Daniella Pierson

Why you should start a newsletter. Now.

Growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, Daniella Pierson was labeled the “dumb twin”.

While her sister Alex was the straight-A student destined for greatness.

Diagnosed with OCD and ADHD, she struggled through school, feeling out of place.

But everything changed when she got to Boston University and realized one thing: she wasn’t going to stay stuck.

In 2015, Daniella launched The Newsette from her dorm room... a daily newsletter sent to just eight subscribers.

But she treated it like a billion-dollar business.

Hustling between classes, she wrote, edited, and designed the content herself.

“I was obsessed with it. I worked every single second of the day. I wanted independence for myself and my family. I didn’t want to go back to Jacksonville.”

Her strategy? Start small, but act big.

She faked having a team, emailing potential clients as “Sara,” her fictional assistant.

She DM’ed strangers, offering them ambassador roles just for sharing the newsletter.

“I literally faked it ‘til I made it"

But it wasn’t easy.

When she tried to raise funds, one investor laughed and said she reminded him of his granddaughter, who “talks too fast and has no idea what she’s talking about.”

Another dismissed her because she was young and Latina.

So Daniella did what most wouldn’t.

She built the business without outside funding.

By 2021, The Newsette had over 500,000 subscribers, partnerships with Amazon, Saks, and Ulta Beauty, and $40M in revenue.

By 2022, it was valued at $200M.

But Daniella didn’t stop there.

In 2022, she co-founded Wondermind with Selena Gomez and Mandy Teefey.

A startup focused on mental fitness, valued at $100M shortly after launch.

Her mission? Destigmatize mental health and provide resources for those who struggle.

She’s now working on Be a Breadwinner, a financial literacy brand aiming to teach young people how to turn their barriers into building blocks.

Her secret? Relentless grit and turning rejection into motivation.

“I’m the recipe for the person who should never be an entrepreneur, but I still am. Just because you have all of these barriers that history and statistics say will not work for success, you can actually make a new recipe.”