Beehiiv - The Incredible Newsletter Platform...Own Your Own Domain and Email List

Good morning…

I am grateful that I have Beehiiv to deliver this daily email and newsletter to tens of thousands of people.

I have been sending a daily email for almost 19 years and moving from Wordpress to Beehiiv last year after almost 15 years was a big decision. I spent a lot of time with Tyler Denk, the founder, explaining what it would take, to get technical dummies like me onboarded and moved. Tyler already knew how to build the product that could get new people to sign up from his time working at Morning Brew.

In just a few years, Tyler has built/building and is growing an incredible product and company and we are proud seed stage lead investors (fund 4). We invested a few years back.

Yesterday, Tyler pinged me that Beehiiv was voted the #1 most promising consumer startup by ‘The Information’.

I am so excited for Tyler who has always been the most excited and proud of his own company.

Lists mean almost nothing, but this is a hard category to stand out, let alone win and The Information is a really good read and the only technology/venture media I pay for. There are thousands of ‘promising consumer startups’ to choose from.

Building a business that scales in 2023 is a lot different than 2010-2022. Everything has to be perfect from the product, the pricing, the margins, the team, the execution and the cap table. Money is tight and getting tighter and getting users is not just expensive but almost a miracle when it happens.

At Social Leverage we have been blessed picking and riding along in a bunch of miracles.

I remember asking Tyler to come meet Gary and I in person - during Covid- because I felt it could speed along our decision process. At the time it was raise by Zoom and raise quickly. Tyler came to us and pitched.

Tyler could have probably raised from other investors at a higher price and we told him so but he listened to our story and explanation of how we felt we could add value and accelerate the company.

Tyler raised a series A earlier this year from Lightspeed (we participated). But, he continues building lean and is very cash flow focused because as I mentioned above, the structure of the cap table and being light and lean is once again a huge competitive advantage.

Everyone should journal and almost everyone should own their own newsletter domain and email list and Beehiiv is both the easiest and best way to do so.

Cheers.