Podcast: Download (Duration: 49:53 — 57.4MB)
Sol Orwell gets above a 50% reply rate on cold email, and the reason is that he only contacts people he genuinely wants to talk to. He reads several pieces of someone’s work before writing, finds a real point of connection outside business, and writes every message from scratch.
Examine.com now serves over two million visitors a month and ranks in the top five for terms like creatine and fish oil. Google sends roughly 40,000 of its 75,000 daily visitors.
The growth was slower than people assume. Two years to reach 10,000 daily visitors, then another year to 20,000, then 40,000, then 75,000, in a nearly linear climb with no viral moment.
This episode covers his outreach method, why Reddit is better for research than traffic, how he priced a $42,000 domain as a liquid asset, and how customer phone calls produced every product they sell.
A note on timing: this is a 2017 conversation. Traffic figures and Reddit’s scale have changed since.
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Table of Contents
Key takeaways
- Cold email reply rates above 50% come from contacting only people you actually want to know.
- Read several pieces of someone’s work before writing, and connect on something unrelated to business.
- Reddit converts poorly for traffic and works extremely well for research and hiring.
- Sorting a subreddit’s top posts of all time tells you what to write, since users already voted.
- Participate in a community for years before promoting anything there.
- A $42,000 domain was defensible because it could be resold for $30,000 within a day.
- Every Examine.com product came from phone conversations with existing customers.
- Staying out of competitors’ lanes is why trainers and dietitians link to them freely.
How do you write cold emails that get replies?
Contact only the people you actually want to talk to, and Sol’s response rate exceeds 50%. He estimates he emails maybe one in every four or five interesting people he encounters.
Read multiple pieces of their work first. Reading more frequently tells him they would not connect, and he drops it.
Find a connection outside business. Writing to a science editor, his hook was a shared interest in how creationism gets taught, drawn from research about Texas textbook purchasing driving national curricula.
The structure is short. A specific compliment, a brief explanation of who he is, and one concrete offer.
Every email is written from scratch. Templates lose the energy that signals genuine interest.
Leading with the compliment matters because criticism is the default. Anyone working publicly hears from detractors far more than admirers.
Why reading outside your industry improves networking
Broad reading gives you more surfaces to connect on. Sol deliberately avoids business books and reads about psychology, television history, and music licensing instead.
His objection to business books is repetition. After eight books on the subject, the ninth adds little.
The payoff is unexpected common ground. He became friends with the editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine over basketball rather than publishing.
Business-topic openers fail at this. Nobody bonds over the latest A/B test writeup.
Is Reddit good for driving traffic?
No. Sol is direct that Reddit traffic converts poorly, comparable to Twitter.
Its real value is research. Sorting a subreddit by top posts across a month, year, or all time shows exactly what an audience cares about, already voted on by users.
That is how Examine.com started. The same supplement questions kept recurring in the fitness subreddit, and nobody searched the history before asking again.
The site became the answer people pasted. Regulars tired of retyping long responses started linking to Examine.com instead.
Reddit is also good for hiring. The environment is harsh enough that people who thrive there have the thick skin online work requires.
His co-founder came from there. A moderator who let abuse bounce off him without taking it personally.
How do you promote on Reddit without getting attacked?
Be a genuine member for years before you promote anything. Sol had been active for about four years before Examine.com existed.
Your history is public and people check it. He posts in city, politics, basketball, and football communities, and rarely about his own site.
That record buys tolerance. Dropping a link in a large subreddit draws no accusations because his participation is obvious.
Newcomers who arrive to promote get destroyed. The community is highly sensitive to people extracting value without contributing.
How do you get backlinks from authoritative sites?
Build relationships and stay out of everyone’s competitive lane. Examine.com sells no supplements, no coaching, and no consulting, so trainers and dietitians recommend it without risk.
That positioning compounds. When anyone in the field is asked about supplements, they link to Examine.com.
Journalists get a specific offer. Rather than pitching to write for them, Sol offers to help them analyze nutrition research for their own audience.
The credential is the site itself. One look establishes that these are researchers.
Growth reinforces itself. More relationships produce more links, which improve rankings, which make the next relationship easier.
Roughly 80% of links now appear without his involvement. Reputation generates them.
Should you buy an expensive domain?
