Most solo writers publish a newsletter, then start from zero when it is time to post on Instagram, as if the two were unrelated tasks. A few well-known writers do not work this way. They write one piece once, then reshape it into everything else. Two of the clearest public examples are Justin Welsh and Dan Koe, and both have described enough of their own systems in public that the pattern is easy to trace.
Both are frequently cited in creator-economy write-ups as examples of a repurposing system done well, and both have talked about their own process directly enough, in their own writing and in interviews, that this is not guesswork. What follows sticks closely to what each of them has actually said or shown about how they work, with clear notes on which claims come from their own words and which come from independent case studies of their content.
This breakdown is based on their own published writing, interviews, and independent case studies of their content, all linked below. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by either writer. Where a claim comes from a secondary source rather than their own words, that is noted directly.
Justin Welsh: One Newsletter, Broken Into a Week of Posts
Justin Welsh spent over a decade in SaaS sales, including as SVP of Sales at a startup called PatientPop, before leaving to build his solo business. His flagship newsletter, The Saturday Solopreneur, launched in 2022 on his own email platform, and he added a Substack presence in 2025 alongside a wave of other creators making the same move.
On his own site, Welsh has laid out the repurposing system directly: write a thread, turn it into a newsletter, break the newsletter into five smaller pieces, a story, an observation, a contrarian take, a simple listicle, an analysis, then turn each of those into further tweets, LinkedIn posts, and Instagram posts. One newsletter issue, by his own description, becomes well over a dozen individual posts.
What makes this worth studying is the order, not just the output count. The thread comes first, before the newsletter, which means the compressed version of the idea exists before the long-form version does. Most writers do this backward, writing the long piece first and struggling to compress it afterward, which is a harder editing task than expanding a short idea into a longer one.
The specific path to a visual carousel is documented too, though it points at LinkedIn rather than Instagram. One detailed case study of his content systemfound that he breaks the newsletter into a Twitter thread first, then turns the screenshots of that same thread into a carousel post for LinkedIn. Instagram, in his case, has been handled more simply. A breakdown of his content approachfound he grew his Instagram presence largely by posting screenshots of his own tweets directly, rather than building a separate carousel for the platform. [source]
Dan Koe: Newsletter and Tweets Straight Into Carousels
Dan Koe is a writer and entrepreneur, the author of the book The Art of Focus, and a co-founder of Kortex and Eden. His flagship newsletter, The Koe Letter, has been run on the platform beehiiv, according to beehiiv's own case study of his setup, and like Welsh, he also launched a Substack presence in 2025. On his own site, Koe has written that his content across platforms starts as tweets, with his LinkedIn, Instagram, and other posts built from those tweets rather than written separately for each one.
Unlike Welsh's documented process, Koe's carousel-building is specifically tied to Instagram, not LinkedIn. One case study of his content system foundthat he takes visuals, ideas, and tweets pulled from a newsletter issue and turns them directly into an Instagram carousel. The newsletter functions as the source material, and the carousel is one of several formats built from it alongside YouTube scripts and further social posts.
That same case study describes the newsletter as the center of a wider system, powering not just the carousel but scripts for other formats as well, which lines up with what Koe has written himself about treating the newsletter as the source everything else gets pulled from rather than a standalone piece written in isolation.
The Difference Between Their Two Systems
Both writers start from the same place, a short, compressed version of the idea written once, usually as a tweet or thread, before anything longer or more visual gets built. Where they differ is which platform gets the carousel treatment. Welsh's documented system sends the carousel to LinkedIn, the platform where his audience and business results are most concentrated, and treats Instagram as a lower-effort destination for tweet screenshots. Koe's documented system sends the carousel to Instagram directly, treating it as a primary output of the newsletter rather than a secondary one.
Neither approach is more correct than the other. Each fits the platform where that writer's audience and business already lived before the repurposing system was built around it. Welsh spent years building on LinkedIn specifically before formalizing this system, which is likely why the carousel effort concentrates there rather than on Instagram. Koe's system sends the more built-out visual treatment to Instagram instead, in line with the newsletter-to-carousel case study above.
