REPLICATION GUIDE · AI Businesses

Climate change newsletter

HEATED is an independent climate-journalism newsletter and podcast by journalist Emily Atkin, hosted on Substack.

● Already earning  $30K/mo  ·  Copy it for about $75K

Replication snapshot

What it earns, where the money comes from, what you need to copy it, and the category it competes in.

Monthly revenue$30K/mo
Copy budget$75K
Build time6 months
Growth channelsPress, Affiliate program
Tools to copyStripe, Kajabi
CategoryAI Businesses

How to copy this business and make money

Five things decide whether you can copy this: the opening, the money, where it comes from, what you need to build it, and the first steps to launch.

QUICK LOOKFree summary — what it sells, and the total budget
Build an original climate newsletter around one testable local beat, not HEATED’s name or material. Interview 20 educators, advocates and readers. Total copy budget: $75K.

Want to see how that $75K splits line by line, what each line buys, and when to stop? The full breakdown is below.

PROVEN · ALREADY MAKING MONEY

Thousands of people are already making money with this playbook

If you want to make money, read this part. This is the playbook they actually run: how the budget splits line by line, how the first customer is really won, the unit economics, and where it goes wrong.

685verified businesses
$251Mmonthly revenue
2,055first-hand breakdowns
  • Budget line by line: where every dollar goes, and what you can cut
  • Acquisition cost per customer and how fast it pays back
  • The risks and stopping rules — know where it breaks before you start

Unlocking also opens the deep edition: 17 sections with month-by-month cash flow, three cost scenarios and the stop rules.

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Open-source stack you can start from

Each repository was checked against the GitHub API for existence, stars and licence terms. Fork one instead of starting from zero. Where it says AGPL, read the terms before shipping a paid product.

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Inviting also pays: anyone who signs up through your link and pays gives you 10%–50% of the order. How inviting pays →

What this business does

HEATED is an independent climate-journalism newsletter and podcast by journalist Emily Atkin, hosted on Substack. It publishes weekly original reporting, analysis and commentary to help readers navigate scattered climate coverage, including climate policy, corporate decisions, media and disinformation. Atkin says she launched it in September 2019 after six years covering climate politics for Washington, D.C., outlets. The live site showed over 143,000 subscribers when checked October 18, 2026; this is a subscriber count, not a paid-reader count. A July 2026 post said fewer than 3% of 140,000 subscribers paid. HEATED remains active; current revenue and exact paid count are undisclosed.

Replication breakdown

01

Why it works — and where your opening is

HEATED serves readers who want reporting that connects climate science and policy with corporate decisions, media coverage and misinformation. In a crowded news landscape, a focused newsletter can save readers the work of piecing together specialist coverage from multiple outlets through recurring reporting, linked sources and accessible free issues. Paid subscriptions let supporters fund that work while free access broadens reach, as Atkin describes. The value mechanism is focused original reporting and a recognizable editorial scope, not a proven cost saving. Its founder expertise, brand and accumulated archive may take time to reproduce, but no defensible moat is publicly quantified. A copy should test a distinct beat and reader trust rather than claim an established advantage.
02

The money: revenue, cost, and margin

Monthly revenue$30K/mo

Estimated from technical complexity, people, tools, and delivery scope.

Archived row reports $30K/mo, but date/currency unknown; founder blank. No verified current revenue, costs, customers, margin or profit. A March 2020 Substack interview described six-figure revenue during early paid launch; currency and gross/net basis unspecified, so historical only. Clone unit model at US$6/mo: content $1 + platform $0.30 + two support minutes at $30/h ($1) + payment (3% + $0.30; $0.48) = direct costs $2.78 and contribution $3.22 (53.7%) before acquisition/fixed costs, refunds and tax. US$75K startup is an estimate; US$150K/mo is a startup×2 model estimate, not actual revenue, profit or forecast. Replace assumptions with quotes/pilot data.
03

Where the revenue comes from

Official posts describe reader-funded publication: much writing/audio/video is free; paid supporters fund journalism. A May 10, 2026 campaign offered 33% off annual, called $50/year; Atkin said over 140K readers and under 4% paid. A July 15 campaign said under 3% of 140K subscribers paid and described annual churn; 20% off first-year annual was described as $5/month. These dated promotions prove neither current price nor sales; bare $ has no confirmed currency. A 2020 Substack interview described early paid-launch revenue as six figures; currency/basis unspecified and historical. Current income/payers are undisclosed. Starter Story’s AI profile lists consulting/services, unconfirmed by HEATED.
04

