If you are a creator, you're a business owner, you are creating content for a living, we really want to be the tools and infrastructure that allows you to build and launch your business and grow faster and make more money.
The game becomes not just to have, like, the best newsletter platform, it's more moving towards this, like, operating system for the creator economy, right? Or for the, for the content economy.
For the content economy, right. Do you think this is something that you wanna move towards more generally? Me as a content creator, I wanna spend time creating content. Simplicity and ease of use is very important.
We are the tools, we are the infrastructure. You come onto Beehiiv, you launch a website, you launch your newsletter, you sell digital products. We want to be in the back just supporting.
To me, like, that's what the content economy is, is an acknowledgement of, like, all of these things collapsing.
If I were to sum up what do creators or anyone in the content economy really care about, I think there's two things. It's to grow faster and to make more money. Yeah.
If you can help your users or our creators do those things, I think that's, like, the key to success. You acquired a newsletter at one point, right? That was part of your growth. You really did your research.
I didn't even think I publicized that I acquired this newsletter through- You did. You definitely did. Yeah, I've never been confronted about it. Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast.
My name is Francis Zier, and for the first time today, we are recording in person with Tyler Denk, the CEO and co-founder of Beehiiv.
Uh, and also, full disclosure, my boss, which is how I was able to convince him to give me budget to record in person.
So if you enjoy this in-person recording, DM Tyler, leave comments on those LinkedIn posts, and maybe we'll get to, uh, record more of these in person. Yeah. What's funny is I actually never got that budget request.
I think you just booked it, so hopefully- I, I did just book it. Um, you know, that's, that's the trust you give me. Of course. And so I appreciate that.
Um, as we record, Beehiiv's winter release event is still a mystery, um, but this comes out about four or five days after it's released. What are the, what are the highlights?
What are the takeaways of the winter release event? What are the... Well- Should, should we tell the people what the winter release event is? We, we should tell them. We should tell them what was in it.
So, well, yes, we will definitely do that.
I didn't even take a step back, and if you live under a rock or, or, are unfamiliar with our marketing schemes from the past month or so- If you haven't read your LinkedIn, uh, subtitle- My LinkedIn bio- Yeah...
my title, my Twitter title, everything. Uh, yeah, the winter release event, well, what Beehiiv has been known for over the years is that we ship product very quickly. Yeah.
And so me, like, and I think we'll get to this as well around my own newsletter, like, half of the company, yourself included, like, has a newsletter on the platform.
We're constantly in touch with our users from Twitter and, and LinkedIn, and like, I think we're as in touch with, like, our end user as anyone. Yeah.
And that allows us to get feedback constantly and then consistently understand, like, if we launch this, that solves these problems. If we launch this, that helps these people.
And so we've been in this motion from day one, which is almost four years to the day, that we just ship features as quickly as possible.
And we'll, we'll announce these in like a weekly email roundup, and after a while, it kinda got a little tiring of like, you know, that's just like another email dump.
It's like a forty percent open rate, some people click, it is whatever.
And in looking at the product pipeline, I was like, wait, we have like three to four, like, very tent-pole features that are market expanding, very exciting, very flashy. Yeah.
And rather than dripping them out as like the same old, same old, what if we were to do a live event that is streaming of us announcing these features and making like a bigger spectacle of what this is?
So like the Apple keynotes, like the, the classic example- Yeah... but a lot of other companies have started to adopt that.
Um, and so what went from me thinking I was gonna create a slide deck and have, like, my surfboard in the background and just, like, read through it on a Google- In your home office... like, in my home- Yeah...
in my bedroom- Yeah... and just, like, kinda go through slides presenting these features in, like, a Google Hangout. One thing led to another.
I was gonna be in New York, and then most of the PMs that were working on these projects were also in New York, and I was like, "Let's just record this thing live and, like, actually get, like, a live shot of us going up on stage and doing, like, an Apple keynote thing."
Yeah. So that's the evolution of the winter release event. And if you're watching this and you missed it, go check it out. I don't know what the link is, but it'll, it'll- Well, it'll be, it'll be there, yeah...
we'll, we'll drop it in the show notes, like what the link, where, where you put everything is. Yeah.
Um, but what we la- what we launched earlier this week or last week when you watch this is a bunch of things, honestly. So the, the big market expansion thing for us is digital products. Yeah.
And so we have, and, and if you are unfamiliar with Beehiiv, we do newsletters best in class better than anyone. We have a website builder.
Uh, I think we can compete in the website space by bundling web and email very tightly. We also have paid subscriptions. We also have an ad network to help you monetize.
So when you all add it all up, if you are a creator, you're a business owner, you are creating content for a living, whether you're a publisher, an inde-independent content creator, uh, we really want to be the tools and infrastructure that allows you to build and launch your business and grow faster and make more money.
And we already have a lot of those pieces.
So the next evolution of that was digital products, which could be everything from you have Notion templates that you want to sell, or you, um, want to book time, which is really interesting.
So a lot of people- Mm-hmm... offer, like, interviews or, or thirty minutes of their time to connect with their fans for fifty bucks or, or whatever it is.
Or if you're a, a fitness coach, maybe you meet with someone and you charge them a hundred dollars to do like a fitness analysis and like coaching session type of thing. So digital products is like the first thing.
I think it's a natural evolution of serving the creator and what we call the content economy, which we'll get to. And like, how do you monetize your value and your expertise?
Um, I don't know if you want me to run through all of the things that we're, we're launching. Well, no. I think...
Well, real quick though, I do wanna stop on, like, the fact that, like, digital products is this net new thing, right?
Because when I first joined the company, uh, people would ask me what I would do, and I would, you know, kind of jokingly say, uh, like, "I write a newsletter for a company that makes newsletter software."
And then after a while, like this year I guess, I would say like, "Oh, well, like, I work...
I'm like a journalist in-house at this company that, uh, makes newsletter software, website software, and has an ad network," right? And so the digital products is like this net new thing.
Um, and I think to me it's like the company is going fromObviously went from websites already to these two other things, but it's like the game becomes not just to have, like, the best in class newsletter platform, but, like, it's more moving towards this, like, operating system for the creator economy, right, or for the, for the content economy.
For the content economy. Yes. Right. And, and you see that through line, honestly, where I went back to of, like, introducing Beehiiv and, like, what we're known from. It comes from a place of we know our users so well.
Yeah. And when they're in my DMs being like, "Hey, like, this software is great. I love it for the newsletter.
I l- I have my website hosted on you guys, but I'm using X platform to sell digital products," or, "I have to integrate this third party platform to, like, do this booking and whatever." Mm-hmm.
"Now I have multiple logins. I'm, like, signing into different places. I have two different wallets." It's, like, hard to, like, connect all these different pieces.
So an understanding that these, like, data points that we get of our users being like, "I'd love if I can do all of this right in Beehiiv"- Yeah...
well, that's, like, the market signal of, like, I think there's a real opportunity there. So digital products we're, we're very excited about. Yeah.
Um, this reminds me, I, I once interviewed another tech CEO who has a digital products company, and they had this story about scaling very quickly. The first year was, like, you know, a little...
I, I forget the exact rate, but I think it was the second year they, like, doubled up to, like, 30 million very quickly, and then they kind of stalled a bit.
And for the first time, I thought about this fact that, like, or this idea that a challenge for any tech company building in the creator economy, right, is, is the education gap where, like, you might saturate at one point the market of, like, educated people, like, with Beehiiv, for example, who are knowledgeable enough about growth and about, like, web design to where they know how to grow an email list and, like, they know how to invest in meta ads to do that, and they know how to make all the decisions you have to make to make, like, a good looking website with the Beehiiv product, right?
Um, and then after a certain point though, like, there's a pretty big education gap to, to grow your market, right? Um, so I think there's two...
To me, it's like, for Beehiiv to reach that large scale success, like, yes, you have to expand the product portfolio, add digital products, but it's also, like, that to me is a major challenge, right?
Like, how do you, how do you help people figure out how to design [chuckles] and sell digital products, right? Yeah. And I think we need to get better at, like, the outcome based marketing. Mm.
Where I think we're really good at saying, "We just launched this feature." Yeah. And people are like, "Cool."
And again, if, unless they asked for it, they're like, "I don't really know what this does," or, like, you leave it to their imagination of what does that actually mean for me, and, like, how can I use this, like, new feature that you hyped up to benefit, like, my livelihood or my business?
Yeah. The evolution of that is like now with Beehiiv, you can sell-- You can ha- charge your fans directly to book time with you, bundle that into an email product so you're constantly contacting your fans.
Or you could sell a digital product, uh, for cheap and understand who those high intent fans are who are interested and are willingness to pay that you can then cross-sell into different, like, higher ticket items. Yeah.
And our platform allows you to do all of that.
And so, like, once you position as that, it's everyone who's thinking about, like, whether they have a high ticket item that they're selling or digital products or an expertise with, like, a rabid fan base.
You're kind of telling them that we have the tools to support you because you've kind of given them the playbook or you're inspiring ne- new things or plays for them to kind of run by creating marketing that's more outcome based.
