'The Hustle' Launches Paid Referral Program For Premium Product

Daily business newsletter company The Hustle has launched a referral program for Trends, its premium subscription offering. Subscribers receive $50 for each person they get to sign up.

“We have thousands of subscribers for Trends, and many of them asked for a way to earn some cash for referring their friends. And, because we’re a brand for the people, we made it happen,” Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle, wrote in a post announcing the program on August 6.

Trends subscribers get a unique URL they can share with friends. With every friend that becomes a paying member to Trends from that link, the original subscriber gets $50.

The team is “tinkering” with how the $50 gets paid out. Right now, it is sometimes in cash, sometimes in Amazon gift cards, Parr told Publishers Daily. Some people have sold 100's of Trendsaccounts for the company, he added.

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“It means a lot to us when our readers want to share our content with their closest friends and business partners because it means they are putting their name behind what we create. In that spirit, we, in turn, want to give back to our loyal readers for helping expand the perspectives and breadth of the Trends community,” Parr said.

The Hustle has had a referral program for its free newsletter for a while now, called the Ambassador program. The team is "always tinkering" with that as well, Parr said. 

Readers can share their own unique referral link. The more people they get to sign up for the email newsletter, the better the swag they get in return — from T-shirts to a free trip to San Francisco to meet The Hustle team.

“With Trends, we wanted to capitalize on what we learned with the Ambassador program and create an incentive for our readers to bring their friends and coworkers into the community and get the full features of the subscription,” Parr said.

Over 10,000 people have referred at least four people to The Hustle. Some have even referred 2,000 people, according to Parr.

Trends launched in June, and is The Hustle’s first subscription product. It costs $299 a year. Members get a weekly newsletter every Tuesday with case studies, analysis and interviews with founders on business trends and opportunities.

In October,The Hustle crossed the 1 million newsletter subscriber mark. The company claims it has maintained a nearly 50% average open rate.

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