🌴 The LA Grind: 2025 Review

👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind and scout for Headline. I’ve lived in LA since 2018, earned my MBA from USC (✌️), and I’m probably out running when I’m not writing this.

Happy Thursday! Today, we’ve got a special edition of the newsletter, looking back at 2025, personally and professionally.

I’ve shared a reflection like this the past two years. This year, I wasn’t sure I would. But too much happened to let it pass without putting it into words.

This is an honest look at what this year actually looked like, what worked, what didn’t, and what is up next.

Let’s get to it.

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I came into 2025 optimistic in the most classic founder way. I had just raised $50,000 from Chisos Capital, hired a full-time writer, invested $5K into a major design upgrade for Just Go Grind, and felt like I finally had the resources to focus.

The plan was simple: double down on writing, grow paid subscriptions, layer in sponsorships, and let the business compound.

That plan barely had time to exist before the year snapped in half.

In January, the wildfires hit LA. Around the same time, my dad was back in the hospital. I got the call on January 12th that he wasn’t doing well. I drove to Las Vegas and spent the next week mostly in the hospital with him. He passed away on January 19th.

The first two months of the year disappeared into grief, logistics, and survival. We had his memorial service on February 22nd. I didn’t host an event until mid-to-late March, which for me was unheard of after the pace of the previous year.

But I had just raised some money. I had a little runway. And I didn’t really have a choice but to keep moving.

So I worked. I kept publishing. I optimized for progress, not clarity. Emotionally, I was exhausted. Practically, the business was struggling. Paid subscriptions weren’t moving. Sponsorships were hard to close. The economics just weren’t working the way I had hoped.

At the end of February, one thing finally broke through. I closed a five-figure podcast sponsorship with Rho to re-launch the Just Go Grind podcast. That deal mattered more than the dollars. It gave me hope. I thought maybe podcasting was the lever. I enjoyed it. We paired podcast episodes with newsletter editions, published consistently, and grew the show.

For a moment, it felt like this was the path.

By late spring, reality set in. The sponsorship didn’t renew. New sponsors didn’t materialize. The signal was clear. The podcast worked, but not at the scale I needed. Non-renewal is the loudest feedback you can get.

That forced an uncomfortable question I’d been avoiding all year:

What is the actual business here?

In April, I pivoted again. I worked with Daniel Berk on Newsletter Founder, a course and community for newsletter writers, testing whether I could monetize expertise faster than audience growth. We had a few members, but it later fizzled out.

Around the same time, after attending the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin just days after my dad’s memorial in February, one pattern kept resurfacing. Local newsletters. Events. Community. Media together.

I finally launched The LA Grind in May to see if this might be the thing. It was simpler. It took a few hours to write instead of the dozens of hours it took to write deep dives for Just Go Grind. Events monetized earlier. Hosting events gave me energy again. Early subscriber acquisition costs were dramatically lower than anything I had seen before. And most importantly, people reacted immediately.

It didn’t click all at once, but it kept working.

The LA Grind forced me to admit a few things about myself as a founder. I’m happiest at the intersection of media and community. I’m a strong host. People trust my taste. My leverage isn’t doing everything myself, it’s setting direction, designing the experience, and bringing the right people together.

It also forced me to let go of what wasn’t working. I paused the podcast and sold the Just Go Grind newsletter.

By the end of the year, I had built something with real staying power. The highest revenue business I’ve ever built. Something with direction, momentum, and a real playbook. I even launched The SF Grind in December.

The hardest part of 2025 was losing my dad. That’s obvious.

The quieter, harder part was uncertainty. Months where I couldn’t plan my career, my income, or my personal life. Job conversations that didn’t materialize. Dating uncertainty that lingered. Asking my mom for help just to keep going. Not knowing if I’d need a job next month or whether this thing would survive.

That uncertainty was brutal.

The lesson of 2025 was persistence. I kept moving. I focused on what was working. I tried to be useful.

Through grief, rejection, distraction, and financial stress, I stayed in the game.

And now, finally, I’m building on something real.

The numbers tell the rest of the story…

Events hosted: 46

Total attendees: 100s

Newsletter Subscribers: 8,000+

Paid members: 50+

Revenue: Six-figure run rate (on pace to cross $100K in the first full year of The LA Grind)

Cities active: 2 (Los Angeles & San Francisco)

Sponsors worked with: 20+

Memories created: Endless

This year does not happen without partners who believed early and showed up consistently.

Thank you to:

• WeAreLATech (our very first pre-launch sponsor)

• Polsinelli

• Rho

• HPL Intellectual Property Law

• AE Studio

• Clarify AI

• TriNet

• Relay Human Cloud

• Talk Shop Media

• Reku

• Weinberger and Logan PC

And all of the sponsors I worked with in 2025, I really appreciate you.

Special thanks to Jess Schaefer, Shawn Gold, and Andrew Segal for offering their homes for different events, and Mike DeVerna for helping spread The LA Grind gospel from day one.

What’s next in 2026

In 2026, the focus is depth over breadth.

That means:

• Growing The LA Grind Club membership intentionally

• Booking recurring sponsors and longer-term partners

• Hosting bigger flagship events alongside smaller, high-trust gatherings

• Continuing to build LA and SF thoughtfully

I’m also exploring a small angel round to invest further in community, content, and experiences, and to build this with more intention and less constraint. Message me if you want to hear more.

Thank you to everyone who showed up to events and supported me in 2025.

I’m ready to make 2026 even better.

See you next week,

Justin