Yeah. I think we fall into the trap of, like, new shiny feature, this is available today, and, like, people are busy. Like, everyone has their own thing.
Like, it's top of mind for us, but it's not top of mind for, like, our users that we're emailing. Yeah.
And so, like, really spelling out, like, what this unlocks for them to do, I think is, like, an evolution of product market that I-- hopefully we do with the winter release event and continue to push on. Yeah.
I mean, going back to what we were talking about, about the winter release event earlier and, like, this being, like, a moment of like, oh, instead of dripping these all out, kind of like every week we'll release digital products, we'll release the, the podcast feature, right?
Like, all these things. Um, do you think this is something that you wanna move towards more generally?
Like, I've-- We're not, I mean, my, my role now is not so much a marketing role, but in the past I've been part of these big releases and it's like, "Oh, great, we're gonna do this thing in three months," and you kind of like overpromise externally and then, like, people internally get so rallied up and it's like this organizing, forcing function for the whole company of, like, everybody from marketing to engineering is, like, coming together to work on this one thing and it's high stress and you're, like, working too much.
And it's like you can only really do this maybe twice a year, maybe once a quarter at most because people get burnt out and, like, the novelty kind of disappears for, for the audience, for the customers, right?
But yeah, I, I guess, I don't know. It-- What, how do you feel about this as opposed to, like, the typical just, like, weekly release, release, release cycle? Yeah. Well, right now because it hasn't happened- Yeah...
so this is, like, us in the future. [laughs] Yeah. Like, I hope it went extremely well and, like, people love it. Like, the reception was great. We, we didn't overpromise and underdeliver. Yeah.
And that it's something that we, like, we can actually celebrate as, like, a huge win and, like, our users and the broader market is, like, that was all...
Like, again, my initial idea was to stream this live on a Google Hangout f- with a slide deck in my room. Yeah. And I think that's, like, maybe what some people are expecting.
Like, no one knows, like, we're, we're a small, scrappy, seriously- Yeah... startup.
I think once they see the production value of what we put on, I'm hoping that it actually is, like, a larger than life, like, we're punching above, um, our weight. I don't know. I, I, I don't think we're just gonna...
Like, I... The constant drip of, like, constantly leeching, uh, releasing features kinda gives and is the perception of like, "Oh, they're always looking to make their platform better," which is- Yeah...
kind of the reputation we've had. So I see both sides of it. I think we'll go back to constantly releasing features and, like, dripping them out as they become available. Yeah.
'Cause the other, the downside of this, like, big event is, like, two of these features are actually available today. Like, they're QA'd, they're ready to go.
We're actually, like, withholding them for this, like, big announcement. Mm. And I'm someone who, like, am much more product, like, get into the market, let your users play with it, you get feedback- Don't be selfish...
and you make it so much better. Yeah. And, like, we only built those features 'cause people had already been asking for them.
So we're kinda like we already have their solution they've been asking for, but, like, we're withholding it for, like, three to four weeks. Yeah.
Um, but I do what you said, uh, and it's something I think is, like, you can tell me as, as, as an employee at the company, like, one of I think my superpowers as a founder is, like, finding, like, that rallying cry that- Yeah...
can actually get everyone kind of rowing in the same direction. We're 110 people, totally remote across the world, so we don't have, like, the touch points at the water cooler. Yeah.
So it's like I'm very intentional of, like, the psyche of the company and, like, what is, like, this big, shiny, like, North Star that we can all row in that direction.
And I think being like, "We're gonna drop 10 massive features," n- it's, they're all ambitious individually. We're gonna do a huge production thing. We're doing a marketing thing.
Customer support's involved, sales is involved, marketing and growth. Um, so I think that's, like, really fun- Yeah... and it gives something people to, like, wake up and look forward to.
Even I'm involved, that's why we're doing this. No, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Right? So, like- Yeah... it goes all the way down.
[laughs] And so yeah, I, I think there's value to both of them, but no, I don't think this is gonna be, like, a monthly thing for us. Yeah. No, definitely not a monthly thing.
Um, okay.I, I'll-- This will make sense in a second. Bear, bear with me. Um, you know, I've had people ask me, like, or I've also seen people on Twitter say, like, "Why do people say a Substack but not a Beehiiv?" Right?
And, like, to me, the very obvious example is Substack is so templatized, right? It's like, it's... You can customize more nowadays, I think, but it's still, like, it's gonna look basically the same.
The format of the email is gonna look basically the same. Your, your webpage is gonna look basically the same, right? And so it's very easy to know what a Substack is. It's also...
The, the written style is usually kind of this bloggy column. I'm, I'm, you know, definitely reducing a lot, but- Yeah... that's basically true.
And then with a Beehiiv, that's not really true, 'cause you could have some... You, you know, Arnold Schw- Arnold Schwarzenegger, big customer on the platform.
You could have a Creator Spotlight, you could have a Ryan Broderick Garbage Day. There's all these different people producing different styles of content with also different looking newsletters and websites.
So I think long term, I mean, I don't know. As a marketing tool, it's great for Substack that they have, like, this Kleenex, right? But I think for creators, it's much better to not be attached to that thing.
Not to get too, you know, deep into the bias here.
But all that being said, I mean, with introducing digital products and, like, widening the range of, like, what a Beehiiv could be, I think there's probably, like, a few different versions of, like, what is a Beehiiv, but I wonder what you think a Beehiiv is.
Yeah. Um, well, it, it kind of brings me back to, like, one of my favorite analogies is the Amazon versus Shopify analogy, right? Yeah. And so to give everyone context, like, Amazon is the destination.
You go to the amazon.com website, you go to their app, you buy things. Like, rarely do I know what brand I'm actually buying for, from on Amazon. No, yeah.
I'm just, like, typing in toilet paper, find toilet paper, couldn't care less. Like, what, like, whatever the brand is, right? 10 bucks, great. Yeah. And, and then it shows up in an Amazon box.
If you have any probl- uh, any ch- problems whatsoever, you contact, like, Amazon customer support. So, like, they're there for distribution, but Amazon is the brand through and through.
Um, Shopify ha- And, like, Amazon has millions of third-party affiliates- Mm-hmm... but, like, it's Amazon who you go to. You don't go to the third-party affiliates.
Um, Shopify, like, you go to websites all the time to purchase from them, you have no idea that they're even built on Shopify.
It's purely the tools and infrastructure to actually make online commerce possible- Business friendly... for all of these- Mm-hmm...
different businesses, and put their brand first, their distribution, and there's trade-offs. Like, you have to do your own customer support. You have to, like, kind of set up your own templates.
Um, but there's a lot more customization there, and, like, you kind of own the audience or your customer end to end. And I think that analogy is, like, very, very similar to, like, the, the Beehiiv versus Substack.
Like, Substack has a reader destination. They have a mobile app that they push your readers into. Mm-hmm.
The des- they are cross-posting all the time, so I follow your content on Substack, and other similar content is constantly popping up because they are moving into more of a social app.
And so where distribution feels like a sugar high for creators, 'cause you're getting this, like, new channel of distribution, kind of like the early days of Twitter, you're also giving up your brand, your, uh, your distribution, the control of the audience, and, like, your reader experience, and, like, that's, like, the complete opposite direction that I wanna go in.
Yeah. So we don't say launch a Beehiiv. Like, it, it... We are literally the t- We are Shopify. Yeah. We are the tools. We are the infrastructure.
You come onto Beehiiv, you launch a website, you launch your newsletter, you sell digital products. We'll talk about some of the other features that we're launching for the winter release event.
But, like, we don't want to be known. Like, we want to be in the back just supporting. Um, I think it's more creator friendly. I think you see that in, like, the business model as well.
So we don't take a cut of subscription revenue like Substack does and other creator platforms. So I think there's, like, a, a very consistent ethos through and through of we don't want our brand front and center.
We don't want to take your revenue. We want sh- to give you the tools where you can build your own successful business and own your customer end to end. Totally. Um, okay.
Going back to the winter release event and the features released, uh, when I was looking at the list, what stands out to me is that this is really, like, a website product swing, right?
So for the web product, there's, um, digital products, podcasts, AI website builder improvements, website templates, web analytics. That's a lot for the web product.
And then for the email product, there's overhauled automations, dynamic content, and an overhauled paid subscription feature, right?
Um, it started as newsletters, and then we bought TypeDream and introduced this much better, uh, website tool than we had before, and then the ad network came before that as well.
But I guess, why were website and ad builder the correct bets to take after newsletter, and, like, now maybe the next bet is digital products? Why is that the order of bet? Yeah. [chuckles] Um, the order of bet.
[chuckles] Yeah. I, I think that for us, like, the website to me is, like, the front door to the rest of the creator economy.
You kinda have to have, like, a, a, like, web presence, and whether it is the, the smallest thing you can do, which is a link in bio, which you missed on the list. We did- Oh.
We did launch a, a link in bio, uh, offering as well. He's gonna dock my pay for that. So... Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's, like, very top of funnel, right?
