From San · Second Ladder Intel · 48,200 subscribers
Build a newsletter that pays you back every month
AI does 80% of the work. You do 30 minutes a day. Whether you already run a business or you’re starting from zero — it’s the same machine, a newsletter that feeds the business you have or becomes the business you want.
No purchase yet — be first to know when it opens.
48,200
subscribers, built with this system
47%
open rate vs the 35–40% average
3x
issues a week, every week
30 min
a day to run the whole thing
THE CURRICULUM
Five modules that take you from blank page to paid
27 short video lessons and 50 templates, prompts, and SOPs. The exact system I run, stripped of the Second Ladder specifics so it works for any niche you pick.
Module 1
Pick Your Niche + Promise →
A topic that can actually pay, a one-sentence promise that sells, and a 10-person smoke test so you never build for an audience of zero.
Module 2
Set Up the Machine →
Beehiiv on the free tier, the research and drafting prompts, voice calibration, and the 30-minute run sheet. You ship your first issue here.
Module 3
Grow It →
The subject-line playbook behind a 47% open rate, your first 100 subscribers, and referral and cross-promo loops that grow the list. Zero ads.
Module 4
Monetize Three Ways →
Sponsorship rate-card math, affiliates that keep trust intact, and a paid tier that works at small list sizes. A hundred readers can fund your first members.
Module 5
The Operator Path →
Get paid $1,000–2,000 a month to run someone else’s newsletter with the same machine, including the exact Upwork listing to put up.
Bonus
Teardown + Prompt Vault →
A walkthrough of my real dashboard and numbers, unblurred, plus every AI prompt in the course in one copy-paste document. Full access only.
SAME MACHINE, TWO OUTCOMES
However you use it, the system is identical
If you already have a business
A newsletter is the cheapest, highest-trust marketing channel you’re not running yet. It keeps you in front of past customers, warms up leads who aren’t ready to buy, and lands you in the inbox every week without paying for the click. You own the list. No algorithm decides who sees it. Point it at your industry and it starts feeding your pipeline.
If you’re starting from scratch
The newsletter is the business. You pick a topic you actually know, build an audience that trusts you, and turn that trust into monthly income through a paid tier, sponsors, or running newsletters for other people. No product to invent, no inventory, no team. The course starts you from zero on purpose.
WHY NOW
The work that made newsletters a grind is now the part AI is good at
You’ve probably noticed it. The newsletters showing up in your inbox lately look suspiciously good. Clean, consistent, sent like clockwork by people who clearly have day jobs and businesses to run.
Here’s what’s underneath that. The part that used to be a grind — finding the stories, summarizing them, drafting, formatting — is now the exact thing AI is genuinely good at. The part AI still can’t do, taste, picking what actually matters, sounding like a real person, takes about 30 minutes a day.
That flipped the math. A newsletter used to be a ten-hour-a-week hobby that paid nothing for years. Now it’s a 30-minute-a-day system that can start working for you at a few hundred subscribers.
I know because I’m living on the other side of that flip. I’m an ex-Deloitte, Accenture, and Oracle consultant, and the newsletter is the thing I do before the rest of my day starts. It’s quietly become the most valuable asset I own.
JOIN THE WAITLIST
Be first to know when it opens
Drop your email and I’ll reach out the moment enrollment opens. No spam — just the one email that matters.
No spam, ever. Just the enrollment announcement when the time comes.
SA
WHO’S TEACHING THIS
Built by an operator, not a guru
I don’t teach newsletters as a theory. I run a 48,200-subscriber newsletter at a 47% open rate, three times a week, in 30 minutes a day, on top of a full placement business. This course is the documentation of a machine I already run every morning. The only reason I can teach the 30-minute system is that I had to build it for myself first.
FAQ
The honest answers
How much time does this really take?
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I don't have an audience. Does this still work?
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I already run a business. Is this overkill for me?
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Which AI tools do I need? Do I have to be technical?
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Why Beehiiv and not Substack?
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Isn't AI-written content low quality?
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What's the guarantee?
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LAST THING
A year from now you’ll either own a list that pays you back, or you won’t
The work is 30 minutes a day, and the machine is already built. You just have to run it.