Mar 24, 2026
Ep. 103: Building a newsletter to fight the algorithm ft. Matt Kiser
Listen on
Matt Kiser is the creator and editor WTF Just Happened Today, a political news newsletter with over 200,000 subscribers built entirely on a pay-what-you-want membership model. In this episode Matt breaks down how he grew from zero to 100,000 subscribers in six months, the editorial philosophy behind curating the news every day for nine years, and the biggest mistakes he made along the way.
Read the newsletter: https://www.creatorspotlight.com/profiles
__
Matt Kiser
__
Timestamps
00:00 Introducing Matt Kiser
01:18 Zero to 100k in six months
11:06 Building the skill of aggregation and curation
17:41 The death of objectivity
18:37 From 100k to 200k subscribers
20:36 Don’t hate the media, become the media
29:18 Transparency with the revenue model
35:40 The AI podcast controversy
46:46 Biggest mistakes and learning moments
50:23 A deeper connection with the audience