Like, almost every creator who has, like, a YouTube or an Instagram or a TikTok and has, like, multiple places to send their traffic, like, link in bio there, there's quite a few large companies in that space. Yeah.
And it's because it is very utilitarian for, like, these different creators. Um- Linktree is, like, a very large or real- I mean, multi dozens of millions of dollars business, right? Yeah.
And, like, I don't think we're... Like, we're not trying to be a link in bio tool. Yeah. Like, I don't think we're trying to actually compete with Linktree at all.
Um, it, it's more so just, like, I think it's an add-on feature of our overall offering than, like, a standalone product. Like, we're not, like, a link in tree or a link in bio tool. Yeah. Um, so yeah. I, I think that...
Like, to me, the website unlocked, one, link in bio, like I said, digital products. Um, the AI website builder I think is, like, extremely exciting.
You've, you've obviously seen the companies that have launched in the AI space, like, their revenue, their traction.
I think lowering the barriers of entry to create really beautiful websites where you s- like, way back when, it was like you hire a...
You teach yourself, which is, like, untenable for most people, or you hire a web developerExpensive.
You go to, like, a custom shop, and they-- Then, like, there was, like, brands that came along, whether it's, like, Wix and Squarespace, where there's, like, templates and you can get there.
But, like, they're still templates and they're still drag and drop, and, like, there's a lot of, like, customization you have to do. Where AI just, like, totally blew, like, blew that out of the water- Yeah...
where you can be like, "Give me a page that looks like this. Make it my colors, my font, my, like, theming."
And, like, that becomes possible, and you can prompt with, like, plain English to bring these, like, different experiences to life.
So I think, again, bringing the barriers down for anyone to have, like, something they're proud of is, like, a big focus of ours. Um, so that's the AI website builder. Web analytics is, like...
Again, it's kind of like just looking at, like, what is the old paradigm of things? Yeah. Previously, you set up Google Analytics. You-- Most people don't. Most- That's the other thing.
Most people just don't set up Google Analytics and, like, they would get a lot of value out of, like, taking the time to set it up. But it's, like, another platform. It's a pixel. It doesn't fire all the time.
Well, this, this is the education barrier- A hundred percent... that, uh, yeah.
Or, or, like, my, my thesis when I started Beehiiv was like, "Hey, look, you could have a website on WordPress, and you can copy and paste your content into Mailchimp.
And then if you wanted ads, you can use, like, these banner ads and, like, live intent. You can use, like, third-party web analytics with Google Analytics.
You could use a referral program, and that's, like, another third party. You can use Stripe and, like, start doing, like, a membership business."
And I just named, like, six different tools and, like, as, like, the content creator with, like, two thousand readers who just wants to get off the ground, they're like, "Where do I even start?
And, like, I don't know how to do this. Like, I'm not technical." I would never do it myself. [chuckles] Right. You just wouldn't. Yeah.
[chuckles] So it's either, like, a total barrier to entry of, like, "I'm just not gonna get started on my content, like, creator journey because it's not worth the struggle to be able to get there," or it's, "I'm gonna try.
It's-- I'm gonna get frustrated along the way." Or, like me as a content creator, I wanna spend time creating content- Yeah...
not configuring Google Analytics and, like, the Pixel and, like, double, and, like, QAing that it's firing properly.
Um, so, like, l- roundabout way of getting to your question is really just, like, to me, the website is the front door to the rest of what we can do in this creator economy.
Um, and I think the, the other thing that I've learned with a lot of these content creators is simplicity and ease of use is very important. Mm-hmm.
And the more third-party platforms you have to, like, integrate, the more complicated it gets, and the less time you're spending actually creating content.
And so the more that we can bundle and, like, what I think our competence is, like, product excellence. If we can just bring product excellence- Mm...
to all of these different creator tools, bundle them in one solution, I think the all-in-one, if done well, is a very compelling offering. Yeah.
I mean, s- like, the way I tend to define creator is somebody who is creating digital media for distribution on digital platforms.
They are somehow growing an audience for that media, and then they're somehow monetizing it, right?
And I mean, what you're describing there is, like, productizing the growth and mon-monetization aspects through the website, um, which is, like, giving then time for the creator to focus on creating.
Uh, which brings me to my next question about the content economy. Um, you've been using this term more internally a-as opposed to the creator economy.
Um, we were talking about Brian Morrissey rebooting right before we started recording. He, I think, calls this the information space. I think it's kind of the same thing as the content economy.
Tell me be-- tell me about, uh, this term and why- Yeah... you've been using it. W-well, we're, we're trademarking that for sure. Yeah. Uh-huh. Or, like, in the process of trademarking it.
Um, I've, like, never heard it referred to previously- Mm... and I don't know where it came from.
But, like, we've been constantly trying -- Since we started the company, it's always been very difficult to describe what we do. Mm-hmm. 'Cause it started off as newsletter platform.
But then when you bundle in, like, ad network and website and link in bio and digital products, it's like you're actually a lot more than that. Mm-hmm.
And then the other thing we've always struggled with is who's, like, our, like, classic, like, startup term, like, who's our ICP? Like, who are we actually building for?
And when you look at our customers, not only do we have such a wide range of customers, we have a wide range of customers who are having tremendous success. Mm-hmm.
So, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger sends a, has a million subscribers on his newsletter, sends out daily.
Time, like Time magazine, The Ringer, Creator Spotlight, myself, um, this- Brian Broderick, Garbage Day, independent journalist- Yeah... who now has- Oliver Darcy... a couple million people... independent journalist.
So, like, there, n-none of those people have anything in common with each other, right? Yeah. Outside the fact that they create content. And so- They write and they send emails to, for a living, somehow.
That's part of it... there was, there was a time when we would lean into creator economy. Yeah. And then our head of sales is like, "Hey, I'm talking to, like, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Banner, like, uh, Time, The Ringer.
Like, they are not creators. They don't refer to creator economy. Like, when I say the word creator, like, they're like, 'Is this tool even for me?'" Mm. I was like, "That's a fair point.
Your job is to do enterprise sales." And the thing is, like, we serve those customers extremely well, so we don't want to isolate them in, like, our marketing and language.
Um, inversely, if we go all the way into, like, "Hey, we're building for, like, publishers," and whatever else, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kyle Kuzma, like Russell Westbrook, they're like, "I'm not, like, a publisher," right?
Yeah. And so, like, what's, like, the unifying thing that is underlying all of these?
And, like, content economy is, like, kind of where we landed of a bit more abstract, but some purpose of their content or their, or, or of their business or, um, themselves is just creating some sort of content, primarily text-based and email today.
Yeah. But you mentioned we're launching podcasts as well. Um, sneak peek in 2026, like, video's definitely on the roadmap. So you can see, like, this multimedia thing evolving over time. Yeah. I mean,
I, at, at a previous job, I was-- I still give credit to my, my old boss who, who told me this. He was like... 'Cause I, I was in marketing, right?
And he was like, "Francis, we're not competing with other companies like ours. We're competing with anything you can look at on your phone," right?
Which I think for a while I've applied that to the creator economy, but I think the content economy is more accurate because whether you're...
Like, if you're scrolling Instagram Reels, right, I might be seeing something that my friend made, something that some creator I follow made, something that is an ad from a brand, something that is kind of an ad, but kind of like entertainment from a creator working with a brand, right?
And it's like, does it matter where it came from when it's all, like... when I'm looking at it all just, like, scrolling my thumb on the same screen, right?
So I think to me, like, that's what the content economy is, is an acknowledgment of, like, all of these things collapsing, where, like, even in your, in your inbox, right?
It's like I might be seeing an email from you, I might be seeing a, like-... 20 newsletters that I subscribe to coming in today.
I might be seeing, like, a notification that Natalia has, like, added a comment to some piece we're working on in Beehiiv Editor.
It's like it's all coming from different places and for different purposes, but like it's all coming to me in the same screen, right? Like, that's what the product is. I love the product placement there, too.
When you s- when you get a email when someone comments and edits your doc, 'cause we do have live collaboration- Yes... in the editor. It is very good. Um, yeah.
[chuckles] Um, yeah, okay, going back to pre-winter release event. Besides any of the features that have just, just now come out as this is released- Yep...
um, what do you think was the most impactful, uh, n- not even necessarily like flashiest feature this earlier this year. But like what do you think was the most impactful release on the business? Yeah. Great question.
I, I want to say website, but we just spent so much- Mm... time talking about website. Yeah. Um, so I'll go the other big bet that I think you hinted at earlier, which is the ad network. Yeah. Um, for me, like, my...
If I were to sum up what do creators or anyone in the content economy really care about, I think there's two things. It's to grow faster and to make more money. Yeah. And if you can do...
If you can help your users or our creators or, or publishers do those things, I think that's, like, the key to success, which is why, like, our initial wedge when we launched four years ago was the Morning Brew referral program worked so well for Morning Brew.
Everyone wanted it. That's, like, where a lot of, like, the idea came from, people just DM'ing me constantly of, like, how did you build the Morning Brew referral program? It's your claim to fame.
