The journey of a solo founder to a lean team to a $48M-backed creator platform
ANOTHER DAY—ANOTHER STARTUP STORY
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Let’s rewind to 2021.
You’ve just wrapped up a solid stint at one of the fastest-growing media startups. You were part of the team that helped Morning Brew scale their product and audience. You saw how newsletters became empires. You learned how great writing, paired with smart growth, could become a business.
And then—just like that—you're laid off.
That was Tyler Denk.
Ex-Google. Ex-Morning Brew. Unemployed, but not uninspired.
Most people would pause. Take time to reflect. Maybe job hunt.
Tyler did none of that.
He opened his laptop and got to work.
The problem nobody solved well
As the world raved about the “newsletter boom,” Tyler noticed something strange.
Everyone had tools for writing emails—Substack, Mailchimp, ConvertKit.
But very few platforms actually helped creators grow or monetize.
It was all about sending, not scaling.
Publishing, not profit.
There were a hundred tools to write and hit send, but few provided the infrastructure and analytics necessary to actually grow and monetize a newsletter business.
So, instead of waiting for someone else to build it, Tyler did what founders do.
He started coding.
From his apartment, line by line, Tyler began building the MVP of what would become Beehiiv: a newsletter platform not just for publishing—but for growth, monetization, and business-building.
No funding. No team. Just him and a conviction that creators deserved better tools.
Meet Beehiiv
Beehiiv is a newsletter platform built for creators who want to actually grow their audience and turn that audience into revenue.
It’s not just about sending emails—it’s about building a real business through your content.
Solo builder mode: scrappy by design
The early days of Beehiiv weren’t glamorous.
Even with capital from the seed round, Beehiv stayed lean.
Tyler was doing everything himself:
Writing code
Handling customer support
Designing UI
Talking to users
Fixing bugs at 2am
There was no team to fall back on.
If something broke, it was on him.
If a user had a question, he answered it personally.
Growth came through product quality, not ad spend. Users came because the platform solved real pain points. And they stayed because it kept getting better.
The co-founder — Adam Ford
Eventually, the work became too much for one person.
That’s when Tyler realized: Beehiiv needed a co-founder.
Tyler and Adam Ford crossed paths in the startup world.
Both were builders, but with different strengths:
Tyler: deep in media and product
Adam: obsessed with scaling and business strategy
Their paths crossed when Tyler was working on Beehiiv, and he quickly realized that the platform needed someone with Adam's expertise. Tyler knew that to grow Beehiv into something big, they needed someone who understood business strategy and scaling.
So, Tyler reached out to Adam, and after discussing their shared frustrations with existing newsletter platforms, they quickly clicked. Adam saw the same problem Tyler was tackling how to build a newsletter platform that helps creators not just send emails, but also grow their audience and make money.
That’s when they decided to team up. Together, they turned Beehiiv from a one-man project into a scalable company.
From there, things started to move faster.
Growth and user engagement
As Beehiiv started gaining traction, they didn’t rely on big marketing campaigns or funding to grow. It was word of mouth and the strength of the product that did the heavy lifting.
Creators loved the simplicity of the platform, which helped Beehiiv grow quickly, with early users recommending it to others.
One of Beehiiv’s big wins was how it handled the user experience. Tyler and Adam kept listening to their users. Instead of pushing out major updates just to add new features, they focused on improving existing ones, making sure the platform worked exactly how users needed. They also kept their eyes on the creator space, so they could spot trends early and adapt the platform to meet those needs.
MORE INSIGHTS AND STORIES:
The business model that just made sense
Instead of launching with a freemium model and worrying about monetization later, Beehiiv baked revenue in from the beginning.
They made it easy for creators to:
Charge for subscriptions
Run paid sponsorships through Beehiiv’s native ad network
Reward readers who brought in more readers (via referrals)
And in return, Beehiiv made money by:
Paid plans from users (based on subscriber count)
Revenue share from ads run through their network
Revenue share from paid newsletter subscriptions
They’re not chasing massive margins. They want to stay for a longer period of time, thus helping creators grow, keeping them happy, and scaling along with them.
Building for creators, not just writers
Convincing creators to leave entrenched platforms like Substack or ConvertKit wasn’t easy.
But Tyler had a distinct advantage: he deeply understood what creators actually needed.
Having worked at Morning Brew, he knew firsthand:
The difference between writing a newsletter and growing one
The gap between publishing content and monetizing it
That’s where Beehiiv came in—and where it stood apart.
Other platforms were great for sending emails.
Beehiv was made for building a business around your content.
So, what made Beehiiv stand out?
