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Hey —

I owe you an email. Honestly, three or four of them.

The short version: Stogies & Steals — the cigar media company I've been building on the side of a full-time job — kept growing. And every time I sat down to write you, the thing I really wanted to say got tangled up with whatever fire I was putting out that week. So the emails got scattered.

Here's where Stogies & Steals sits today, just so we're caught up:

• 22,000+ newsletter readers

• 67K followers on Instagram. 13K on Facebook.

• 10–15K monthly readers on the site

• $30K+ in ad revenue in 2026 so far

• Over $1K in monthly recurring revenue

Typing those numbers still feels weird. I've been doing this in the margins of a full-time job. Mornings, lunches, and a lot of Sundays.

The reason I'm writing today

Over the last few months, a handful of you have replied or DM'd asking some version of the same question. How did you actually start? Is it worth it for someone like me? A couple of you are running companies. A few mentioned a side project you've been thinking about for years.

I've been giving roughly the same answer over and over, so I figured I'd put it in one place.

If you've got a 9-to-5 and something you genuinely care about — cars, whiskey, B2B pricing, your hometown's restaurant scene, doesn't matter — a newsletter is one of the few side projects where the math actually pencils out. You write on Sunday. It earns on Tuesday. No inventory. No fulfillment. No employees to manage on top of the day job.

And if you're a founder, the case is different but just as real. A newsletter is a more personal way to stay close to customers and prospects than running another cold sequence at them. It gives before it asks. The trust you build over twelve issues is the kind of trust your sales team can't manufacture on a discovery call.

The boring, honest answer about how to start

I use Beehiiv (Start Today). Have since day one. I've watched friends try a few other platforms and end up there anyway, so if I can save you that year, I will.

The reason it works — especially for the people who've been asking me — is the ad network. You can plug into paid placements at a few thousand subscribers without ever pitching a sponsorship yourself. That's what made the math work for me long before I had any real audience. It's the difference between a hobby that costs you money every month and a side project that quietly pays for itself.

Easier to show than tell. ↓

The ad below — for Wispr Flow, a voice dictation app — is a live Beehiiv-served placement on this newsletter. I've never emailed Wispr Flow. Never pitched anyone. They showed up in my dashboard one morning, I approved the placement, and every click pays me. (Funny aside: I'm dictating this email with Wispr Flow right now. The loop is complete.)

This is what your newsletter could look like a few months in.

Reply to everything. Edit nothing.

Your inbox is full. Slack is piling up. Client messages need a response yesterday. Typing thoughtful replies to all of it takes hours you don't have.

Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, professional text you can send the moment you stop talking. Speak like you would to a colleague — tangents and all — and get polished output. Emails, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, whatever's open.

89% of messages sent with zero edits. Used by teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. Works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.

Try Wispr Flow free

Quick disclosure: Beehiiv pays me a small cut if you sign up through my link. You get something for it too — 14 days free, and 20% off your first three months. I'd recommend them either way, but if you're going to start, you may as well start with the discount.

If you want to start one: CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

If you'd rather talk it through first

Reply to this email and tell me a little about what you're thinking. I'll send you a calendar link. Thirty minutes, no charge, no pitch deck. I'll tell you what I'd do if I were sitting in your seat — what to write about, who to write to, when to turn ads on, what to ignore. If, in the end, you want help building it, we can talk about that. If not, you'll walk away with a real plan, which is more than most people start with.

That's it. I'm glad you're still here. More soon — and this time I mean it.

Andres