How beehiiv builds in public

Hey, I’m Isaac 👋 I founded Pistachio, where we’ve worked with brands like BuzzFeed and Clay to understand their audience, build trust and deliver measurable outcomes through content-led growth.

If you want to chat about your own strategy, book a free call here.

I get asked a lot about founder-led marketing. Is it really effective? What kind of content actually works? Who’s doing it really well?

One of the best examples I’ve seen is Tyler Denk, CEO and co-founder at beehiiv. I was going to write an article about how his content, especially his newsletter Big Desk Energy, drives epic results for them. But I figured it’d be way better to hand over to Tyler himself to take you behind the scenes…

Enjoy!

— Isaac

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It still blows my mind that TIME (yeah, that TIME) is now one of our largest customers at beehiiv.

Not because we had some enterprise sales team cold-calling their offices. Not because we spent millions on targeted advertising. Not because we hired a consulting firm to help us break into legacy media.

They came inbound because their CTO reads my newsletter.

Let me say that again. One of the most iconic publications in the world, a brand that's been around for over a century, became a customer because someone on their leadership team subscribed to Big Desk Energy—a newsletter that started as an extension of my Spotify playlist.

While yes I'm being a bit facetious about the whole playlist-to-newsletter bit, there was obviously a ton of intentionality behind all of this. I've been a huge proponent of building in public from the jump.

It may not be for everyone, but if done well, it can be a real force multiplier for a startup.

None of those things would be possible if I chose to build beehiiv in stealth.

Instead, I do the complete opposite. I openly share everything we're building and doing at the company in real-time with anyone who takes a second to follow me (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram). The newsletter is just an extension of that and allows me to go even deeper.

People follow stories and narratives. It's the reason we watch movies and read books. It's why we care about people, not brands.

Just like any other form of content, it's all about finding an audience and providing value or entertainment (or both). For me personally:

Each week I receive a few dozen replies to my newsletter—it's super validating and fulfilling. That in itself makes it worth it, but fortunately there's tons of additional upside too.

Once again: people >> brands.

I'm not saying I'm 0.0001% as notable or influential as Kim Kardashian, but I'm trying.

There's a reason these brands are competing head to head with the incumbents—they have massive advantages with free distribution. It's a superpower to be able to broadcast to millions of potential customers for free.

I don't have plans to release a sex tape anytime soon, so my best bet is continuing to create content about startups that others find valuable.

Providing value → more engagement → more followers → more distribution.

Almost every day I get messages like this one from founders who’ve built an audience and used it to scale their business.

So many startups struggle to collect useful feedback from users.

Not us.

Every time I publish something, I receive dozens of replies from users who aren't afraid to let me know where we missed the mark. And because our team is also chronically online, we have real relationships with tons of our most active (and critical) users.

Quicker feedback cycles lead to quicker product iterations which leads to happier users.

I don't want to attribute all of our success to building in public, but simply writing and sharing my thoughts on the internet has been one of the highest ROI things I've ever done.

Somehow I even landed on the cover of Inc.’s December magazine issue last year wearing my jeans in the ocean.

We're seeing this all play out in real-time right now. This week we're hosting our first-ever Winter Release Event, a virtual livestream where we'll share the biggest news and updates in beehiiv company history. And we're doing it completely in public.

I've been so excited about this that it's been waking me up at 4am for the past two months. I'll be tossing and turning thinking about what we're building, what we're announcing, what it all means. I was coming home from my fourth founder mastermind when the vision clicked. I stayed up all Friday night and spent the weekend building a presentation to share with the team on Monday. Which by the way, has to be the absolute coolest part about being a founder. This thing didn’t even exist Friday afternoon, yet come Monday morning I had already rallied 100 people to begin executing on it.

The Winter Release Event won't be just a compilation of flashy features. We're entering new markets and creating a category of our own, with some pretty massive announcements to back it all up. And we're inviting our entire community to witness the launch live.

It's happening Thursday, November 13th at 1-2pm EST. If you've been following along with any of this—if building in public resonates with you at all—I'd love for you to be there. (RSVP here)

This is building in public taken to its logical conclusion. Not just sharing what we're working on, but launching it transparently with the community that's been following the journey.

One of my favorite quotes is around "expanding your luck surface area." By simply sharing your thoughts online, you increase the odds of others taking interest in what you're doing and forming that community around it. You create opportunities that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Great. Here’s some of the content that I typically share online that you can use for inspiration…

New features and updates.

Company milestones.

Customer success stories.

Product tutorials of me legitimately building in public.

Customers doing dope shit.

My vision and goals.

My current mindset.

The internet is awesome. Take advantage of it.

P.S. Our Winter Release Event is this Thursday, November 13th at 1-2pm EST. We're unveiling the most ambitious features we've ever built and sharing what's next for beehiiv. I'd love for you to be there. RSVP here.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe: brandchemistry.co/p/how-beehiiv-builds-in-public

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