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Why We Buy
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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 52 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 Why We Buy Grew

Newsletter focused on buyer psychology insights

How did Why We Buy grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Why We Buy grew primarily through building and expanding its email list and newsletter, which reached over 70,000 subscribers by 2024. The founder used organic social media channels like Twitter and LinkedIn to engage B2B founders and encouraged sharing upon sign-up, contributing to growth. Transparency and vulnerability, such as publicly sharing personal failure, led to unexpected opportunities including consulting and speaking engagements, which supported growth.

Channels

12 channels · grouped by how Why We Buy grows

  • Newsletter

    · 5 mentions · 5 sources
    “So, like, what I was thinking about is we were talking about should we add a second newsletter? It may end up being a weekly thing. At this point, it's bi weekly, so two a month. Um, but it's called Fry Yay. And the idea is it's the only newsletter that rewards you for getting smarter.”
    high
    Show 4 more quotes
    “Katelyn Bourgoin runs the popular Why We Buy newsletter. It's one of the best newsletters teaching readers about buyer psychology on the market. Since starting the newsletter in 2020, Katelyn's now amassed over 63k subscribers and earned $1M in revenue in 2024 alone.”
    medium
    “August 2023: Katelyn’s Why We Buy newsletter just surpasses 50k subscribers and is on the way to earning $220k in revenue (as a side business). ... Why We Buy is approaching 70k subscribers and nearly hit $1M in revenue during 2024.”
    medium
    “By showing that 60,000+ people read her newsletter, she’s telling the anxious buyer: 'It’s safe here.'”
    medium
    “I had built this little newsletter that was supposed to build pipeline for my agency. And that newsletter started growing at this at this rate that I hadn’t expected. And brands started reaching out to me. Can we sponsor your newsletter? ... I was like, this is actually a thing.”
    high

  • Email List Growth

    · 5 mentions · 5 sources
    “Be unignorable.com is where you can sign up for the newsletter. when we're looking to get new clients, we'll do like a email out saying people can apply and then we'll just kind of like find the ones that make the, that are the best fit for the service and work with those folks. ... if you're on ...”
    high
    Show 4 more quotes
    “So the goal is we've got a few different products. I want to create some kind of like flash sales around those. And I want to segment our list. So that we're running those sales to a segment of the list ... So it's nice. Cause like on social, I won't be like sale, sale, sale all the time ... the ...”
    high
    “I tripled my email list—here's how ... Katelyn shares how she tripled her subscriber base to 70,000+, launched a product that sold 200 seats in 6 minutes, and made a change to her email strategy that resulted in a 30% growth in sales. See how Katelyn stopped depending solely on social media and b...”
    medium
    “She runs Why We Buy, a newsletter about buyer psychology with about 63,000 subscribers. And she’s on a mission to hit $2 million in revenue while, in her words, “getting lazier.” The biggest lever so far? A personalized welcome sequence that asks new subscribers what they need help with, then giv...”
    medium
    “Katelyn’s founder story & how she grew her email list to 63,000!”
    medium

  • Organic social media

    · 5 mentions · 5 sources
    “Her transparency not only healed her, it made her magnetic. That vulnerability was the catalyst for a wave of unexpected opportunities—from consulting offers to major speaking gigs.”
    medium
    Show 4 more quotes
    “In the early days, you grew a lot with. social media, um, you know, partnerships working with other brands and that kind of thing.”
    medium
    “The mix of paid and organic growth strategies fueling Why We Buy”
    medium
    “She encouraged people to tweet when they signed up.”
    medium
    “your podcast, your newsletter, your speaking topics, your social posts — they start pointing in the same direction.”
    medium

  • Weekly newsletter

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “And so our original was based on that, but over time, as we, like, we never planned to work with sponsors, like, it's like, how do you. Hook them in the beginning and then you have to have room for your sponsor spot. And then you also have to like, so like it generally just became longer and I wa...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “So she started a newsletter on buyer psychology. It quickly took on a life of its own. Why? Because Katelyn tapped into something few marketers understand: people don’t want “research,” they want insights that make them money. Her playful, science-backed approach to buyer psychology hit a nerve—a...”
    medium
    “In 2021, Katelyn started a newsletter to find consulting clients. By 2023, she realized the newsletter was the business. ... Her Why We Buy newsletter now has over 60,000 subscribers.”
    medium

  • Earned media

    · 1 mention
    “Her transparency not only healed her, it made her magnetic. That vulnerability was the catalyst for a wave of unexpected opportunities—from consulting offers to major speaking gigs.”
    medium

  • Waitlist

    · 1 mention
    “She talked about the concept and built a waitlist of 2,250 people. By the time she opened the doors, the 'Push' and 'Pull' were so high that she sold 50 early-bird seats in seconds.”
    medium

  • Giveaways

    · 1 mention
    “When we will reach out to specific brands, like we can see you working really well for our Friday issue and we would do something special with you, or it's not just the newsletter, but I'll do something on social as well. I think I'd like to do it more like that.”
    high

  • Advertising on social media

    · 1 mention
    “But most of our growth right now, like I would say a portion of it's coming organic. A bigger portion is coming from meta and from spark loop paid partnerships. So I, um, At this point easily, I would say 65 percent is paid versus 35 percent organic because Katelyn's not promoting the newsletter ...”
    high

  • Existing Tik Tok Content

    · 1 mention
    “We've got a really great lead magnet that's converting super great on meta ads right now. So like, I think it's like a buck 50 we're getting new subscribers for, which is killer. Um, but the sales sequence we have for that, we're still tinkering with it to like, get the return on ad spend as high...”
    high

  • Partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “In the early days, you grew a lot with. social media, um, you know, partnerships working with other brands and that kind of thing.”
    medium

  • LinkedIn

    · 1 mention
    “Katelyn chose Twitter and LinkedIn because that’s where B2B founders hang out.”
    medium

  • Brand collaborations and giveaways

    · 1 mention
    “But it was a lot more work. It was a lot more work to think through, like, how are we going to frame this? And how do we work these topics? So that they're, we're working them in and we're going to do this webinar with these folks and we're going to do these social posts.”
    high

How 2,739 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Why We Buy’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    68%
  • Social media
    60% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    57%
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    35% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    33% ◀
  • Partnerships
    32% ◀
  • Paid ads
    24%
  • Events
    24%
  • Press/PR
    17% ◀
  • Outbound/Sales
    17%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    10%
  • Product expansion
    2%
  • Influencer partnerships
    2%
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