Most newsletter creators fight for a sliver of attention in the internet’s most crowded niches. Alec Kremins did the opposite. What he did looks almost unfairly obvious in hindsight. He built a local newsletter and covered a single city.

Specifically, Jerusalem.

The local newsletter that competes with nothing

JLM Scoop is a local newsletter. Readers get the events, news and things worth knowing in their city. It doesn’t compete with Morning Brew or The Hustle. There’s no battle with the national publications elbowing each other for inbox space. It competes with nothing, because almost nothing else like it exists.

The results reflect that gap. JLM Scoop has four thousand subscribers and a 57% open rate. That’s more than double the industry average. It’s also the kind of number that makes most professional newsletter operators quietly weep. Alec built all of it while working a full-time job. He had zero prior newsletter experience, zero existing local audience, and roughly two hours of work per week.

Why they open every time

The reason isn’t magic. It’s irreplaceability. When your content covers something readers genuinely can’t get anywhere else, they open it every single time. The pull is making it specific to their life, their city, their niche, their industry.

They don’t open because you’re a great writer. Optimized subject lines aren’t the reason either. They open because missing it means actually missing something. That’s a completely different relationship than most newsletters have with their subscribers.

Why local sponsors pay more

Monetization follows the same logic. Local businesses will pay to reach a genuinely engaged local audience. Sponsorships, event partnerships and local advertising don’t need massive scale when the targeting is this precise. Picture a sponsor reaching four thousand people who actually live in the city they serve. That’s worth more than reaching forty thousand scattered across the internet who may or may not care.

Find the room

Most solo marketers chase global audiences because global feels bigger. But the easiest win in newsletters right now might be the room nobody else is standing in. Think the city, the niche, the micro-community so specific that competition essentially doesn’t exist.

Find the room, fill it, and open rates take care of themselves.