While others tried to be all things to all people, Beehiv doubled down on one clear user: the creator who wants to grow and get paid.
Here’s what they delivered early—and did better:
Built-in referral engine
→ Turn readers into promotersAudience segmentation:
→ Target different groups of readers with different messages
Ad network
→ Get matched with sponsors automaticallyAdvanced analytics & segmentation
→ Know what works. Target smarter.Custom branding & domains
→ Make it feel like your publication, not theirsMade by newsletter people
→ The team behind Beehiiv deeply understands the creator spaceClean, fast editor
→ A writing experience creators actually enjoyedZero-friction onboarding
→ No tech skills required—just start writing and growing
Beehiiv is built by newsletter people, for newsletter people
The team behind Beehiv wasn’t guessing—they lived in the newsletter trenches. They knew the creator grind, and they built the platform they wished they had.
That’s why early adopters didn’t switch because of hype or ads.
They switched because the product worked—and worked better than what they were using.
No paid influencers.
No massive marketing campaigns.
Just word-of-mouth—and love from the creator community.
From profitability to series A and series B
Most startups run hot and raise big early. Beehiiv grew disciplined, product-first, and customer-led.
So when they finally went out to raise again—it was because they were ready to scale what was already working.
Beehiiv's Series A and Series B funding rounds mark significant milestones in its growth as a leading email newsletter platform.
Series A
Date: June 2023
Amount Raised: $12.5 million
Lead Investor: Lightspeed Venture Partners
Company Status at the Time:
7,500 active newsletters
35 million unique readers
350 million monthly impressions
$4 million revenue run rate with 42% compounding monthly growth rate
Profitability achieved on a monthly basis as of April 2023
Use of Funds:
Doubling the team size, especially in engineering, design, operations, marketing, and sales
Upgrading vendor and infrastructure
Launching more aggressive marketing and user acquisition campaigns
Strategic Focus:
Building a comprehensive platform for content creation, subscriber acquisition, audience development, and monetization
Preparing to become a dominant player in newsletter advertising
Series B
Date: April 2024
Amount Raised: $33 million
Lead Investor: New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
Other Investors: Sapphire Sport, Lightspeed Venture Partners (participated again)
Company Status at the Time:
Around 20,000 active newsletters
Sending 1 billion emails per month
Monthly revenue exceeding $1 million
Customers include individual creators and large organizations like Boston Globe Media, Brex, Overtime, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dr. Jen Ashton
Use of Funds:
Expanding engineering and support teams to enhance platform capabilities and user experience
Accelerating user acquisition and marketing efforts
Product Developments and Features:
Advertising network enabling newsletters to secure sponsorship income from brands such as Hubspot, Betterment, and Monday.com
No revenue share on subscription income, providing a more creator-friendly model
New features planned include powerful website capabilities, additional newsletter templates, a peer-to-peer marketplace, and a full suite for managing premium subscriptions
Strategic Vision:
Strengthening position as the most performant newsletter and email platform
Leveraging first-party data for better advertising outcomes and reduced reliance on cookie-based data
Continuing rapid growth and innovation in newsletter monetization and audience engagement.
Together, these rounds have helped Beehiiv raise a total of approximately $46 million by April 2024, fueling rapid growth from a few thousand to tens of thousands of active newsletters and scaling its platform to dispatch over a billion emails monthly.
What founders can learn from Beehiiv
Beehiiv isn’t just a tech story—it’s a masterclass in modern startup building.
Here’s what early-stage founders can take away:
Start lean. Don’t overbuild or overhire, just solve one real pain point really well.
Bootstrap first. If you can get to profitability before raising, you hold the cards.
Obsess over your user. Beehiiv won because it built for creators, not just email senders.
Monetize early. Don’t wait for scale to start charging.
Focus is a superpower. Beehiiv didn’t try to do everything. It picked its lane—and dominated it.
Their story proves that starting with the right mindset and being adaptable can help you build something meaningful, even from the ground up.
Final thoughts
In a world of VC headlines and hyper-growth vanity metrics, Beehiiv took the road less traveled:
No rush for capital
No hype cycles
No bloated teams
Just a product that worked.
A team that listened.
And a vision that creators believed in.
For early-stage founders, Beehiiv is a solid example that with passion, persistence, and a customer-first approach, you can create something that truly makes an impact.
Whether it’s starting small, overcoming setbacks, or constantly improving, there are valuable lessons to take away from their story.
And most importantly, it proves that with the right mindset, you don’t need to have everything figured out to succeed.
Just start, adapt, and keep pushing forward.
THANKS FOR READING!
- Gracie and Ayush from What A Startup