Inside the beehiiv Playbook with Tyler Denk, Co-founder and CEO
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2024
⏱️ 107 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tyler Denk is the Co-founder and CEO of beehiiv, the newsletter platform built for growth.
We go inside beehiiv’s early days, including joining MorningBrew as the second employee, lessons scaling to 3.5 million subscribers, the $75 million sale to Business Insider, and why I didn’t invest in beehiiv despite being an early customer.
Tyler takes us inside the playbook that grew to $1.5m in monthly revenue in less than three years, including how they first positioned the product in a crowded market, how beehiiv ships so fast, when a co-founder passing away less than one year into building the business, and the day GoDaddy took the entire beehiiv platform offline for 8 hours.
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:36) Why Turner didn’t invest in beehiiv (twice)
(03:04) Joining MorningBrew as the first employee
(15:28) Why newsletters are so powerful
(19:40) Scaling MorningBrew to 3.5 million subscribers and exiting to Business Insider
(23:14) Difference between startups and big companies
(26:26) Why beehiiv has two days of no meetings
(27:53) The initial insight to start beehiiv
(35:39) Building a programmatic newsletter ad marketplace
(39:52) Dissecting beehiiv’s nearly $20m rev run rate business model
(45:21) Inside beehiiv’s first funding round
(46:58) Where Turner’s reference check went wrong
(50:45) Litquidity and beehiiv’s initial product positioning
(52:59) How beehiiv builds in public
(57:41) Banning meetings two days per week
(01:00:13) Why the best remote teams always beat in-person
(01:06:19) The impact of a co-founder dying one year into the business
(01:11:50) Raising a Series A despite operating at breakeven
(01:16:14) Why Tyler writes public investor updates
(01:21:04) Moving fast, and “why perfect kills all momentum”
(01:26:03) When GoDaddy took beehiiv down for 8 hours
(01:29:57) Why Tyler writes a newsletter
(01:32:21) His Big Desk Energy Spotify playlist
(01:36:08) Why you never regret firing bad hires
(01:39:53) Looking up to Elon and Brian Chesky
(01:41:34) Monk mode in Columbia
Referenced
The Power of Investor Updates: https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/power-investor-updates
beehiiv’s old investor updates: https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com/c/beehiiv-investor-journey
The BDE Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5s8443tfYUq3LLARJwGeYP
Where to find Tyler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/denk_tweets
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-denk
Newsletter: https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com
Where to find Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You were raising money for Beehive. What happened? Not just once, but twice. I got a no from |
| 0:06.0 | Turner Novak. So the reason I didn't invest was, welcome to the peel. I'm your host, Turner |
| 0:11.1 | Novak, founder of Banana Capital. Today's episode is with Tyler Dank, co-founder and CEO of Beehive, |
| 0:16.8 | the newsletter platform built for growth. And every time we press send, we would get 500 |
| 0:21.9 | replies. I absolutely love this newsletter. I can't start my day without reading it. That reader |
| 0:27.1 | feedback gave me the buy-in that there's something here. We break down Beehive's business model, |
| 0:32.2 | how I got to a nearly $20 million revenue run rate in three years, how.IVE moves so fast, and go inside its strategy of building in public. |
| 0:41.2 | We ship as quickly as we possibly can. |
| 0:43.2 | That comes from the insecurities of we are missing 20 of the largest features that every |
| 0:48.0 | other competitor has in this market. |
| 0:50.2 | When his co-founder Andrew passed away, less than one year into building the company, |
| 0:54.1 | by far the worst thing has ever happened both my life and for the company. |
| 0:58.0 | And the time GoDaddy took the entire Beehive platform offline. |
| 1:02.0 | It was a real, oh shit moment of we are much more fragile than I think we are. |
| 1:07.0 | If this is your first time listening, I published new episodes |
| 1:10.0 | exploring the world's |
| 1:11.0 | greatest startup stories every week across all your favorite platforms. If you enjoy this, |
| 1:15.5 | like, comment, follow, share, and subscribe to my newsletter in the show notes to get future |
| 1:19.7 | episodes in your inbox every week. Let's talk to Tyler. Tyler, welcome to the show. |
| 1:29.0 | What up? Thanks for having me. So the first question, the juiciest question I think that I could possibly, or the topic |
| 1:34.2 | we could possibly talk about, you were raising money for Beehive and you talked to me, what |
| 1:40.6 | happened? |
... |
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