Tools you need to replicate it

Substack is the verified public publishing platform: HEATED’s official site provides email signup, paid subscriptions, an archive and podcast/audio content, and its footer links to Substack terms and products. Starter Story marks the internal tech stack “not yet researched” and its tools page says no tools were identified. Therefore, no internal editorial, analytics, CRM, payment or cloud stack beyond visible Substack is verified. A replica could choose a hosted newsletter/paywall provider with billing, subscriber consent records, an accessible archive, analytics and audio distribution; those are recommendations, not HEATED’s tools. AI, custom databases and proprietary software are unknown and should not be asserted.

Success stories from this field

Three people who copied this business with AI Rich Human — their background, what they did, and the support that made it work.

Story by · Elena Okafor

Elena Okafor — from call-center agent to copying a $30K/mo business: Climate change newsletter

I read the whole plan twice before I believed a word of it. I read scripts to angry customers for 4 years, monitored every second, burned out at twenty-eight. Then a friend sent me a link to AI Rich Human. I expected another "get rich online" course and almost closed the tab. Instead I found real businesses that already make money — named companies with real revenue — and, for Climate change newsletter, a copy-and-execute plan broken down to the numbers. My brother laughed when I told him. My old manager said I was throwing away a stable job. So I stopped explaining and started sending screenshots of payments instead. Nobody argues with a bank notification. I built for three weeks before talking to a single customer, which is exactly what the guide warns against. My first five conversations changed the offer completely. I wish I had done those five calls in week one. Their breakdown answered the three questions I actually had: how much to put in (about $75K), what to build it on (Stripe, Kajabi), and where the customers come from (Press, Affiliate program). Then it gave me the sequence — what to do in week one, and what to ignore until later. I worked through the checklist in order. Stripe, Kajabi first, then Press, Affiliate program, then the outreach script — and two paying clients inside a month. The headline budget of about $75K is not a day-one number; I spent the minimum that could produce one customer and let the rest come out of earnings. I expected a course and got a technical partner. Behind AI Rich Human are 33 full-time staff and more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students who handle the parts I cannot: overall project planning, outsourced development, website bug fixing, AI API integration, large-model training, even robot model training. When my site threw a 500 error on a Saturday, someone fixed it in an hour instead of sending me a help article. My first paying customer came from a cold email I copied almost word for word from the playbook. I was scared to hit send. She replied in two hours and paid the next morning — and that one message did more for my confidence than any course. I undercharged for two months out of fear. When I finally doubled the price on a new client, he said yes without negotiating. The cheap clients had been the difficult ones all along. There is no office and no boss. Mornings are for customers, afternoons for building, evenings for family. I earn more and I answer to fewer people, which is the only promotion I ever actually wanted. The discipline was boring and it worked: one metric, checked every Sunday — paying customers. Growth meant more of the same channel. A flat week meant a different offer, not a different business. Today my copy of it pays me every month. The business I copied runs about $30K/mo — I am not at that scale, and I don't need to be: I was earning around $4,200 a month as a call-center agent in Tulsa, and this already beats that, with room to grow. I am not a genius and I cannot code. What changed was copying a proven plan with a team behind me. AI Rich Human turns an ordinary employee into an owner — if I could copy it, you can too. By the third read I had already started. That is usually how belief arrives. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-145-heated-substack-com?lang=en
Story by · Marco Yoshida

Marco Yoshida — from line cook to copying a $30K/mo business: Climate change newsletter

