Startup Stories - Mixergy

Episode #2268: How is beehiiv making $15 mil per year?

Host: Andrew Warner
Guest: Tyler Denk, CEO & Co-founder of beehiiv
Date: November 1, 2024

Episode Overview

In this Mixergy episode, Andrew Warner dives into the rise of beehiiv, a newsletter platform founded by Tyler Denk (former Morning Brew employee), currently generating $15 million/year in revenue. They discuss the modern state of email newsletters, beehiiv’s competitive edge in a crowded market, effective audience growth techniques, fundraising journeys, and actionable tips for newsletter success. Tyler is candid about his entrepreneurial path, growth strategies, preference for transparency, and where he sees both opportunity and friction in the industry.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Power of Newsletters in 2024

• Email Engagement Trumps Social
  • Andrew shares frustrations over declining engagement on channels like Twitter compared to immediate responses from email subscribers.

    "When I send out an email newsletter and I ask for feedback...freaking people respond right away."
    (A, 00:18)

  • Tyler echoes that, noting social channels aren’t as potent for direct engagement.
  • Email remains a high-leverage, responsive channel for creators and entrepreneurs.

beehiiv vs. the Competition

• Why Not Just Another ESP?
  • Tyler describes beehiiv's core advantage—offering all-in-one monetization and growth tools for publishers, not just email sending.

    "With beehiiv, our goal is you’re actually generating more revenue...than you are paying us."
    (B, 03:07)

  • Contrasts beehiiv’s market approach (flexible, creator-focused, monetization-first) with legacy players like Mailchimp.
  • Stresses that beehiiv’s growth and ad tools create a flywheel, directly empowering creators (vs. just being a cost center).
  • Addresses serving both large creators and “mom and pop” emails (e.g., local schools).

Tyler’s Backstory: Morning Brew to beehiiv

• Growth at Morning Brew
  • Tyler was employee #2, led product, engineering, and helped rocket the newsletter from 100k to 3.5M subs and $20M/year revenue in ~3 years.
  • Developed and internally built the renowned Morning Brew referral program, instrumental in this non-linear growth.
• Exit & Personal Realizations
  • Tyler left Morning Brew before their exit for >$70M (personal payout: ~$1M), sharing lessons on the contrast between early employee vs. founder equity ("wake up call").

    "It's a huge wake-up call, the difference between founder money and early employee money."
    (B, 09:00)

From Google to Founder

• Why a Big Tech Detour First?
  • After Morning Brew, took a stint at Google/YouTube Music to polish his product management skills ("finishing school for me").
  • Learned processes for documenting, shipping, and collaborating cross-functionally.
  • Built beehiiv nights/weekends with two ex-Morning Brew engineers while at Google.

Finding the Opportunity: Why Build beehiiv?

• Multiple macro signals:
  • Market feedback: Other newsletter creators constantly emailed Morning Brew asking about their tools/processes.
  • Market validation: Substack’s $650M raise (despite user product complaints) and multiple newsletter exits.
  • Direct experience building tools that the market demanded and no other SaaS covered.

    "People can just hit reply and get directly in contact with the writer...these are problems that I have as a consumer."
    (B, 15:41)

• Chose to build an all-in-one platform vs. “tool on top of Mailchimp”—to own the full experience and data.

Building the Business: Fundraising, MVP, Early Growth

• Built MVP for 10 months (nights/weekends), then raised a $2.5M seed pre-launch.
• Early go-to-market:
  • Announced on Twitter, built a 400-person waitlist off ~one tweet, and personally onboarded early adopters.
• Seed round included strategic angels (many newsletter creators) who became early users (notably, Liquidity).

Case Studies: Milk Road & Market Leaders

• Milk Road (Sean Pory, Ben):
  • Built from zero to 250k+ subs/exit in 10 months using solely beehiiv’s stack and growth tools.

    "If there was a better case study of going from zero to acquired in 10 months... it's hard to think of one."
    (B, 31:06)

Scaling, Competing & Fundraising

• beehiiv raised $12.5M (Series A) while profitable, then $33M (Series B) to hire aggressively, invest in network effects, and defend against increasingly well-capitalized competitors.
  • Decision: scale hard now vs. risk ceding users to copycats in a fast-moving market.

Acquisition & Onboarding Strategies

• Works to convince existing newsletter operators to switch (rather than targeting net-new newsletter creators, which is harder).
• Offers migrations, direct help, partnership/affiliate programs.
  • Current promo: 6 months free if coming from ConvertKit.

Newsletter Growth: Actionable Strategies & Case Studies

(This section focuses on broad lessons useful regardless of platform as per Andrew’s request, with beehiiv examples)

Content Is King (Always)

• “If the content’s not good, no one’s going to share it. No one’s going to sign up.” (B, 42:20)
• Start with value: information, entertainment, unique perspective, or actionable business insights.

Set & Forget Growth Stacks

(Tyler recommends doing several of these at once…all “autopilot” after initial setup.)

1. Referral Program (43:21 & 41:38)

   • Incentivizes sharing with rewards; works best with strong content/audience-product fit.
   • Example: Milk Road gave away a PDF of exclusive crypto predictions for referrals.
   • Still effective, but broad adoption lessens novelty; still “low hanging fruit”.

2. Recommendations/Newsletter Pods (45:28)

   • Cross-promote with 3–5 adjacent/complimentary newsletters.
   • Opt-in for new subs at signup (“set and forget” success, but works best with curated, relevant partners).

