not very well, it seems. The directory seems to be broken, and I can't
actually view any of the newsletter profiles.

Some poking around leads me to believe that nothing on the server has been
touched since the company was acquired in 2014. The server is running Ubuntu
14.04 (end of life April 2015), the About LaunchBit page still lists you as
CTO, and the last press release is a TechCrunch article about the acquisition.

These sorts of 'ghost' sites always make me wonder--who is hosting this
server? Has it just been lost in the depths of a datacenter and the fine
details of a budget? Will anything I build linger on like this, barely
surviving, somehow, long after I've moved on? I'm sure if I actually found the
answers to these vaguely existential questions they'd turn out to be a lot
more mundane than I expect.

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danenania
Good idea... I signed up and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works.

I'm working on a tool for developers (secrets management --
[https://www.envkey.com](https://www.envkey.com)), that is currently available
for two languages, Ruby and Node.js. How likely is it that I'll be able to
find newsletters that cater to my niche through your service?

On that note, it would be nice if I could specify some parameters when I sign
up to be sure the newsletters I'm getting notified about are relevant.

Good luck!

~~~
pixelfeeder
Looks great. There are actually a bunch of developer focussed newsletters in
our database. So yes. Great idea on the parameters. Noted and will find a way
to have it in the product.

~~~
tyingq
Newsletters about compliance type stuff might be a good fit too. PCI, Sarbanes
Oxley, etc.

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ryanx435
This is a great idea! The hardest part of advertising some of my smaller
projects has been figuring out where to advertise!

Also, there are times where I would love to get news specifically about
various niche topics, but I can't find a good place to do so. I would love
this to also function as a sort of yellow pages for finding interesting
newsletters

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petercooper
_various niche topics_

What sort of niche topics? I'm intrigued how specific you mean because I'm in
this space :-)

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sercan
Hey @pixelffeder,

I'm working on a similar product. It would be great to meet you and talk about
more. Can you pls reach me at: sercan [thesign] sercanyilmaz.com ?

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folli
Cool idea! Would it perhaps make sense to somehow use categories related to
the product/newsletter? This would narrow down the possibly huge space of
newsletters.

~~~
pixelfeeder
makes total sense and you'll totally see that being available very soonish.

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EternalData
Great idea! Email newsletter have such great ROI, it's just a pain to find out
who owns them and getting into contact with people who are looking for
sponsors.

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jstandard
I've considered marketing to email newsletters. What is your source for "email
newsletters having a great ROI"?

It's been hard to come across meaningful data here.

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rogerjin14
My company makes a product for developers
([https://buttercms.com](https://buttercms.com)) and we've had mixed results
with newsletter sponsorships. There doesn't seem to be a predictable
correlation between the newsletter size and the amount of clickthroughs or
signups we get from them. Will your database help with this?

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jmunsch
the name is the same/similar to an existing loan company.

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yeukhon
Actually I was thinking upstart in Linux.

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royceh
Smart idea and I think the opportunity of centralizing newsletters and
categorizing each would increase make upstart super valuable. I signed up and
look forward to next wednesday.

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ryanbertrand
How will you know who my product is geared towards? I signed up for fun but I
know the suggestions will be terrible for my niche product.

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sheraz
Cool idea. You have no input validation on your email capture forms. I was
able to submit an empty value for email.

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sillysaurus3
Input validation for email addresses is usually an anti-feature.
foo+yoursite@gmail.com is a perfectly valid email but almost all email
validation will reject it.

Maybe don't accept an empty email address though.

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jasonlfunk
I typically call `.+@.+\\..+` good enough.

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cm2012
Neat acquisition channel possibility.

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advertiise_com
www.advertiise.com - let's monetize these newsletters asap.