And, uh, it literally was my first claim to fame. And I was like, you know what? We're just gonna make that default on the product, so if you sign up for Beehiiv, you have the Morning Brew referral program. Yeah.
Admittedly, the referral program's because of that exact reason- [laughs]... has become, like- Saturated... there's only so many referrals that you can do. Yeah. So, like, I think it's become a bit more saturated.
But, like, that- That's why we keep releasing new features. [laughs] Exactly. And, and, and so, like, d- like, but that was, like, our DNA from day one- Yeah...
is like what's our wedge into the market is like, oh, like, yes, MailChimp, you can send an email, and an email is an email. But does MailChimp actually help you grow any faster? And the answer is no.
As do all of these, like, email platforms, they help you send emails. And so not only do we offer the website, so we're giving you more, um, and helping consolidate your tech stack, but we help you grow faster.
And we have w- whether it's the referrals, recommendation network, boost, like, a lot of things to help you grow faster, and then monetize is the second piece of that. Mm.
And Morning Brew, when I left, we were doing, like, 20, 25 million in revenue, and we had like 20 people on the sales team.
And so I saw this engine of, like, okay, it's amazing we're doing 20 million in revenue, but we have, like, a full staff of people that are, like, pitching agencies, pitching brands, doing copywriting, uh, doing reporting, invoicing, managing advertiser relationships.
Your average content creator who's writing about sports, like, three times a week- Yeah... they don't...
Yes, like, Nike would be an amazing advertiser for them, but they're, one, busy writing about sports, and they have no business, like, negotiating with Nike, or, like, they don't know any contacts there. Yeah.
So if we, because we send three billion emails a month, can aggregate demand from advertisers and we work with Nike and Netflix and HubSpot and Roku, can we bring those ad opportunities to these content creators so they wake up, they're like, "Oh, I have a Nike ad that's paying me $10 CPM.
So I have to do nothing. I add this ad. It adds legitimacy to my business 'cause I have a big Nike logo in it. It's good copy. I know my audience is engaged because, one, Beehiiv knows with all of our first-party data.
Like, we serve ads that we think will perform best. And two, you know, as a content creator that writes about sports, Nike would be a great advertiser." Mm-hmm.
And then a few weeks later, you get, uh, deposited into your wallet, like 500, 5,000, whatever, depending on the size of your list. Like, that's great. Yeah. And so, like, a- I mean, it's not totally novel.
Like, YouTube invented this, right? Yeah. Or, or, like, pioneered the you focus on creating content, we will help bring advertisements. Um, and so while YouTube is, like, lack of control for the most part.
Like, it's just they'll monetize your video, and you get money. It's great. It's hands-off. We're a bit more hands-on, where you actually get to see the advertising options and choose which one you want to run.
But yeah, I mean, I, I think we, we've made considerable strides on the ad network this year. Mm-hmm. I think we're still, like, in the first inning of what this ad network can be.
I think that's, like, one of our big, like, multi-billion dollar bets. Not to... Well, not to get too ahead of the skis, but what's, like, the second inning, third inning of what the ad network looks like?
Well, part of it's just, like, time and market and scaling.
So, like, the, the ad network, we're constantly in a supply and demand market where we either don't have enough publishers and we have too much advertiser demand, or we grow really quickly, and we...
Publishers are complaining, "Hey, we need more ads."
So, like, there's constantly just, like, over time, uh, getting more publishers and more advertisers, and the more publishers we have, the big numbers attract larger and larger advertisers, which then gets publishers more excited to come onto the platform.
Mm-hmm. Um, we...
So, like, to get ahead a bit, like, right now, the way that it operates is every Sunday you get your, like, slew of, like, here's the five ads that you have for this week, and you can accept them, you can decline them, but you have to, like, kinda schedule them.
We're moving into a world where it's, like, real-time ads, where you can say as you're writing your newsletter, "Give me an ad."
It'll give you, like, the top 10 recommendations for your newsletter specifically, and you can choose them on demand rather than having to, like, schedule in advance. Mm-hmm.
So a lot more control, a lot more optionality. Um, from there, I think, like, AI, like, could play a part in this. So, like, if we have your entire content library, we know how Francis writes Creator Spotlight.
Rather than the Nike ad in Creator Spotlight being the same as every other Nike ad, can your, this one be in your voice and tone based on- Yeah... all of your content?
Which, in theory, would increase, like, the engagement, the click-through rate, and then also how much you're getting paid. Um, so there's, like, a few of the different things we're talking about.
But I think from a broad- not from the creator lens, but from the advertiser lens, most advertisers go to Meta and Google are, like, the duopoly of digital advertising. Mm-hmm.
And those, like, on platform algorithmic feeds, super twitchy, like, there's a lot going on. Uh, well, in the Meta case, and, and Google just runs the world. But, like, if we could be the third there... Like, I...
Well, the first deck I ever made, like, very ambitious of me- For Beehiiv. The first Beehiiv- Yeah...
deck I ever made for a seed is, like, our competitors one day will be Meta and Google, because I want a brand marketer to be like, "We need new customers. We're AG1." Mm-hmm. "And we want new wellness focused..."
I'm just giving a bunch of shout-outs in this, friend. Uh, free advertising. [laughs] Uh, but they are an advertiser. They are an advertiser. So shout out. If you're an advertiser, you get, you get shout out.
Look at, look at AG1. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. You get shout-outs on the pod. Um, if, if you're AG1 and you're like, "Hey, we need more, like, health conscious customers," or whatever. Like, you're already maxed out on Meta.
You're spending a ton. You're spending a ton on Google.
Like, can Beehiiv be that third platform where you're like, we know that there are so many health conscious readers and newsletters and content being created, and right now there's not a way, if you're AG1, to go to...
Well, you could, you could manually reach out to hundreds of these newsletters and negotiate- Yeah... one at a time. But that's so int- like, that's so resource intensive. It's never gonna work.
Well, okay, so another thing. Does it bec- Does the marketplace become more, like, tiered? Like, is there, like, like, whether for the advertiserI guess it would be both for the advertiser and the publisher.
Do there become like menus of like, here's like, you know, you go to restaurants, like, "Here's the cheaper wine, here's the more expensive wine"? Yeah.
Um, and then we're definitely like going to get more sophisticated with like all of our targeting and optionality. Yeah.
The other thing that we actually started tossing out, which is pretty interesting, um, so really very forward and transparent with our roadmap.
But like with the launch of digital products, like how cool would it be if you launch a digital product on Beehiiv and be like, "I want like... It's selling, but I want thousands of customers. Can this be an ad?"
Immediately plug it in. So like now we have distribution baked in. So you launch a digital product on Beehiiv, uh, say it's like a notion template, and you want like, uh, work, uh, I don't even...
Like work efficient like... I don't know. I mean, I've interviewed, for example, like one that we have on the... I don't know if it's on the platform right now.
But I interviewed, um, Nicholas Cole from Ship 30 for 30 and Premium Ghostwriting Academy earlier this week, and I know that they have had, um, I think both of those products in the ad network, maybe just Ship 30 for 30.
Yeah. But like that's the digital product that has been on the network. Yeah. So could you launch a digital product on Beehiiv? You push your audience to it with your own distribution. You're like, "Oh, that's great.
It's selling." Could you make that an affiliate offer that then flips to the Beehiiv ad network?
So if you, f- uh, Francis, launched like a notion template for how you write, like you're writing notion template for how you create Creator Spotlight. And you have these 400,000 people in your email list.
You're like, "If you ever wondered how I create content on like a weekly basis, here's my template. It's $5." Yeah.
And you're like, "Oh, there's like a lot of demand for that, but I only have my 400,000 people in my audience, only 400. Uh, where, where do I go from here?"
Well, if you could be like, "I'd like to target anyone else that, that creates content in the Beehiiv ecosystem around creators," then as a creator, I log in to write my newsletter, and if I wanna monetize it, I could see an ad from Francis to be like, "If I promote this Creator Spotlight template, I'll get paid $3 or, or whatever it is."
Yeah. So I think that distribution aspect is really interesting, and that's like where the bundling comes in, where I really think we're at the first inning of we did the hard part first. I think email's incredibly hard.
And I think as we add more and more products, you can see how a digital product on like these other platforms, you're kind of living in like isolation, where with us, you flip the three billion impressions, and you can get a lot of distribution- Yeah...
which is like a really unique competitive advantage. Yeah. I think... I mean, this goes back to like this portfolio operating system for the creator economy, right?
Where it's like you're not necessarily forced to use any of these things. You can just have like the email product, but those other things are available and like synergistic with the email product.
Um, you said only 400,000 subscribers. With Big Desk Energy, your newsletter, this, today, as we record, you hit only 120,000, uh, subscribers. You do this, um, both I think 'cause you like it.
You, you're a good writer, and you... It's, it's dogfooding, right? You're, you're using the tool so you understand the customer better. Um, how did you hit 120,000 subscribers?
Was it like a mix of meta ads, boosts, and just organic? A lot of organics. Like I didn't put any money into it for like the first 20, 25K subscribers.
