📌 How to make $80K from 160 fans

What if your customers paid $500 just to shape your content?

What if trust—not—traffic was the moat your business needed?

That’s what Daisy Alioto built with Dirt Media.

It’s not a typical newsletter. It’s not even a media brand in the old sense.

It’s a product that runs on taste, builds community through ownership, and monetizes without chasing reach.

If you’re a business owner with a product or service and want:

• Deeper loyalty

• Higher-spend customers

• Smarter, low-volume growth

This model’s for you.

Here’s how Dirt did it—and how you can borrow the blueprint.

If you ready to grow your newsletter?

You don’t need more ideas.
You need a system.

Here’s how you can launch your newsletter in 10 days:
🛠 Newsletter in 10 Days: Start. Launch. Engage.

✅ Step-by-step.
✅ Practical steps.
✅ Built to launch fast and stay consistent.

You’ll go from:
“I don’t know what to send…”
→
“I’ve got a real list and real momentum.”

Regular: $87.53 → Just $49 until May 31

Try it. Don’t love it? I’ll refund you.
No stress. No forms. Just email me.

Want personal help instead?

Until May 31, get a full 1:1 Audit for $93 (normally $187).

🔍 Review your welcome flow
📬 Fix your deliverability
🧠 Improve content + layout
📈 Get a growth plan for next week

If it’s not helpful, you get your money back.
Simple.

Backstory

Daisy Alioto used to grow audiences for media giants - Condé Nast, NPR, NYMag. But behind the scenes, she saw a broken model: chasing traffic, underpaying talent, bowing to algorithms.

So she built the opposite.

A brand powered by trust. A product fueled by taste.

Dirt launched as a side project and became a profitable, culture-shaping newsletter with high-paying fans and zero dependency on viral growth.

Email Delivery

Most newsletters chase hacks: emojis, lowercase subject lines, avoiding suspicious words like "free."

Dirt set a new standard.

They don’t game the inbox. They build trust before the first issue arrives.

Researching Dirt, I came across an unusual email verification flow - and it’s brilliant.

Dirt uses an MFA-style signup system that nails three goals at once:

1. You enter your email.

2. You get a code in your inbox.

3. You confirm the code—only then are you subscribed.

Why this matters:

• Your email is verified instantly.

• You’ve already found and opened the first email.

• Your deliverability score is boosted before the welcome message even arrives.

It’s the perfect hybrid between Single and Double Opt-In (SOI vs DOI). More secure than SOI, less friction than DOI.

(Here’s a great SOI vs DOI comparison)

If you want higher open rates and long-term inbox placement, this simple tweak could be your edge.

Content

Dirt Media isn’t just one stream—it’s a bundle of editorial experiences under one brand.

Its publications include:

• Dirt, the flagship: a near-daily digest of sharp takes on culture and the internet

• Prune, a design-focused newsletter acquired and integrated into the portfolio

• Blank is about books and book culture.

• Strung is about tennis.

• Clone is a list of curated news

Each explores different angles of taste, media, or the digital world.

Contributor essays and topical dispatches, dropped on an as-needed basis.

They follow a similar model to Adam Ryan’s Workweek - multiple newsletters, each focused on a niche, all operating under one strategic roof.
It maximizes the compound effect of shared systems, audiences, and monetization.

📚 How Adam Ryan scaled Workweek to 500K+ subs

This structure does three things:

1. Keeps editorial fresh, flexible, and topical

2. Lets readers self-select into streams they care about

3. Supports collaboration and guest voices without diluting the core brand

It’s not a monologue—it’s a media network with a unifying tone.
And that modular structure gives Dirt the ability to grow without bloating.
And that modular structure gives Dirt the ability to grow without bloating.

Business Idea- Dirt isn’t just a newsletter

It’s a modern media company with low overhead, high taste, and big loyalty.

What it includes:

• A rotating roster of writers

• Paid contributors

• Daily(-ish) takes on culture, tech, and internet shifts

• Strong editorial direction (no clickbait, no fluff)

But the real innovation?
Dirt turned its audience into stakeholders.
And that created an entirely different kind of customer.

If you’re building anything today—service, product, or platform—this structure is worth stealing.

Monetization

A layered, high-trust sales system

Dirt doesn’t rely on ads or referrals.
It runs on taste, ownership, and intentional scarcity.

1. NFTs = High-trust funding (non-fungible tokens = unique digital assets).

📚 Want to learn more? - 10 Best NFT Examples for Inspiration in 2025

NFTs aren’t just for crypto bros.
Daisy used them as membership passes, giving early fans:

• Access to Dirt’s private Discord

• Voting rights on what gets published

• A digital badge that says: “I back this brand”

Each NFT? Around $500.
No ads. No scale games.

160 people bought in—raising $80K in revenue with no paid ads, no traffic hacks, and no upfront capital investment.
Just high-trust believers who wanted in.

2. DAO voting = customer co-creation

(Decentralized Autonomous Organization = group decisions made by token holders)

Token-holders help decide what Dirt publishes. That means Dirt’s best fans literally shape the product.

📚 Want to learn more? The Best Examples of DAOs

3. Paid newsletter subs

Dirt still has standard monthly subs—$5/month.
But many skip it and spend $40+ on the next drop instead.

4. Merch drops = cultural commerce

Totes, perfumes, zines—sold like streetwear.
Each product has a story.
Because they’re limited, they sell out fast.

5. Strategic capital

Daisy’s not anti-investor—just anti-hype.
She’s raising with intent: to expand the brand without burning out the audience.

P.S. oh, and…

Questions about newsletter growth, monetization, or other how-to topics?

Reply to this email or connect with me on ​LinkedIn.​