How The Hustle Milestone Referral Program Got 300K Subscribers

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How The Hustle Milestone Referral Program Got
300K Subscribers
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I was driving down the East Park circuit, trying t
o chase the police away when I saw a roadblock in
front of me. As I continued to drive, suddenly
my car slowed down and my screen froze. I cant
explain the thrill that followed the moment I saw
those amazing words Milestone complete!
Roadblock challenge. I successfully completed my
Need for Speed Most Wanted milestone that Id
been after, for a long time. This meant I could
challenge a Blacklist racer which was the whole
point of the NFS game beating and becoming
Blacklist 1.
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In 2012, such was my NFS craze which not to brag,
made me beat Blacklist 2, and if you ask me why
it was clearly the motivation to achieve the
milestone goals. You see, achieving something
positive after completing a milestone, be it a
feeling or a reward, motivates us to keep working
towards it, as per Psychology. The same
psychological principle governs many of our
personal life aspects. One that I can again think
of is increasing my TV watch time based on the ch
apters I completed for my test. Oh, and not just
in personal life but even businesses have seen
the benefit of milestone- based campaigns and The
Hustles referral program is a classic example.
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The Hustle Milestone Referral Program
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Founded in May 2014 by Sam Parr, the Hustle is a
daily newsletter that brews stories every
morning on business, technology, and the
internet, in a bold voice, for its over 2 million
readers. After starting Hustle Con in 2014 as a
startup conference, Sam realized it wasnt The
Thing for him. He later launched the Hustle
daily newsletter as stories and rebranded it to
news in 2016
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From having 100k subscribers in the first year to
500k in the second to finally 1 million
subscribers in the third year, Sam eventually
sold the Hustle to HubSpot for 8 figures in
2021. Upon reading this, you may wonder if they
had a secret growth hack, and trust me, I did
too. So as the recently turned referral program
excavator, I dug further and found that The
Hustle did do a thing that contributed to their
growth Milestone Referral Program. Yes! Apart
from delivering killer content, Hustle decided to
turn their word of mouth into a referral magnet
by offering milestone-based referral
programs. Lets grab our shovels, and find out
how.
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The Hustle Ambassador Program
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Already into the second day of the quest, I
thought I had by now gathered all the necessary
equipment to complete my quest. Id read plenty
of articles, and do my part of the research. But
then there was one thing that was lacking -
speaking to someone who brought the right
expertise to the topic. So our Co-Founder and
CTO at Flyy, Venkatesh Rao and I ended up having
quite a chat where we discussed CLTV in simple
terms. He helped me clear out the thorns (gaps)
from my path to understanding CTLV. After this,
I went back and learned some more and thats how
the quest finally ended. So what you read hereon
about CLTV and how gamification can help boost
it, is a result of sheer persistence to deliver
information thats a rich mix of research plus
people's experiences.
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In 2016, the Hustle launched a referral program an
d called it the ambassador program that spread
like wildfire! Why? Well, in simple terms, it
leveraged exclusivity which made people say,
Hey, I want to be an ambassador!. For starters,
how about we understand their referral journey st
ep by step? Take a look. Exclusive Content and
Rewards After subscribers sign up, the Hustle
would send this beautifully crafted referral
email.
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Lets break this email down 1. Personalisation
I loved
the way the Hustle
personalised their referral addressed by the CEO,
program email. It is Sam himself and
acknowledges the relationship. It also keeps
the exclusivity tight with the Hustle
Ambassador community as the highlight referral
reward. 2. Motivation At the beginning of the
email itself, they show all the benefits a
referrer could claim and if you take a closer
look, the rewards are actually motivating.
Especially getting a free ticket to the Hustle
Con, a premium startup-founders event which
otherwise costs 300 a ticket.
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• Referral link The email mentions a unique
  referral link that a referrer can use to share
  with friends and even track referrals. The link
  redirects to a referral dashboard which shows
• Various ways to share their referral link Total
  number of referrals made
• Overall rewards a referrer needs to collect with
• Number of referrals remaining for the next reward
  to unlock
• Milestone Rewards This is the main reason behind
  the Hustle Ambassador Program's success. Readers
  are offered milestone-based rewards, the value of
  which increases with referral count.

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This kept their interest bound and people ended
up referring in bulk, trying to reach tiered
rewards. Note Back then, the Hustle occasionally
changed the rewards or count.
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Milestone Referral Programs
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The Hustle is a fabulous example of a milestone
referral program that attracted 300k email
subscribers and they are not alone.
There are many brands that have built a community
of ambassadors based on milestone referral
rewards. Here are some that caught my attention.
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TheSkimm Referral Program Got 3 Million
Subscribers
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Founded in 2012, theSkimm is a daily newsletter
that delivers daily content right to the inbox on
wellness, finance, life, events, and so on. When
readers started writing to theSkimm showing their
love, they asked them to share TheSkimm with 5
friends which worked. So they decided to call
them Skimmbassadors and an ambassador program
was born in 2015 which got them 3 million email
subscribers in 3 years. Take a look at how
theSkimm used the milestone referral program to
give tiered rewards to their ambassadors. Skimm
tote for 10 emails T-shirt for 25 emails Skimm
newsletter shout-out for 50 emails Umbrella for
100 emails Phone case for 150 emails Wine sippy
cup for 200 emails
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Morning Brew Referral Program Got Over 1 Million
Subscribers
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What started as a college hustle by the Morning
Brew founders went on to become one of the top
daily newsletter companies with the founders
taking an 8-figure exit in 2020.
In addition to the companys concise and witty
content, its their powerful milestone referral
program that drove them to 35 of over 2.4
million subscribers.
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Morning Brew swag is a major part of their
referral program wherein subscribers get exciting
rewards upon reaching different
milestones. Lastly, I want to show how Morning
Brews strategy of acquiring 33 subscribers for
0.1 as compared to 3 to 5 for paid marketing
on Facebook/Instagram. 3 referrals Free access
to exclusive content on Sundays for 3 referrals
(CPA is 0) 5 referrals Stickers from StickerMule
for 5 referrals (CPA is 1.25 for stickers
envelope) 10 referrals Access to insider
Facebook community (CPA is 0) 15 referrals
Customer phone wallet (CPA is 2.15 for wallet
envelope)
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Need a Referral Program? You Dont Have to Hustle.
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If reading about The Hustle, TheSkimm, and
Morning Brew referral programs got you feeling
like youd want to have something similar, guess
what? Its possible with Flyys referral program
software. All youve to do is integrate it in a
jiffy and launch your own milestone referral
program. We recently helped DrinkPrime, a
subscription-based RO water purifier brand, build
the same and your brand could the next. Get
yourself a referral program here.
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W W W . T H E F L Y Y . C O M
Please contact for more information
www.theflyy.com 080-470-91459, hello_at_theflyy.com