The founder and author of the Big Desk Energy newsletter shares his thoughts on how to write an amazing email subject line, and more.

BY MIKE HOFMAN @MIKEHOFMAN

Tyler Denk. Photo: Aleksey Kondratyev

Tyler Denk is off to a fast start this year. His newsletter company, Beehiiv, has already announced a new website-building tool and is putting together a creator collective in a bid to compete with rivals like Substack. And to get this interview with him, I had to find a window late last week in among a board call and a flight to Bogota (because why not live a little?).

Though Denk, like any founder, is constantly operating by the seat of his pants, he clearly relishes every aspect of the founder life: his aggressive schedule, jampacked product release roadmap, and status as a very online founder. Inc. readers got to know him when we profiled him in December. And what impresses me about Denk, in addition to his happy warrior attitude, is his understanding of just what truly motivates his customers: growing audiences and a path to making consistent money.

So I decided to double-click on this, and the result is a pop-up content series focused on how to strengthen your customer relationships through email and otherwise that Inc. and Beehiiv are partnering on this week. Over the next few days, you’ll hear from some of the major voices in the Beehiiv creator community, including entrepreneur and talent expert Bill Kerr and founder-model Ashley Graham. But first, to kick us off, I wanted to chat with Denk about how Beehiiv itself has converted a strong point of view and intimate understanding of its customers into a growing business. Here’s our conversation.

Inc.: You co-founded the business in 2021 with Ben Hargett and Jake Hurd and are on track to do $35 million this year. How do you build a product—and a product roadmap—that makes customer loyalty a reality?

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Tyler Denk: It starts with just genuinely understanding our customers better than anyone in the world. My co-founders and I were all early employees at Morning Brew, and I helped build its........

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