Here’s how Tyler Denk grew his newsletter side project to 120,000+ email subscribers and 6-figures in sales (while running a startup full-time).
I sat down with Tyler last week to learn his growth and monetization playbook — and how you can apply it to your business.
What I learned
Most people think you need to go all-in to build a successful newsletter. Quit your job. Post everyone day. Reach 50k-100k+ subscribers before you see a dollar.
Tyler did the opposite.
He launched Big Desk Energy in January 2024 as a side project while running beehiiv, the newsletter platform he founded.
Within two months, he hit 8,000 subscribers.
Today he's at 120,000 subscribers and he makes more money from his newsletter side hustle than his full-time job as a SaaS CEO.
All in about 7-8 hours of work per week.
Here's how…
The Backstory (and Why It Matters)
Before building beehiiv, Tyler was the second employee at Morning Brew.
He joined when they had ~100k subscribers and helped scale them to over 3.5M, eventually leading to a $75M exit.
He created their legendary referral program, led growth, and built out their tech stack.
He learned firsthand what actually scales media brands.
So when he launched his own newsletter, he already had a proven playbook. And he built his newsletter on the most capable platform for growth and monetization, beehiiv.
But here's what makes his story relevant even if you're starting from zero:
Tyler didn't have a massive audience when he launched.
No existing email list. No massive ad budget.
Only about 15k followers, which she also built from scratch over the past few years.
His secret?
Stacking 10+ small growth tactics that compound over time.
The Growth Engine
Tyler says everyone wants a silver bullet — one hack that gets you to a million subscribers fast. It doesn't exist.
Instead, he does about 10 things that each bring in 15 to 30 subscribers per day.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
The waitlist launch. Before sending a single issue, Tyler announced he wouldn't launch until he hit 1,000 subscribers. He promoted this on LinkedIn and X for a few weeks. It created urgency and gave him a built-in audience on day one. (Example)
Social teasers before and after every send. Every Monday night, he previews what he's writing about and drops a subscribe link. Every Tuesday after it goes live, he shares a recap that leaves out key details — so you have to subscribe to get the full thing. That alone brings in 15-30+ subscribers per post, per platform. (Pre-CTA example and Post-CTA example)
Email gating every post. Every article he publishes sits behind an email gate. You can read the first few sentences, but you have to enter your email to keep reading. When people click through from social media, the conversion rate is high because they're already interested. (Example)
Lead magnets that his audience actually wants. Tyler knows his readers are founders and startup people. So he uses beehiiv's actual seed deck — the one they used to raise $2.6 million — as a lead magnet. He's done the same with other insanely valuable resources like monthly investor updates. Each one attracts extremely valuable subscribers. (Example)
A dead-simple referral program. Share the newsletter with just one person, get 25% off merch. This drives high-quality subscribers on auto-pilot.
Content repurposing. He takes key takeaways from each newsletter, turns them into social posts. Every newsletter becomes multiple posts on X and LinkedIn that drive more followers and subscribers.
None of these tactics are groundbreaking on their own. But running all of them consistently for months, compounds your growth.
Scaling with Paid Ads
The organic tactics got Tyler to 10,000 subscribers. They still help him add thousands of subscribers every month.
But to go from 10K to 120K, he added the two highest ROI paid channels.
1) Boosts — beehiiv has a network where newsletter operators can pay other newsletters to recommend them. Tyler set his price at $1.50 to $2.00 per subscriber, and he gets to approve or reject which publishers recommend him.
On the flip side, he also earns Boost revenue by recommending other newsletters he likes — which offsets his growth costs.
He's spent roughly $100k on Boosts over two years, which he's been able to earn an ROI on from the monetization methods we'll talk about later.
2) Paid social ads — He started small. Just $25 a day promoting his lead magnets on X. He got a 29% click-through rate at two cents per click.
Over time, he expanded into Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram ads).
You can see Tyler's Meta ad creatives here.
His advice: You don't need paid ads to start, but if you want to hit real scale, you'll eventually need to put some money behind it.
Turning Subscribers into Six Figures
Tyler he uses three monetization methods that are the perfect fit for his audience and don't require much time to execute.
1) Sponsorships
Because his audience is mostly founders, CEOs, and startup execs employees, B2B brands line up to sponsor his newsletter.
He had 20+ brands in the pipeline within months of launching.
His tip: Only recommend products you actually use. It keeps trust high and makes the copy easy to write.
To attract sponsors:
Tyler regularly posts about ad spots that are available on social.
He built out awesome media kit, you can see and learn from here »
2) Boosts revenue
The same Boost network he uses for growth also generates passive income. Every time someone signs up for Tyler's newsletter, he recommends five other newsletters and gets paid $1-3 for every qualified subscriber he sends.
Boosts is the smallest revenue stream, but it's completely passive and helps offset advertising cost.
3) High-ticket events
Tyler hosts 3-5 day founder masterminds in Costa Rica. The investment is $10,000 per person and they're limited to 7-8 attendees. (Promo example)
He's done four so far. The revenue is around $70k per event with ~60% profit margins. And he built the entire application process using beehiiv's native survey tool.
What You Can Steal From This Playbook
Here's what to take away from Tyler's approach:
You don't need to go full-time. Tyler runs this alongside a demanding CEO role. Five to seven hours a week is enough if you're consistent.
Stack small tactics instead of hunting for one big hack. Referrals, social teasers, email gates, lead magnets, content repurposing. Do all of them consistently every week to grow.
Write about what no one else can. Tyler's most popular newsletters are about building in public. His wins, learnings, and failures from running a startup.
Start monetizing earlier than you think. You don't need 10k+ subscribers to make money. Boosts, affiliate revenue, and niche sponsorships can start generating income from day one — without selling your own product or service yet. High ticket events and services can bring in big revenue even if less than 1% of your email list buys.
Use beehiiv for everything so you can focus on content. Tyler built his entire operation — newsletter, website, referral program, lead magnets, automations, surveys, and monetization — on beehiiv. Having everything in one platform means less time managing tech and more time creating.
If you want to follow the same playbook Tyler used, you can get started with beehiiv for free here:
This link gets you 14 days free and 30% off for 3 months.
beehiiv this is the platform I also use to run nearly everything in my business: Newsletters, email marketing, website, blog, lead magnets, and much more.
I can't recommend it enough.