13,400+ subscribers and followers for irish insights.
Our own newsletter and its LinkedIn page, grown with content and the systems that run it, with no paid ads
- Sector
- Media, a weekly newsletter on Irish business, startups and tech
- Based in
- London and Sydney
The numbers
19 Apr to 11 Oct 2026
- 16,047posts and emails read
- 3,402relevant
- 750surfaced to the editor
- 97published
The engine's own logs: every post and email kept or dropped with the reason, and every model call costed, US$114 in all
90 days to 10 Oct 2026
- 1.38MLinkedIn impressionsdrew
- 2,184new followers
The irish insights LinkedIn page's own analytics
Outcome
- 10,183LinkedIn followers
The irish insights LinkedIn page on 12 Oct 2026
- 3,244newsletter subscribers
Active on 13 Oct 2026, counted apart from followers; 512 joined through the follower note and email invitations
Where it started
Stephen Mullan, Forás's founder, has published irish insights every week since July 2023: the people and trends shaping Irish business, startups and tech worldwide. A weekly newsletter needs a steady supply of good stories, a consistent voice and a list that keeps growing, and until April 2026 one person did all three by hand. The aim was to make research, curation and drafting run as a system, and to turn attention on LinkedIn into readers who subscribe.
What we built and ran
Every newsletter in the irish insights inbox, and every post from the founders and companies it follows on LinkedIn, lands in one table. A pre-filter drops the noise before any model sees it; the rest is scored and checked against everything already published, so no story runs twice and each draft borrows the house voice.
The editor gets the best stories every day and, each week, a drafted brief with five candidate intros and the LinkedIn posts. Nothing goes out until a person approves it, and every Monday each edition's opens and clicks shape the next week's drafts.
Growth runs on the same content: the stories the engine surfaces become posts on the irish insights LinkedIn page, and new followers who connect get one short note with a sign-up link.
The stack
From follower to subscriber
- Followers identifiedPhantomBuster
New followers daily, with role, company and email.
- Into the CRMHubSpot
One record each; past contacts are skipped.
- Invited by emailSmartlead
Verified, then a three-step, A/B-tested invitation.
- SubscribedBeehiiv
Counted by link; subscribers get no more invitations.
How it ran
- Apr 2026
- Intake, weekly drafts and the archive check live
- May 2026
- Scoring rebuilt, and Reddit added as a signal
- Jul 2026
- The Monday feedback loop live
- Sep 2026
- Follower notes and email invitations live
Want research and outreach run as a system? Talk to us first.
Build sprints from 30 days, with scope and end date agreed up front.