He Left His W-2 to Go All in on Local Media

Build a greetform that turns new newsletter subscribers into data, leads, and offers, https://greetform.com/ Sam Harper built The Waco Buzz to 16,000 readers, left his corporate job three months ago, and is now full-time on local media in Waco, Texas, newsletter, social, job board, and community events. In this Local Media HQ interview, Sam walks through the side-hustle-to-full-time jump (the newsletter beat his W-2 pay for months first), why relationship capacity is the real unlock when you go full-time, how monthly Dinner Club made Waco Buzz feel like a real brand, Social Studies talks with local professors, and the big swing: renting Baylor’s football stadium for Waco’s first paper airplane championship. He also breaks down his LinkedIn “social selling” play, Meta grows the list; LinkedIn books senior meetings, plus “Good Life in Waco” surveys that feed the newsletter, job board, and a 30-day wealth campaign with a local partner. Caveat from Sam: events should be fun, get people doing something together, and stay easy to fulfill. He’s not trying to turn the stadium night into a bloated production. Chapters: 00:00 Sam Harper / The Waco Buzz intro 01:52 16,000 readers and going full-time 03:31 When the side hustle beat the W-2 06:42 Filling a 40-hour week with relationships 10:34 Community builder vs more products 13:33 Dinner Club and Social Studies 14:56 Paper airplane championship at Baylor Stadium 20:23 When local news covered Dinner Club 29:58 LinkedIn social selling playbook 36:18 Good Life in Waco (reader-generated stories) 39:09 Job board + 30-day wealth campaign 45:03 Where to find Sam Guest links discussed / find Sam: https://www.thewacobuzz.com/ https://www.instagram.com/waco.buzz/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-harper-coach https://wacobuzz.beehiiv.com/ Work with me: https://www.localmediahq.com/ Discord: https://discord.localmediahq.com/ TJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tjlarkin1 TJ on X: https://x.com/TJLarkin23 TJ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tj.larkin #LocalMedia #NewsletterGrowth #Entrepreneurship #CommunityBuilding #WacoBuzz #DigitalMarketing #SideHustleToFullTime #LinkedInStrategy #LocalEvents #PodcastInterview