Newsletter Setup and Visual Output, Side by Side
| Creator | Newsletter Setup | How the Newsletter Becomes Visual Content |
|---|---|---|
| Justin Welsh | The Saturday Solopreneur, started 2022 on his own platform, Substack presence added 2025 | Newsletter to thread to LinkedIn carousel; tweets posted as Instagram screenshots |
| Dan Koe | The Koe Letter, run on beehiiv, Substack presence added 2025 | Newsletter and tweets built directly into Instagram carousels |
What Both Systems Have in Common
The shared principle matters more than either specific tool or platform choice. Both writers compress the idea into its shortest form first, then treat every longer or more visual format as a reshaping of that same core idea rather than a new piece of writing. Neither one writes a separate, original post for each platform, which is the actual time saving behind both systems, not any particular app or automation tool.
Both also maintain a presence on more than one newsletter platform at once, having added Substack alongside their existing setups in 2025, which suggests the platform itself matters less to either of their systems than the repurposing habit built on top of it. That detail is worth sitting with, since it means the repurposing system is not tied to any single piece of software. Welsh's process worked before he had a Substack presence, and it kept working after he added one. The habit is what carries over, not the specific tool it runs through at any given time.
Building This System Without Their Audience
The mechanics here do not require an existing following to work. Start with the same compression step both writers use, write your idea as a single tweet or short paragraph before writing anything longer. If it already has a numbered structure, a thread converts directly into a carousel without much rework. A finished newsletter issue maps onto slides the same way once you know which sections to pull, problem, point, takeaway becomes slide one, two, and three.
If you already have a handful of strong tweets from the week, compiling them into one carousel covers the lighter side of this system without new writing. The broader version of this approach, one piece of writing reshaped into several platforms, is covered in the content repurposing guide, and if you are cross-posting from Substack specifically, the Substack-to-social breakdown covers that path directly. Once your best line from the newsletter is decided, a tweet-style image is often the fastest way to get it in front of an Instagram audience the same day the issue goes out.
None of this requires copying either writer's exact five-piece breakdown or nine-format schedule. Start smaller: pick one newsletter issue, pull the thread version and one carousel from it, and see how long that actually takes before adding more formats on top. Both of the systems above took years to reach their current shape, they did not start out producing a dozen pieces from day one.
What Not to Copy
The specific tools, HypeFury for scheduling, beehiiv for hosting, are implementation details, not the reason either system works. Copying the exact software stack without the underlying habit, write once in compressed form, reshape everything else from it, will not produce the same result. The audience size and years of consistent publishing behind both of these systems also are not shortcuts anyone can copy directly. What is transferable is the order of operations: compress first, expand into formats second, never write each platform's version from scratch.
FAQ
Do Justin Welsh and Dan Koe actually use Substack?
Both added a Substack presence in 2025, according to independent coverage of that period's wider migration of creators toward the platform, alongside their existing newsletter setups. Neither appears to have built their flagship newsletter on Substack from the start.
Which system is easier to copy with a small audience?
Welsh's tweet-screenshot approach to Instagram is the simpler starting point, since it requires no design step at all. Koe's carousel-first approach takes more setup but produces a more polished result once the habit is established.
Do I need a large newsletter list before this repurposing system works?
No. The system is a writing and formatting habit, not a distribution tactic. It works the same way whether a newsletter issue reaches two hundred people or two hundred thousand, since the value is in not rewriting the same idea for every platform.
Is one platform, LinkedIn or Instagram, the better destination for a carousel?
It depends on where your audience already reads you closely. Welsh's business and audience are concentrated on LinkedIn, which is why his carousel effort goes there. Writers whose audience leans more visual or Instagram-native, including most newsletter writers building a following around personal essays or quotes, tend to get more from sending the carousel to Instagram directly, closer to Koe's approach.
What should a newsletter writer with no social media presence do first?
Start with the thread, not the carousel. Both systems above put the short, compressed version of the idea first, and a thread is the fastest way to test whether an idea holds up outside the newsletter before investing time in a full carousel around it.
Writers who repurpose well are not doing more work than everyone else, they are doing the same amount of writing and refusing to do it twice. The newsletter gets written once. Everything after that, the thread, the carousel, the single Instagram post, is a different shape for the same idea, not a new one.