Content won’t save your business
ADRIANA TICA ON NEWSLETTERS, POSITIONING, AND WHY MOST SOLOPRENEURS MISTAKE VISIBILITY FOR STRATEGY
Adriana Tica
A lot of you come to me with the same questions:
Do I need to create content to build a business?
Does a newsletter actually bring clients?
What should I even write about?
How “authentic” or how “salesy” should it be?
These are tough questions, and most of the answers out there aren’t that helpful. Way too many gurus out there preaching the wrong thing, too many people with solutions that are not for you, and rarely you find someone with actual grounded bullshit-free advice.
Well… Not today! Because today, we have Adriana Tica, author of Strategic AF newsletter, creator of the State of Solopreneurship Report and one of the sharpest voices on newsletters and content for solopreneurs.
She’s built her business around a (not so) simple idea: own your audience, don’t depend on platforms.
We recently had a conversation inside the Solo Accelerator about content, newsletters, and those questions you have. And finally we will answer the question: is punk email dead?
A lot of people come to me assuming that building a solo business automatically means creating content. But often it feels more like imitation than strategy.
Do you think a solopreneur business actually requires content to be successful? And is content really for everyone?
I do, yes. You don’t need to be a content creator in the “influencer” way BUT you do need some content on social media or off it.
Think about it this way: everything you publish/post/send is content: an outreach DM, an email, a social media post — they’re all different types of content.
I admit that for a long time, newsletters felt outdated to me. And yet, the people who take email seriously seem to build more stable, independent businesses. You actually changed my mind about that not only because of the quality of your newsletter, which made me pay attention to my mailbox, but also because of your advice and wisdom.
Why is email still underestimated? What are people missing about how it works today?
People see email as obsolete and they gravitate towards newer and shinier platforms like TikTok or other social media, where the reward is instant.
Building an emails list takes time and it often feels way too slow. But there’s something profoundly intimate about email, about people allowing you access into your inboxes — and social media can’t replicate that.
This is why email has such a great ROI compared to social media.
I see many people using content as a form of expression first, and business second.
But that rarely translates into clients or opportunities. This is for me one of the perils of being a solopreneur where your identity gets enmeshed with your business and it’s hard to distinguish what's you as a person and you as a business.
Where do you draw the line between writing to express and writing to build a business?
I think about it in layers. These days, having a unique POV matters more than ever, so I would never advise someone to kill their personality and focus on conversions alone.
My process is:
I want to write this because it matters to me BUT -
Does it also matter to my audience (will it help them, will they care enough to read)?
Does it help my business? Can I draw a direct line between a topic and business relevance?
If the answer is not yes across the board, I need a different topic or a different angle.
Note: business relevance doesn’t necessarily mean conversion. It can be establishing your authority or even entertainment with the goal of growing your audience.
A lot of solopreneurs are consistent. They show up, they write… and nothing happens. They end up in this hamster wheel of commenting, posting, using multiple platforms, and ending up frustrated, burned out and and empty bank account.
What are the early signs that your content won’t work as a business tool?
You don’t get any meaningful engagement. People only say “great post” and they do it to support you. There’s no one to challenge you or add something relevant to what you said.
I see good content that never turns into opportunities or conversions. What’s usually missing between content and actual business outcomes?
You’ll laugh – but it’s the CTA. We assume people read something of ours, then do the cognitive labor of saying “I should work with this person, let me find their contact data and reach out”. Nope, CTAs have to be there all the time.
Note: A CTA isn’t necessarily “buy now”. It can be anything that gets people to take a next step.
There’s pressure to be everywhere. For most solopreneurs, that’s not sustainable. Running multiple platforms, formats, complying with different algorithms. It’s simply impossible to.
How do you see this and what role of a newsletter plays within a broader business and content strategy?
A newsletter can be an anchor. You can write one newsletter issue per week and turn it into 5-20 social media posts (depending on length and depth).
It’s also the platform where you can have deeper and more nuanced takes than on social media, which usually result in more conversions.
Consistency is the default advice. But it’s clearly not enough. What actually needs to be in place for a newsletter to support a business?
A strong POV (or a BIG idea, as I like to call it)
Relevance for your reader: it needs to help them achieve something or at least make them consider things in a new light without having to buy from you.
Business relevance: how does it move people closer to buying from you with every issue? (The answer is different for every newsletter)
Some people get momentum. Others stay stuck despite effort. From what you’ve seen, what separates the two?
Experimentation. Try something, stick to it for at least three months (every experiment needs time to work). If it doesn’t stick, iterate, adjust course.
Someone has been consistent for months. No results. How would you diagnose that? Where do you look first?
Content-wise, I look at whether it is written for (potential) clients or peers. Most of us suffer from “the curse of knowledge”, where we share too much dense information because we forget that our clients don’t need that. They need simpler advice – they’re not where we are, which is why they hire us.
Ditch the jargon and explain how you help and why you’re the best choice among your competitors.
From my perspective, weak content is often a positioning problem. What role does positioning play in whether a newsletter converts?
It plays a big role. It takes time to fully nail your positioning (some people never do) but that doesn’t mean you can’t make sales without perfect positioning.
The key is striking the balance between credibility (you’re a real expert), trust (you’re not going to scam me), and proof (you’ve helped people like me before — this is where social mproof shines).
There’s a lot of romanticism around content. But what works is usually much more structured. What’s one uncomfortable truth about content and newsletters that more people need to hear?
It takes longer than you expect. Even if you have low expectations, they probably need to be even lower.
Where can people connect with and follow you?
My best content is in my newsletter: https://www.adrianatica.com/newsletter/.
You can also find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianatica/, YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriana_tica, Threads: https://www.threads.com/@adriana__tica