Only when you understand its resale value. Sol paid $42,000 for Examine.com knowing he could liquidate it for $30,000 within a day, making the real cost around $10,000.
Generic beats descriptive. Examine.com could be repurposed if the project failed, where a supplement-specific domain would have locked him in.
It also carries weight in conversation. Owning a one-word domain lands differently than a long descriptive URL.
His limit is proportional. That purchase was about 40% of his $100,000 outlay, and he would generally cap a domain at 20% to 25% of a marketing budget.
How do you decide what product to sell?
Call your customers. Sol is emphatic that surveys are insufficient and phone conversations reveal what people want and the language they use to describe it.
Each product came from a conversation. The first was a way to quickly look up human research on supplements, requested by email subscribers.
The second solved a complaint about the first. Customers found 1,000 pages of tabular data overwhelming and wanted step-by-step direction.
The third came from professionals. Trainers and dietitians needed to answer clients citing alarming new studies, which became a monthly research digest.
That digest carries continuing education credit. Registered dietitians need 75 approved hours every five years, so it serves two purposes at once.
Certification is next, driven by the same process. Professionals asking how to become supplement experts themselves.
Prioritize your highest-paying customers. Examine.com starts with lifetime subscribers who paid around $1,000 and works down.
When should you start monetizing an audience?
When you have enough leverage that the audience trusts you. Sol waited about two and a half years, until roughly 10,000 daily visitors.
There was no threshold metric. Demand had built to a point where launching felt right.
The result exceeded his target substantially. He hoped for 1,000 sales over four days and sold 1,400 on the first.
Free content was the foundation. Around three million words published before selling anything.
How do you structure an early business partnership?
Let each person own one thing completely. Sol’s co-founder handled research while Sol did customer service, hosting, design, development, editing, and everything else.
Compensation was equity plus a small stipend. Around $800 a month early on.
Trust came from track record. They had met in person and his co-founder had seen his previous sites.
Why understanding research prevents bad conclusions
Studies rarely contradict each other, and generalizing them makes it look that way. Findings are hyper-specific and get flattened into headlines.
Sol’s example is a study linking fish oil to prostate cancer. The actual finding covered a narrow age band with specific conditions.
Context changes everything. Results differ for someone with diabetes, or someone exercising heavily.
Traffic incentives make this worse. Page views drive advertising, which leaves less time for careful analysis.
Covering the field requires many specialists. Examine.com draws on medical doctors, PhDs, pharmacists, registered dietitians, and practitioners across 50,000 references.
How do you turn customers into evangelists?
Stay in contact deliberately during the first hundred days. Examine.com checks in at ten days, 35 days, and three months after purchase.
The questions are simple. Did you download it, what did you like, what did you not like.
Accessibility is the underlying principle. Contact form messages are opportunities rather than support tickets.
Why guard your time with people who contact you
Most inbound requests fail to explain why the conversation is worth having. Sol describes messages that are entirely about the sender’s needs.
His response to a vague ask is one word. Why.
The same logic people apply to customers applies to themselves. You have to make the case for why someone should spend time on you.
Getting this right improves your own outreach. Understanding what makes a message worth answering makes you better at writing them.
Frequently asked questions
How do you get a high reply rate on cold email?
Only contact people you genuinely want to know. Read several pieces of their work, find a connection outside business, and write from scratch rather than using a template.
Is Reddit good for driving traffic to a website?
No. Sol found Reddit traffic converts about as poorly as Twitter. Its value is research, community building, and finding people to hire.
How do you use Reddit for market research?
Sort a relevant subreddit by top posts over a month, year, or all time. Users have already voted on what matters, which tells you what to create.
How long should you participate before promoting on Reddit?
Years. Sol was active for about four years before Examine.com existed, and his public posting history is what lets him share links without backlash.
Is an expensive domain worth buying?
Only if you understand its resale value. Sol’s $42,000 domain could be liquidated for $30,000, making the true cost around $10,000.
How do you figure out what product to create?
Call your customers rather than surveying them. Every Examine.com product came from phone conversations that also revealed the language customers use.
When should you start selling to an audience?
When you have enough trust to have leverage. Examine.com waited about two and a half years and roughly 10,000 daily visitors before its first product.
How do you get authoritative sites to link to you?
Avoid competing with the people whose links you want. Examine.com sells no supplements or coaching, so trainers and dietitians recommend it without hesitation.