And like, we'll talk the book, like a lot of Beehiiv native features, right? Yeah. So, uh, every piece of content that I write has an email gate on it. So in order to read it, you have to put in your email.
And so I'll promote it on X, I'll promote it on LinkedIn, I'll promote it on like whatever other channel. It gets people's interest. They click on it. They have to put in their email.
So like that's not like a, a silver bullet, but like it adds to like a few dozen, uh, subscriptions- Yeah... every time I do it. Uh, I do have a referral program that works like decently well.
I connect it to like drop shipping and like digital goods. I have a lot of lead magnets as well, so I'm very transparent about like this whole building in public persona.
And so I built, uh, or like the deck that I built for our seed round and our series A and our series B. Like if you're interested in that, so you're a founder.
Again, it, it all comes back to understanding who your audience is. Yeah. For me, my audience is like founders. And so like what do founders actually want?
Like if I'm thinking about leaving my job and starting a business, how do I raise money as like a seed round is very interesting to me.
So if Tyler shares, me talking in third person, shares like this lead magnet to put in my email, and I get the actual C deck- Yeah... unedited, totally raw, that like he raised $2.5 million for, that's interesting.
So like lead magnets work a lot. Um- You've got your, uh, the investor updates one, right, where it's like, I think it's on a, on a two-year delayed drop. Yeah, just 'cause I started it later. Yeah.
But yeah, so I, I sent... Ever since we launched the business, I've sent a monthly investor update, and it ended up just being like... And it like one day maybe it's a book. I don't know.
Um, but like it's this really like beautiful and like, uh, vulnerable journey of like every month of like, "Oh, shit, this is a, this is a rocket ship. We're crushing it." You're a very unmediated guy. Yeah.
You lay it out there. Yeah. And so it's like, "This is a rocket ship. This is amazing," to, "Holy shit," like, "That, that sucks." [chuckles] Yeah. And like, but it's the entire journey with the numbers and like...
So I had all this content. I was like, "Again, what would a founder be interested in?" Like, I think the investor updates are incredibly helpful.
So one of my lead magnets is you put in your email, and every month you get a investor update from me as if you invested at the very beginning, and you kind of follow the journey unfold.
So I think that's like really, like creative and differentiated type of like lead magnet. Yeah. Uh, recommendation network works great.
I think I have like 400 or 500 different publishers promoting Big Desk Energy, which is- Creator Spotlight. It's one of them... which is great. One of them. Thank you. What else do we have? Uh, the Boost network.
I put a little bit of money into Boost, and then I... There is a point with like pay, like with newsletters where like you have to invest into paid, whether that's like- Yeah... Meta or Google.
And so I've done a little bit of all of that and yeah. I think... I mean, going back to the, my question of like what is a Beehiiv? Again, I think there, there's a lot. Like there is the larger publisher using it.
There's like the famous person, very well-known. You listed a few of those.
Um, and then like what you're doing though is sort of the individual creator version of what is a Beehiiv, which is to say like you are using all of these different features in different ways.
You are also like, um, you're not a paid subscription product. You are monetized through ads, which I...
Whenever I've like described people, if somebody asks me about like a Beehiiv versus a Substack versus a, a Mailchimp or, or whatever, right?
I'm like the, the DNA you have to understand of Beehiiv is that it comes from you working at this company that was, um, a, an advertising-based company, right?
So it's like the DNA of Beehiiv comes from you building that and then coming here, and like-A Beehiiv then is there might be a paid subscription option, but it's going to be monetized through ads.
There's going to be lead magnets because it, like, there is this sophistication about growth, about monetization, about, like turning this thing into kind of a working business.
So I think, I mean, that's kind of the point of you doing it too, is to, like, have this, like, prime example of here is a thing you could build on Beehiiv. Um, you acquired a newsletter at one point, right?
That was part of your growth. What...
I don't know, like, how many subscribers you had when you did that, but I'm also curious of, like, how you integrated that because I've, you know, I've talked to a few people on the pod who've acquired other newsletters or been acquired, and I know that it, like, like, it's a little, I don't know if tricky, but there's, like some measures you have to take in, like integrating those lists and making sure people don't, like, mass unsubscribe, and then your investment was kind of- Yeah...
worthless. Um, tell me about that acquisition process. Yeah. You really did your research. One, I didn't even, I didn't even think I publicized that I acquired this newsletter. [laughs] You did. You definitely did.
Oh, did I? Yeah. [laughs] Okay. I mean, if you didn't, we could, we could cut this if you want. [laughs] No, no, it's all good. Uh, I was just have... Yeah, I've never been confronted about it. Yeah.
Uh, I think I was at, like 20,000 subscribers, and it was, like pretty early on. And it was more of, like someone who was building in, like kind of a similar space being like- Yeah...
"Hey, like I have this list of 5,000 subscribers, like it's really engaged. Uh, my work's busy, like there's a lot going on." Yeah. "Like, I just don't think I'm gonna carry this on. Love your content.
Would you wanna buy it?" Uh, you kind of figure out, like a price per, like subscriber. Yeah.
Um, again, it wasn't, like a ton of money, nor was it, like a ton of subscribers, but, like, if I was already open the door to, like, I'll pay $2 per subscriber on Meta, like, what would I pay to get 5,000 somewhat engaged subscribers?
There's obviously, like a discount there of, like, to your point, not everyone's gonna opt in, not everyone's- Yeah... gonna convert.
Some people are gonna miss the announcement that, like you're now subscribed to this other thing and be like, "What the hell is this?" And, like mark it as spam. Yeah.
So there's not, like an exact science to it, but, like, the tr- the traditional playbook, if I was gonna put on, like my email deliverability hat here. Well, one, the acquisition.
Two, I think best practice would be in the old list, in the old email, you announce, like, "Hey," like, "This newsletter has been acquired by X- Mm-hmm... and you will now start receiving Big Desk Energy every Tuesday."
And then you add, like some hype. "It's written by Tyler. He's a co-founder- Yeah... of the company. Like, my newsletter was on this platform. I think you'll personally, like, love this newsletter."
We did this a bit when I started writing Creator Spotlight. We did this whole thing of, like, "Here's a note from Tyler." It's like, "I'm the founder of Beehiiv, and Francis is doing this thing now," blah, blah, blah.
Like, yes, it's still... We rebranded it, but- Yeah... it's still mostly. So like, we wanna get out... Like, I think where people get in trouble is they just, like take... They download the CSV.
They have 5,000 new emails, they just throw it on their email. Yeah. And, like now you have, like one-fifth of your list being like, "What... One, what is this? I never signed up for this."
Like, you're just kind of set your- It's, like a little scummy as well. It also might be illegal, so. So there's something around there, like it's not best practice. Yeah.
So best practice would be, like from the old email sender, like, "Full disclosure, got acquired. This is what to expect." Hype up the new person, like what they're getting.
And then what you, what you ty- There's, like an opt-in versus opt-out thing. One is prefer... Well, it depends on how, like what your risk tolerance is.
The, the most, like, uh, white hat way to do it would be, "If you want this newsletter that just got acquired or just acquired us, click this button and we'll automatically add you." Yeah.
But you can assume, like your click-through rates are 1, 2, 3%. So you bought this whole asset, and, like 3% of the list actually decided that they want that.
So, like that's what, like our deliverability would recommend. Your cost per subscriber has just gone up a lot. Yeah. Like [laughs] That, that, that's what, like what email deliverability- Yeah...
experts would recommend, and it's, like definitely the most, like above board thing to do is, like disclose it and let them say, "Oh, I signed up for this.
It's no longer that," so you have to kind of resubscribe and get consent. Yeah. I, I'm like a little bit more gray hat in that area.
I would be like, "Hey, if you're, like totally out and don't want this new newsletter, click this button and we'll remove you, and you'll never hear from us again." Yeah.
Again, like maybe 500 to, like 1,000 people opt out 'cause, like they didn't sign up for that initial newsletter. Totally fine. But everyone else who did not click that button, you just assume they're good.
That's consent, and you kinda move them over. Yeah. Um, again, like the scale that I was doing at, like 5,000 subscribers, like it's, like pretty low-key and fine. Yeah.
And I ha- and, like my content's great, so, like it's honestly a gift that they, they stuck with it. I, I read every one. Yeah.
[laughs] Uh, I, uh, I was listening to another podcast you did recently where you're talking about your routine and, you know, you wake up at 5:00 a.m. You, you meditate for 20 minutes. You go to the gym, all this stuff.
You unblock people on the East Coast 'cause you're on the West Coast. Uh, I've, I've got the whole spiel down. Yeah. You go to bed ni- at 9:00 p.m. Um, the point is, like, I think you still...
You write everything in the newsletter yourself. It's something that is important to you. You enjoy doing it. You are a good writer. Um, where does that fit in your priorities?
'Cause I think, like I've interviewed people, like Tommy Clark, former guest of the pod. Uh, he runs an agency that a, a major product there is, is helping executives write for LinkedIn, right?
