Inside the beehiiv Playbook with Tyler Denk, Co-founder and CEO

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 shares 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 2nd employee
(15:28) Why newsletters are so powerful
(19:40) Scaling MorningBrew to 3.5 million subs + exiting for $75m
(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/powe...
beehiiv’s old investor updates: https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com/c/beeh...
The BDE Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5s8...

Where to find Tyler
Twitter:   / denk_tweets  
LinkedIn:   / tyler-denk  
Newsletter: https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com

Where to find Turner
Twitter:   / turnernovak  
LinkedIn:   / turnernovak  
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it