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Refactoring
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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 8 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
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How Refactoring Grew

Tech newsletter and community for engineering leaders

How did Refactoring grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Refactoring grew through multiple channels including a paid online community for engineering leaders, a newsletter, and podcasts. The founder, Luca Rossi, leveraged communities, attributing about a third of his subscribers to them, and used referral programs with incentives to expand the audience. He also utilized paid social ads and recommendations on Substack, which accounted for around 20% of new subscribers.

Channels

6 channels · grouped by how Refactoring grows

  • Online Community

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “Luca knows the power of communities and has leveraged a few to build his own audience. He mentioned on a podcast that he attributes around a third of his 25k subscribers (at the time) as coming from communities.”
    medium
    Show 2 more quotes
    “Today, he makes a living by writing, podcasting, and leading a community of engineers who believe software should never forget the human side.”
    medium
    “A paid space for engineering leaders to learn together, get feedback, and work through real problems. Join the community”
    medium

  • Newsletter

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “He Quit His CTO Job to Write a Newsletter (Now 150K Read It)... In this interview, Luca Rossi — founder of Refactoring, one of the most popular tech newsletters in Europe — shares what happens when you leave everything behind to build something truly yours. Today, he makes a living by writing ...”
    medium
    Show 1 more quote
    “A weekly synthesis of ideas on product, engineering, and AI. This is where research happens first. Subscribe for free”
    medium

  • Paid social ads

    · 1 mention
    “Paid social ads. Luca has been very open about how he runs his Twitter ads to grow the newsletter.”
    medium

  • Lead magnets

    · 1 mention
    “Recommendations ... In August 2022, he mentioned that around 20% of new subscribers were coming from the recommendations he was getting on Substack. ... 20% of new subscribers on Refactoring now come from other Substack recommendations.”
    medium

  • Podcasts

    · 1 mention
    “Listen to the podcast”
    medium

  • Referral Program

    · 1 mention
    “Putting together a great referral program can do wonders towards helping you grow your audience. ... Incentivizing people to share the newsletter can be as simple as having a leaderboard like Luca does. But he also offers 3 or 6 months of his paid tier for free if you refer enough people to the n...”
    medium

How 2,706 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Refactoring’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    68% ◀
  • Social media
    60%
  • Search/SEO
    57%
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    34% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    32% ◀
  • Partnerships
    31%
  • Paid ads
    24% ◀
  • Events
    24%
  • Press/PR
    17%
  • Outbound/Sales
    16%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    9%
  • Product expansion
    2%
  • Influencer partnerships
    2%
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