And they, they'll do some ghost writing. They'll, like do some, you know, interview them and turn it into content. But the point is, is it's like, it's hard to find time to do, to do that well.
It's so, so com- it's only more and more competitive, like how good content is on any given platform. Obviously, there's the aspect of, like it looks good for you as the CEO of this company to use the product, right?
Where does it sit in your priorities? Like, I imagine you're spending a good amount of hours per week on this. Yeah. I mean, if Beehiiv's 99% of my priority, this is, like where the last 1% comes in. Yeah.
And, like everything else about life kind of falls after that. [laughs] Um, which is, is not much left over. Yeah. Um, no, I mean, I joke that it's, like the bane of my existence 'cause, like writing...
It, like I think I'm an above average writer, but it doesn't come easily. Like, uh- No, it's a set...
the- these, these, these newsletters take 5 to 10 hours depending on, like what topic I'm writing about, like the, the mood and, like how motivated I am to write, and, like how important of a piece it is. Yeah.
Is it just, like another weekly one, or am I getting a bit more aggressive about something? See, it's been one or two I've given you edits. You know, it's been workshopped. Yeah, yeah.
There, there are some times I have to call in the big dogs- Yeah. [laughs]... to make sure that we actually have some edits going on in there. Um-So yeah, I mean, for me, like an ideal workflow is...
One thing that I've learned is like I have this running notepad on my Apple Note. Mm-hmm. So like anything that happens in like a meeting, I'm like, "Oh, I could write a post about that."
Like, I have this running list of like, these are interesting topics that I think I can expand on. Yeah. And sometimes like inspiration will strike and I'm like, that's a great...
Like, I have a very opinionated stance on this. I think people would enjoy this. And then I put it in that notepad, I'm like, I'll come back to it in a few weeks.
And when you come back in a few weeks, you have no inspiration. Like- Yeah...
that moment passed, like you had a lot to say at the time, and like you're trying to like force up those emotions again and like it's just not there.
And so I have learned that like once that inspiration strikes, like, find your computer as quickly as possible. Yeah. And even if it's the worst rough draft, which all of my rough...
It'd be funny if I, I, I wanna do this, of like share my first draft of something and then share the finished product. It is so unrecognizable. It's a great idea for a future issue when you're feeling too lazy.
[laughs] It is so unrecognizable. Yeah. Like how... My first rip at all of these are terrible. Yeah. They're, they're bullet point lists, there's run-on sentences, I end up cutting like 80%.
Um, there's no narrative whatsoever, and that's what takes a lot of time. Like I, I... An ideal for me is I have inspiration Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yeah.
And I spend 30 minutes writing the worst rough draft, but like all the thoughts are there, kind of like the, a sculpture that I can like carve out later. Yeah.
And then like I'll try to take an hour on Friday and I'll just run through it.
Uh, here I am on Friday afternoon, I have not, I have no idea what I'm writing about next week, and so then- Well, you've got like four days... Right. [laughs] That's what I tell them.
So like that, that's where like the, the s- the, the more that I've realized that I wait till like Sunday to start writing, like, the difference in product when I actually get the first version out on like a Wednesday and Thursday, and I can revisit it five separate days just to check in for 30 minutes and tweak things- Yeah...
the final product is so much better than if I wait till Sunday and I get one read-through on Monday and try to s- cram it in. Yeah. Um, so that's like my...
I mean, the benefit of having a weekly newsletter is like I only really need one, um- Once a week. I...
As, uh, to the end of like getting down the, the rough draft, one thing, I've, I've, I haven't done this that many times, but at least like three or four times, is I was, I was like stuck on something, I was like, "I gotta go get groceries anyways."
So I went to the grocery store, and then like I'll just like take out my phone and like talk into voice notes. Like, as I'm like, you know, grabbing some beans off the shelf or whatever.
Um, th- I, yeah, I recommend [laughs] Yeah, yeah. Going to the grocery- Getting beans... going in pu- going, just go somewhere in public, walk around, and just talk to yourself or your phone. Uh, it really helps.
Um, okay, if this is the bane of your existence, what's the end game? Do you have to kind of just like keep writing- Well-...
this newsletter until Beehiiv is like- I, that's why I say like, I joke that it's the bane- Yeah... 'cause like the, the upside has been incredible, right? Yeah. I think it a...
One, I've gotten so much closer to the product. You also, you make money doing it. Yeah. I, I run ads on it- Yeah... so like I made money. I, I have like a founder mastermind thing- Mm...
so like I'm knowing that my audience is founders, like I've actually hosted these masterminds in Costa Rica- Yeah... where I invite like 10 founders and it, one, it's like revenue.
Two, it's like an amazing opportunity to like network with people that I wanna meet. I've even invested in some of those companies from people that I, that I've met through that. Oh, you've spent money even.
[laughs] So yeah, I've spent, yeah, exactly. You've made money and spent money.
[laughs] So like, it, it's been gr- Like the newsletter, I think it's like the perfect case study too of like how valuable putting your thoughts out on the internet is, and actually f- growing this following of people and like providing value to like this, this cohort of founders.
Yeah. Um, so it's been incredibly door opening, if that's a, a, a noun or an adjective. Keys open doors. Sure. Newsletters open doors. Yeah, sure. We'll workshop that. Coin that year. Yes.
Um, it, it, it's been so valuable, honestly. Yeah. And so like I, I dread it.
Uh, every, before writing it, I dread every second of it, and as soon as I like finally fi- finish it and do my last read through, I go, "That was fucking awesome." [laughs] I mean, that's kind of the feeling. I...
And then like as soon as it goes out, I feel, "That was awesome," and then about an hour later I'm like, "God, that sucked. That was horrible." [laughs] You know, it's that was awesome, and you check the replies- Yeah...
and like people are like eating it up. You're like, "Oh, that was like a great piece." Like, people are like, "I found so much value in this." Yeah.
And then like a- an hour later you're like, "What am I gonna write about next week?" [laughs] Exactly. Exactly. The high, the high, uh, does not last long.
Um, in like, I don't know, conversations you've had with, with customers recently or like potential customers, what are people asking for and demanding? Like what's...
I mean, maybe this is stuff that we're filling the gap with the winter release, I don't know. But yeah, what are you hearing from customers or potential customers that people really want or need?
Or what are their challenges that they're facing? Yeah. I think, I'd like to think that most of them are being addressed in the winter release. So podcasts is a big one, right? Yeah.
I think the overlap of people who are creating content online and have a newsletter and also have a podcast, like there, there's a... You, yeah, exactly, you yourself are a great example of that.
Like, can we bundle that, host your podcast, uh, be able to aggregate it, and then you bundle that with like a link in bio, and now you have like this full 360 view of you send people to your link in bio, you can see how many people are clicking and listening to your podcast.
Mm-hmm. But also who's opening and clicking on your emails, who's visiting your website. So I think this like analytics layer with podcasts are like very interesting in addition to everything else that we're offering.
Uh, videos come up a lot more. Um- Mm... and I'm trying to suss like the signal from the noise of like, like we're not gonna replace YouTube. Yeah. We're not, we're not trying to be TikTok or, or Reels.
Uh, so like where does video fall into our ecosystem? And it's easy for...
The, like the hard part about my job is like I hear so many feature requests and complaints every day, and it's like what actually is something we should be doing and that solves a real problem that I think we're like uniquely positioned?
Versus like it's so easy for like a random user to be like, "Hey, love video. You should have video." Yeah. And it's like, I don't know, wouldn't you rather just post your video on YouTube?
'Cause like they can watch- I mean, the whole reason, I mean, we're recording this in person, we got high quality video here.
The, the whole reason we do this is because YouTube has a great distribution engine, and o- originally the podcast was just audio, and then we started doing video because YouTube is a great product.
Yeah, and, and we're seeing like those are the trends that you're kinda seeing. Yeah. So, so Spotify's leaned very much into video based like podcasts essentially.
'Cause like I saw some crazy stat recently, which I'm totally gonna butcher so I'll ignore the number, but some large percentage of people actually prefer to watch their podcasts on YouTube- Yeah...
which I think is what you've seen. And like for me, like a f- podcasts for me are like while I'm cooking, while I'm driving. Me as well. It's like a total- Yeah... total audio thing.
Shout out to the people watching this though. We love you. Yeah, yeah. We do love you. [laughs] Um, but yeah, yeah. So like-The, and so like Spotify has seen that. They've gone very deep on like video podcasts as well.
And, and so I think, I know trend- like that's also what's really interesting is like consumer trends are constantly- Mm...
changing, and so how do we understand how behaviors are changing of how people are consuming content and be on the forefront of like being able to empower our users to do more of what they want to do?
So video's come up a bunch. I just haven't like exactly squared like where it fits into the platform and why you would rather post on a Beehiiv-hosted website your video versus YouTube or TikTok or, or Shorts. So...
Yeah, I mean, for me personally, I do not currently see a reason I would want a video product native in Beehiiv. I'm fine with YouTube.
But I guess like the reason would be something like Wistia, which I've used in the past in a marketing job, right?