3. Boost/Sponsored Recommendations (46:47)

   • Pay others to promote your newsletter (Tyler pays $2/sub; monitors open/click rates to optimize quality).
   • Built-in analytics help cull poor-performing partners.

4. Lead Magnets & Gated Content (50:34, 54:02)

   • Offer PDFs, original research, guides, or case studies in exchange for emails via landing pages or in-post “email gates”.
   • beehiiv enables direct automation—users sign up, get asset instantly.
   • Example: Tyler uses his own seed deck and remote operating handbook as lead magnets, promotes via social and ads.

5. Paid Acquisition

   • Scales reach via Facebook/LinkedIn/etc. ads.
   • Use ad spend ROI to create a “growth flywheel” (ad revenue → reinvest).

6. Landing Pages (Upcoming Improvements) (51:52)

   • Building out a robust, integrated landing page/web builder (following the Type Dream acquisition).
   • Goal: Frictionless creation for events, magnets, and campaigns, with custom design/functionality.

7. Event-Driven Signups

   • Host live events/recordings with signup-required access, use as newsletter lead drivers.

8. Popups/Email Gates

   • Prompt email signups after scrolling past a section or before unlocking full content.
   • Shown to “kill” (convert extremely well) for motivated, warm traffic.

"[With beehiiv] there’s not a silver bullet to growth...I do 7–8 different things on autopilot. It’s the combination of all of them."
(B, 54:52)

Competitive Philosophy & Company Ethos

• Builder Mentality

  • Tyler and team give “a shit more than anyone else” about customer success.
  • Rapidly builds new features based on direct user feedback; team is accessible.

    “Our job is to help our users. A large percentage of our roadmap is actually derived from direct user feedback.”
    (B, 55:52)

• Transparency

  • Tyler shares real business numbers, setbacks, and strategic pivots openly, in public and in his newsletter (“Big Desk Energy”).
  • Encourages founders not to be secretive; hiring/empowering top talent comes from open information flows.

• Branding Philosophy

  • On “beehiiv” name: “If our product actually serves its purpose and works better than everyone else… we could have named it Dog Shit and people would sign up.”
    (B, 25:21)
  • Downplays naming importance; focus on product value and easy onboarding.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Insight on Early Employee Equity (08:56)

  "It’s a huge wake up call for me—the difference between founder money and early employee money."
  – Tyler

• On All-in-One Approach & Why Not to Build on Others’ APIs (19:01)

  "You’re constantly beholden to what rules and capabilities these other platforms have... then you are no longer competitively placed to serve those users. We want to be [the place] where you go to create your content."

• Bootstrapping vs. VC Growth (36:23)

  “Substack is actually a case where you see VC working against them. At a $650 million valuation, you have to sell that for 2, 3, 4 billion...they’re forced to swing for the fences.”

• Remote and Process Philosophy

  “I hype it up on Twitter...all my posts are behind an email gate. I have a very opinionated stance: processes and middle management kill companies.”
  (B, 54:02)

• On the Challenges of Writing (60:08)

  “I was full of ideas when I started...past few weeks, I’ve definitely hit the, ‘oh shit, I have to send a newsletter on Tuesday and I don’t know what I’m going to write.’ ...The combination of writer’s block with expectation, with also building a company, has definitely been weighing on me.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Topic/Segment | Speaker | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------|----------|-------------| | Why Email is NOT Dead | A & B | 00:00–02:00 | | beehiiv’s Competitive Differentiation | A & B | 02:38–05:40 | | Morning Brew Journey & Exit | A & B | 05:41–10:16 | | Lessons from Google, Shadowing, Transparency| A & B | 10:16–15:16 | | Seeing the Opportunity for beehiiv | B | 15:41–19:00 | | Full Stack vs. Plug-in Model | B | 19:01–20:52 | | MVP, Fundraising, Angels-as-Early-Adopters | B | 20:57–28:47 | | Case Study: Milk Road | A & B | 30:04–31:32 | | Monetization Focus, Ad Network | B | 03:18–04:52 | | Growth Strategies: Referral/Recommendations | B | 41:38–46:49 | | Boost Network and Paid Acquisition | B | 46:49–48:53 | | Lead Magnets & Landing Pages | A & B | 50:33–52:48 | | Email Gates and Gating Content | A & B | 53:52–55:00 | | Founder’s Growth Obsession & Builder Ethos | A & B | 55:00–57:20 | | Switching ESPs & Convincing Creators | A & B | 58:05–59:45 | | Writer’s Block—Sustaining Content | A & B | 60:08–61:04 |

Resources Mentioned

• beehiiv: mixergy.com/bestemail (Andrew's partner link; free trial & discount)
• Big Desk Energy: Tyler’s newsletter (bigdeskenergy.com)
• Bootstrap Giants: Andrew & Jesse's newsletter

Final Takeaways

• Newsletters are far from “dead”—when paired with right tools, they are foundational for deep engagement and monetization opportunities.
• Building in public, transparency, and relentless focus on user-driven development are beehiiv’s differentiators.
• For newsletter growth, combine multiple set-and-forget tactics—especially recommendations, lead magnets, referral incentives, and paid acquisition.
• Creating a frictionless onboarding/migration path is essential in the crowded ESP market.
• For creators: start simple, focus on content value, and experiment with new features to find your own flywheel.

For further questions or to try beehiiv:

• Tyler: tyler@beehiiv.com
• Exclusive trial/discount: mixergy.com/bestemail