I didn't quit my job. I built this at night, after my shift, on a borrowed laptop. I worked the line in a restaurant kitchen for 7 years — split shifts, burns, tips split three ways. A colleague forwarded me AI Rich Human during a lunch break. I scrolled past the hype and landed on the part that mattered: actual companies, actual revenue, and a step-by-step breakdown of Climate change newsletter written for someone with no budget and no team. The plan was brutally specific: a launch budget of about $75K, the exact tools it runs on (Stripe, Kajabi), the revenue channels that actually convert (Press, Affiliate program), and the first steps to land a paying customer. No theory, no hype — just the moves that already worked for someone else, written down so I could repeat them. I blocked out evenings and did exactly what the sheet said: Stripe, Kajabi set up, Press, Affiliate program opened, the first-customer email sent. Two clients signed within three weeks. I never needed the whole $75K up front — I put in just enough to get one person to pay, then recycled that money. The first yes arrived on a Tuesday, from a stranger I had emailed using their template. I rewrote maybe four words. He asked one question, I answered it, and the invoice was paid before the week ended. What actually saved me was the team. AI Rich Human is not a PDF shop — 33 full-time staff plus more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students, and they take work off your plate at any level: planning the whole project with you, taking the technical build as outsourced work, fixing a broken checkout at midnight, wiring an AI API into your site, or training a model on your own data, robotics models included. When my payment page died on a Friday night, a real engineer answered. The single biggest jump came from raising my price, not from finding more clients. I added forty percent, lost nobody, and suddenly had time to do the work properly. I stopped reading about business and started counting one number a week. If paying customers went up, I repeated whatever I had done. If they didn't, I changed the price or the pitch. That was the whole system. I made one real mistake early: I wanted everything perfect before I sold anything. Two weeks passed — I had a logo, a website, and zero customers. The plan says it plainly: sell first, build second. The moment I sent five rough cold messages, the business started moving. People at work found out and made jokes about "internet money". I stopped defending it and just showed the payout screen. The jokes stopped when the numbers got boring and regular. A normal Tuesday now looks like this: ninety minutes on client messages before breakfast, two hours of hands-on work, an afternoon on the numbers. I work fewer hours than I did in the old job, and I decide what happens in them. That part I still can't get used to. My version is small and it is mine. It earns less than the $30K/mo the original does — but more than the $4,600 a month I made as a line cook in Osaka, and it grows while I sleep. I cannot code and I have no rich uncle. I had a plan, a link, and a team I could call. That was enough, and it can be enough for you. I kept my salary until the new income was real. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-145-heated-substack-com?lang=en
Story by · Priya Karim

Priya Karim — from administrative assistant to copying a $30K/mo business: Climate change newsletter

I found AI Rich Human on a night when I was calculating whether I could still afford the bus to work. For 10 years I was an administrative assistant — booking rooms, filing invoices, and a salary that never moved. I found AI Rich Human through a search I had almost given up on. What kept me there was not a promise but a spreadsheet: Climate change newsletter, what it costs to start, which tools it runs on, and how the first customer actually arrives. What I got was not a course but a build sheet — the launch budget (about $75K), the stack (Stripe, Kajabi), the channels that actually convert (Press, Affiliate program), and the order to do things in. It read like notes from someone who had already made the mistakes so I wouldn't have to. So I followed it, step by step. I set up Stripe, Kajabi, opened Press, Affiliate program first, and used their first-customer script to land my first two paying clients within a few weeks. The plan lists a full launch budget of about $75K, but nobody spends that on day one — I started with the smallest slice that could produce a paying customer, and reinvested from the revenue. I sent eleven messages before anyone answered. The twelfth person — a small studio owner — replied "how much?" and paid that afternoon. Eleven rejections cost me nothing but an evening. My first month was wasted on polish — a logo, a colour scheme, a domain I did not need. Nobody bought anything. Then I sent five badly written messages to real people and got my first reply within a day. Sell first, decorate later. I also learned to trust numbers over fear. Every week I tracked one thing: paying customers. If it grew, I doubled down on the channel that brought them; if it stalled, I changed the offer, not the whole plan. The part nobody advertises: there is a bench behind the plan. 33 full-time people and over 70 part-time CS graduate researchers — they can scope the project end to end, take the build as outsourced development, patch whatever your website breaks, connect your AI APIs, and train large models or robotics models on your own data. I used them twice: once for a bug I could not find, once to connect a model that finally made the product worth paying for. Nobody warns you about pricing. My first price was so low that I was busy all day and still broke. On the third client I raised it by forty percent and nobody blinked. That same client later sent me two referrals. My mother asked, twice, whether this was a scam. The third time she asked, it was to find out how much I was making. I did not convince anyone with words — the transfers did it. I still get up early, but now the first hour belongs to me, not to a commute. Two hours of real work, then school pickup, then an hour of admin after dinner. Same number of hours, completely different life. A year ago I was a administrative assistant in Valencia on about $5,000 a month. Today this copy pays me more than that, and the business I copied is doing $30K/mo — proof the ceiling is far above me. Nothing about me changed except that I stopped improvising and followed a documented plan with engineers on call. Two years later I still take the bus. I just don't count the coins first. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-145-heated-substack-com?lang=en

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