Where it's like you use that instead of YouTube as an embed on your website because it has like really great data of like, you know, when people stopped watching and... I don't remember. I haven't used it in a while.
But I, so I guess it's a very specific type of user, um, 'cause we definitely don- you don't want like... You don't need Beehiiv to host your video. I don't know. But maybe I'm just- Well, yeah...
stupid [laughs] There, there were, there are like two other ways to look at it. Yeah. So I think large publishers, they like to monetize both website- Yes... and video. Mm-hmm.
And there's like YouTube monetization may not be as favorable if you self-host and do your own sort of ads. So like there, there's alternatives to video- Yeah... where you can monetize more.
And then the other one is if you have a paid subscription offering, and this is something I think Substack's done a pretty good job with, is you can actually put...
You can paywall your video at a certain point of the video. Yeah. So if you have a paid subscription product- Mm...
and want to do some sort of video where, you know, a free reader or a subscriber could get two minutes of the video, but then there's like a hard paywall, like that has been effective for certain content creators we've- Well, this, this is too where Substack is like, I mean, it's no longer...
We don't need to like rehash this a lot, but it's no longer really a newsletter product, right? It's like Twitter Patreon with a newsletter feature. Yeah. Right? That's a good way to describe it. The, yeah.
I mean, like that, what you're describing there is like, is like a Patreon feature like these, these, these paywalls, right? Like Patreon's maybe the most, is like the Kleenex of that kind of thing. Yep. Right?
So it's like how much do we need to compete on that front versus like going into like the, you know, with the web builder competing with like w- other web builder tools, right? Like, I don't know.
I don't think that's our arena. Yeah. No, I, I agree. And, and so like it's evolving and like I'll never say never. Yeah. Like another thing that's randomly come up a lot for enterprise users is like SMS. Mm.
Uh, which is really interesting to me, and like it g- kind of goes back to like who is our end customer. For me as like a consumer, I hate SMS. Yeah. Like, I don't give any brands my phone number.
I'm inbox zero both in like email but definitely in like iMessage. Definitely iMessage, yeah.
So like there was a time where Chipotle had it, and they would send me like free guac texts and like I, I would like that every- Yeah... now and then. Um, but like- [laughs]... then even that got annoying- Yeah...
'cause they, like brands re- like the thing that marketers love to promote is like, oh, email has like a 30% open rate, but SMS is like a 99% open rate. Yeah.
So yeah, people open it 'cause it's obnoxious to have unread messages, but when Chipotle started texting me two times a day, I'm like, "I'm out." Yeah. Like, I, I don't, I don't need this.
Well, the, the first case study I've seen of this from a newsletter I follow, um, you know, you're familiar with Tangle? Yep. Yeah, so I think...
I forget, I'm gonna forget all the details, but about a week or two ago as we record, um, in one of their emails they said that they were going to start introducing an SMS service as like a perk for premium subscribers.
And I'm pretty sure Isaac Saul, the, the guy who runs Tangle, I think he framed it as like this is a way of us getting ahead of like possible future inbox disruption, right?
Which y- you know, AI summary summarizing, um, whatever newsletter. It's like, oh, you wrote this long thing. Doesn't matter if they're just gonna read the summary. And I think he framed it as that.
It's like an experiment. You know, we'll see. But it's like I wish I could remember exactly what it is. Maybe producer Tom will put an overlay- Yeah... on the screen if you're watching of what it is.
But to me that's so interesting because like I, I, maybe I'm naive, but like the AI summaries in Inbox I don't think are replacing quality content. Yeah.
'Cause one, they're not that good, and they'll get better for sure. But like an AI summary can only do so much summarizing. Like, when I read Creator Spotlight, like I want your full take and analysis- Yeah...
of the creator economy. Like, and a one-sentence summary isn't giving me the value that I need. Yeah.
I think- If, well, if I, to be, to be sure, if I didn't do a good job and I'm just like, you know, it's like a 10,000 words when it should've been 100 words, like maybe it replaces that. Sure.
But like the idea is you're put- you're like putting care into the product and it's, it's worth reading. I, I feel like the, the...
Like, so going back to like what made Morning Brew special, and then every newsletter wanted to be Morning Brew for X, for crypto, for AI- Yeah... for healthcare.
Like, I think if you're just recapping news, like that is where I might be worried of like whether it's an AI summary or just other forms of like news aggregation could disrupt that. Yeah.
But if you are following a creator or an expert who has like an actual opinion and take and analysis on something, like I love Ben Thompson for like Stratechery.
Like, I read all, I, it must be like 3,000, 4,000 word emails. They're so goddamn long. Very long, yeah [laughs].
But like I'm very curious about his take, and I respect his opinion and perspective and like the- And it's about spending the time with it. Right. Not just like getting the fact and moving on.
It's about immersing yourself in it. It's like, yeah, sure. Very, yeah. I could, I could get an AI summary of what Meta's earnings look like. Yeah. And I can get the numbers, like, oh, they beat earnings because of this.
And like I could read that in 10 seconds. But like Ben has a decade plus of like doing this earnings analysis and understanding the broader ecosystem- Yeah...
with like really opinionated takes of like the tech economy essentially. And like that's why I pay $15 a month to read his take.
And so like I think the more, again, like go, I'm not, I'm gonna put myself in the same category as Ben Thompson, but like my, the content that I'm creating is like the behind-the-scenes stories of building this company.
Yeah. That really can't get like a summary or like you can't have that everywhere else but- Well, and you have a, you have a strong voice in your writing too. Right. Right?
And like that's, that, that's important to stand out in the mix.
And, and I think so like the underlying theme that I'm trying to get at is like I think if you're worried about like AI summaries disrupting your actual content, like you need to lean more into like what is my unique perspective or voice that makes people seek me out as a content creator?
Um, and I think with AI in general you'll see more slop and more- Yeah... like more just garbage created.
So I think people's willingness to shift back towards like human-created content because that person is smart or respectable or entertaining is like where creators are going to shine more in the future. Mm-hmm.
Um, and I think leaning into that is like where you find like more competitive advantage. Totally. No, I agree.
I mean, like as the amount of, as the amount of content increases, as the amount of low quality content increases-Quality content only increases in value Not to say Tango, uh, Tango's very high quality.
Yeah So, like, but, but I, I wanna- Well, but that's, I mean, that's just, like, they're just taking a protective measure, right?
Like, and I think, I think it's gonna be, like, kind of, I don't know if it's gonna be summaries of, of what they covered that day or, like, links out to the thing that they covered that day.
Um- 'Cause doesn't that sound, like, worse? Like I, I, I'm just trying to imagine how- Yeah... I consume iMessage, right? Yeah. One, I, I don't.
Like, I, I don't, I don't w- I, I don't, I don't want content, like, flooding into- Yeah... like, my text messages.
Like, those are, like, personal conversations for planning friends or, like, or plan- I look, I've gotten a few, like, uh, you know, political fundraising texts recently, and I, I just kind of, like, open it and slide out as, as [laughs] fast as possible.
So, like, a- as much that email gets shit for, like, the limitations, like, you can't embed video, like, you have to link out.
Yeah And, like, it's like a, it's an open protocol that's fairly dated and has been around for a while. Like, SMS is more restrictive, right? You can't add, like, images. Yeah You can't inline stuff.
You can't style anything. So, like, maybe SMS, which is also an open protocol, like, evolves in some capacity. But to me it feels like, I don't know, again, like, I, I, I, I'm fairly opinionated.
And for the right type of business, SMS is effective for certain things. Yeah For the content driven businesses that I think is, like, our ICP, I understand people's, uh, curi- curiosity with SMS. Mm-hmm.
I personally as a consumer just don't see it, so I'm opinionating, like, how- Well, it's kinda like with, with, uh, really long tweets, right?
It's like that classic reaction image like, "I'm happy for you," or, "Sorry that happened," whatever. Like, I'm not reading that. Yeah, it's like I'm not reading that. Exactly, right? Yeah.
Like, I don't, I, I will never read a very long tweet. If you put that in a newsletter or on a webpage, I'll read it, but, like, I, I just, that's not the medium for me to read long things. And it hasn't taken off. Yeah.
I remember when they first launched that. It was like this, like, new, like, foray into, like, long form media. Yeah. And I, I hated it then, I hate it now.
[laughs] Like, it's like w- I think the beauty of Twitter was, like, in the 280 characters, like, it makes you a better writer to be able to like- Yeah. Brevity...
to, to be able to actually boil your thoughts down to something into 280 characters that, like, can convey information or be entertaining. I think there's, like, a real skill to that to become a better writer. Yeah.
And I think that was, like, the beauty. If, if you scrolled through your Twitter feed and every post was, like, paragraphs long, like, it sounds terrible.
No, that's, that's why I have, like, the New York Times app, right? [laughs] Exactly. Um,
as we add all these features to Beehiiv and it becomes, like, less just the creator economy and more the content economy, and you've got all these different sizes and business models, uh, swimming in the same pool, right, like, how do you
make sure that all parties are kind of left satisfied with the product? Yeah. I mean, that was kind of, like, the initial thesis too, is like, how...
