When starting a newsletter company, it pays to pick a niche with hyper-engaged fans.

Morning Chalk Up, a CrossFit-themed newsletter that dead-lifted its way to 75,000 subscribers, benefited from a stunning 70% open rate, according to founder Justin LoFranco, in part because of the audience’s dedication to the sport.

“CrossFitters are rabid,” said Lofranco, who is one himself. “It is a newsletter for the community of CrossFit, and there are no others out there.”

Named for the hand chalking that athletes do before a CrossFit workout, Morning Chalk Up keeps enthusiasts up-to-date on industry news, contest results and stories from CrossFit communities.

In 2023, that audience garnered the attention of strength-sports and fitness media company BarBend, a subsidiary of Pillar4Media, leading to a sale for high 6 figures.

From politics to CrossFit newsletter

Justin LoFranco spent seven years as a political staffer, running the digital efforts of campaigns and elected officials. He picked up CrossFit as a hobby, starting alone in a gym inside a House of Representatives office building in Washington, D.C.

Once he joined a CrossFit community, he was hooked. The results were encouraging, but he particularly loved the focus on celebrating what the body can do over what it looks like, and he was stunned by the depth of community. It felt like a family, and suddenly, he knew first responders and teachers in addition to press secretaries and legislative aides.

“Family was this new concept because on Capitol Hill everything is transactional — even your friends are transactional,” LoFranco said on a 2020 BarBend podcast. “CrossFit wasn’t like that.”

After working for Wisconsin’s then-Gov. Scott Walker in his unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, LoFranco felt ready for a shift.

He was tired of the political cycle, where every project is temporary and dependent upon elections. “You can’t really build anything lasting that way,” he said. Instead of betting on another politician, he added, “I wanted to bet on myself.”

He liquidated his government pension account, adding it to the savings he planned to use as a long runway, and moved into his parent’s backyard pool house in southern California, where he got grinding.

Growing the newsletter Morning Chalk Up

LoFranco launched in early 2016, sending out some “trial balloon” emails with sample newsletters to CrossFitters, and word of mouth began to grow his subscriber base. He invested some of his funds into Facebook advertising as well, which increased his readers to a few thousand.

“There was a lot of real interest around it,” he told They Got Acquired. “People started to forward it to other people, saying, ‘Dude, have you seen this?’”

LoFranco decided to hold off on selling ads for at least a year, opting to take on consulting gigs in digital politics on the side to stay afloat. He believed in his project, and he wanted to make sure he had ironed it all out before monetizing. “We did not rush to revenue,” he said.

He also brought on two personal contacts who believed in the project as “sweat equity” partners before it was profitable, giving them a minority share in lieu of pay for their help with technical development and design. LoFranco maintained his majority 75% share.

For the first three years, he wrote the five-day-a-week newsletter (calibrated down from the original offering of seven days per week) without a break, other than Christmas and a few holidays.

That consistency was integral to the newsletter’s growth, and it helped in highlighting its worth to advertisers, since newsletters were still newly growing in popularity.

“Convincing advertisers to actually pay what their ads were worth was the biggest challenge,” LoFranco said. Since there were few CrossFit-related companies at the time, “We had to work super hard to prove our worth.”

In the first years of nascent ad revenue, LoFranco reinvested everything, but eventually ads started bringing in real money, enough to bring on three employees and some contract writers.

By 2023, seven years in, the Morning Chalk Up was bringing in nearly $900,000 in annual revenue, according to LoFranco. More than half of that revenue came from newsletter ads, and the rest from sponsored content and a premium subscription tier that included access to a podcast.

Selling the Morning Chalk Up to the right buyer

By this point, LoFranco felt like he’d reached the limit of what he could do to grow the newsletter, and he was running out of steam.

“I didn’t see myself doing Morning Chalk Up as a company for 20 years,” he said. “I think there’s a vision out there, but I just don’t see myself doing it.”

He started to fish around for companies interested in an acquisition, and he remembered his contacts at BarBend had expressed interest a couple years before, when the timing hadn’t been right. LoFranco floated the idea to the founders, and they responded positively, seeing how the newsletter could fold easily into their fitness-based media mission.

BarBend and its owner Pillar4Media acquired Morning Chalk Up for high 6 figures in November 2023. BarBend itself had recently been acquired by Pillar4Media.

Though the acquisition process was generally smooth, LoFranco said going through it felt painful and slow. “It can be a lot like buying a house times ten,” he said. “You get to the end; you’re signing paperwork at the company office and you’re like ‘I hate this – just give me the damn key.’”

He advises other founders to be clear on the value their company would provide to a buyer, and to float the idea of a sale early – before burnout sets in.

He also recommends anticipating any questions from an interested party. “Go buy a bottle of whiskey, drink half of it, open your QuickBooks,” he said. “If it isn’t immediately obvious what it is that’s happening and where the revenue is coming from… you’re gonna have a problem.”

After a break to travel and rock climb, LoFranco returned to Pillar4Media, where he’s leveraging ad strategy he learned through Morning Chalk Up to revamp advertising programs for all of Pillar4’s newsletters and publications.

Still, he won’t rule out a future endeavor in entrepreneurship if the right opportunity arises.

“There is nothing like the thrill of creating something on your own, in any medium whatsoever,” he said. “I think I have another one in me.”