What I learned from the Morning Brew days was we were sending 4 million emails every, like, w- an email newsletter to 4 million people. Yeah.
But the people who were contacting me on, like, LinkedIn and Twitter being like, "Hey, what tech are you using?" Like, "How can I use this, like, Morning Brew ecosystem?" Which was, like, the impetus for Beehiiv.
They were independent journalists with, like, 20, like, 250 subscribers- Mm-hmm... to hobbyists that were starting, like, an arts and crafts newsletter for their friends.
And it's like the fact that Morning Brew is this massive 4 million email subscriber list, like, a full, like, content production, the same output and design and features were wanted by, like, these very small content creators kinda told me that, like, the underlying...
Like, everyone wants what, like, the, the big dogs have. Yeah. It's like kind of follow the leader. And so, like, that's always been my philosophy.
Like, we're building, and, like, in the democratization of tools is kind of overplayed, but, like- Mm-hmm... Morning Brew was all custom-built in-house.
Like me, Ben, and, like, a few other engineers helped build all of this tech, and that's, like, was, like, the well-oiled machine that made everything work.
And so most content creators and journalists don't have access to the type of, like, enterprise tools that we had built in, 'cause it took us three years to build it. Mm-hmm.
And so I think always building for, like, the most advanced use cases and the most enterprise users is, like, where we're focusing our time, knowing that even if you have 10 subscribers, your admiration and, and, like, you are inspired by the big players- Yeah...
and, like, that's who you want to be more like. You build the complexity and you simplify it at the point of the application. Which is the hard part, right? Yeah.
Like, we arguably, f- because we have this, like, rotating, uh, this, uh, revolving door of features every week, we actually have so much functionality that, where like in the early days, people would churn because we didn't have this feature- Yeah...
and we didn't have this feature. Now people churn 'cause we have, like, too many features.
[laughs] So it's, like, a product and design problem to be like how do you understand the complexity or, like, the, the, uh, the maturity of this user to be able to show them the right features at the right time in their customer journey, and that's, like, a whole different challenge.
Yeah. Um, this is reminding me of my personal favorite feature released this year, which was the, like, latest post performance module in the dashboard, like, part of the dashboard, uh, the, the dashboard overhaul.
Because, like, I track every issue of Creative Spotlight. I have, like, a big spreadsheet with, like, all the metrics that we're interested in, um, and I record that, like, you know, three days after each send.
Uh, but what that little module does is it, like, it basically allows me to, instead of, like, having to go in and, and look at, like, okay, looking at these 10, like, let me highlight these cells.
What was, like, the, you know, the average? What was the max? What was the minimum open rate in this period of time? It's like, it's all right there, right?
Um, I don't know, I think that's a great example of that, which obviously there's, like, cues taken from, from other apps. Um, do you think that was, like, a, I mean, that was, I really liked that one. I, I love it.
It, it's one of the most, like, widely shared features- Yeah... or, like, screenshots now. It's the first thing I do. Like, Tuesday, I send my newsletter at, like, 5:00 a.m.
Pacific time, go to the gym, come back, and, like, I'm, like, an- anxiously, like, nervous, like, refresh. Refresh it, yeah. 'Cause it totally changes my mood for the day. Exactly. Uh-huh. If it's like...
So for context, we, we rank your most recent post relative to the last 10 posts. By open rate. By open rate. Yeah. So, like, I've had some days where it's 10th out of 10, and that's like, fuck, like, I just put...
That was, like, one of my best pieces. I put all this time into it. Yeah. And it's, like, literally performing the worst out of my last 10 posts.
Flip side, sometimes I refresh, it's, like, number one, and you ride that high all day long. Yeah. Well, which I get.
I mean, open rate, obviously this is something I think about a lot, is, like, was the open rate there a function of, like, audi- like, the audience just got tired of the content recently because it was lower?
Or was it just that, like, my subject line was notYou know, hooky enough. Wasn't click, didn't, didn't click- Yeah, it was so- Didn't make the click. Like, yeah... Is it deliverability? Like, is there something- Yeah...
else going on? Yeah, I mean, e- email's the Wild West, which is why I always say it's like w- I'm glad we started with, like, what I think is the hardest- Yeah... thing to do.
Um, there's so much between deliverability, security, fraud, IP addresses, DNS. Like, there's a lot going on under the hood. Yeah. Not to discount, like, these other, like, creator...
But, like, video's very hard too, I'm sure. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, email, email's the, it's the amazing and it sucks at the same time. Yeah. Okay, going back to this, like, the Morning Brew of X.
We were talking about that a second ago. I think at the beginning of Beehiiv, obviously that was, like, your reputation, your pedigree, um, that was, that was, like, the one-liner pitch.
Beehiiv, build the Morning Brew of- Yeah... XYZ. Um, is that still the pitch? Or, like, what's the new, the new pitch? Yeah. So when I do... And, and I've brought up ICP quite a few times- Yeah...
'cause, like, it's very top of mind for us. Like, as the winter release event happened just last week. It's like the startup CEO's boogeyman, ICP. Yeah.
It's just, like, we've just did, like, this massive market expansion of who we can serve. Mm-hmm.
And so then you ha- Like, again, going back to, like, our biggest problem of, of business, when it's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Time and Oliver Darcy and me, it's like, uh, like, who are you actually?
Like, when you go- Yeah... to, like, Facebook Ad Manager, like, who are you actually targeting? Like, who do you wanna get in front of?
It's a really hard problem when, like, your answer is like, "Oh, anyone can use our software."
And while that can be true, and everyone can use our software, at some point as, like, a growth team, we have to be like, "But this is, like- I'm not anyone. I'm Francis. Yeah. And this is what I do, right? I mean, yeah.
This is, this is our, like, segment of, like, we know there's a big market there. We know we can serve them better than anyone, and, like, we know where to find them. So, like, that's who we're going after.
And the Morning Brew for X is, like, when I look at all of our ICPs, like, what we actually do own.
'Cause, like, I did this whole analysis of, like, whether it's an independent journalist, whether it's a big publisher, whether it's, like, a digital entrepreneur, and then like, what are the tools that they're kind of using today?
And, like, how do we enter that picture? And the one that was the hardest to, like, say who else are they using is actually, like, the Morning Brew for X, 'cause that was our pitch- Mm... for a long time. Yeah.
And so, like, I actually think we, not own that space, but, like, that's our core competency. Yeah. The thing is, when you look at, like, TAM, I don't think that's the biggest of all those cohorts.
No, 'cause there's only so many people who are gonna make those businesses, and those businesses will only be big enough with, uh, you know, so many subscribers that pay so many, so much in Beehiiv fees. Right.
So that's where I think you loop all the way back down to, like, content economy and, like- Yeah... is it this, like, digital entrepreneur?
I created this, like, new diagram of, like, the spectrum of, like, hobbyist to, like, outcome oriented, like- Yeah... digital entrepreneur.
And, like, we skew very much on, like, to the right side of that where it's not... Like, you're not just writing content for content's sake. Like, maybe you're an independent journalist, maybe you love writing. Mm.
Maybe it is a hobby for you. And, like, we can serve them as well. But I think we want the people who, like, want to grow faster. They- they're writing content, but they also want to monetize it.
Do they want paid subscriptions? Do they want ads? Is it top of funnel to drive them into a course or to a digital product?
So it's, like, this outcome based entrepreneur and writer where they're using content as a means to an end to build a business around it is, like, kind of, like, what we're getting at.
So a lot of buzzwords there, but, like, yeah. No, it is. That, that, that's kind of, like, what... It, it's a work in progress, right? Yeah.
And I, and truthfully we're recording this before the winter release event, so it's how does that land? What does adoption look like? Yeah.
And where do we see, like, this huge uptick, ideally, in adoption of a certain new feature that we launch so we can double down and continue to build.
'Cause again, like, my core comp- Like, what I believe our core competency is, like, we ship product better than anyone else. Yeah. We are so deep in with the users and understanding their problems and use cases.
So if we just continue to double down on that and ship product better than anyone else, I'm, like, very bullish on the future of the business. I think we'll end it right there, Tyler. Cool. Let's get it.
Thank you for, thank you for coming on.
Um, also, listener, uh, if you liked this in-person conversation, whether you watched it or whether you're listening to it and you noticed the energy was better, DM me, DM Tyler, tell him, "I need budget for a full-time studio," and we'll do more of these.
Thank you for listening. Or if you're a listener, and whether you're watching or listening, if you sign up for Beehiiv and purchase a plan, we'll have more revenue to get Francis his studio. Now there we go.
That was a good plug. [laughs] There we go. All right. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. Cheers.
[laughs] If you enjoyed the episode with Tyler and are looking for something else, I recommend this episode with Adam Biddlecombe.
He co-founded a newsletter called Mindstream, built it to $30,000 a month in revenue, and then sold it to HubSpot all within 17 months. It's a good episode. Give it a listen.