beehiiv Media Collective

Last Thursday in New York we launched one of our largest initiatives yet — The beehiiv Media Collective.

It’s a multimillion dollar investment to equip leading journalists with the tools, resources, and operational support they need to build sustainable, audience-first businesses. That was a mouthful, so let me break it down a bit more simply. Applications are now open, and participants will receive:

• Health Insurance: Access to our network of partners + monthly stipend

• Legal Support: Pre-publication review and E&O coverage

• Software Licenses: Getty Images, Perplexity Pro, Doola

• Platform Support: Customer Success Manager, business strategy sessions, and a growth budget

Remember, beehiiv is one of the only platforms in the industry that does not take a cut of its user’s subscription revenue.

Translation: we have been prioritizing the best interests of our users from day one… and journalists have been taking notice.

Oliver Darcy was a Senior Media Reporter for CNN and the lead writer for their prominent media newsletter, Reliable Sources. He left CNN in August of this year to go independent and launch his new media company, Status.

He chose beehiiv as the home for Status. This was his response when I asked him why:

I was visiting New York in September and reached out to see if he’d want to meet up while I was in town. It’s funny how the world works sometimes; I had no idea this spontaneous meetup would lead to everything that it has.

We opted for breakfast in Chelsea and ended up chatting for nearly 2 hours. He began by praising the platform and it’s capabilities… before pulling out his wishlist of feature requests and keyboard shortcuts (we addressed nearly all of them within a week or so).

He then began to share some of the difficulties of leaving CNN to go independent. As an independent, he…

• Had to search for and manage his own health insurance.

• Didn’t have legal coverage and was personally at risk when breaking news stories (like this RFK Jr. story in September).

• Had to manage all of his books and finances on his own.

• Needed to learn new software and workflows to build and scale his business.

Perhaps I was just in a giving mood that morning, but as he went down the list, I felt like these were all things we (beehiiv) should be able to help him with. I knew that we wanted more people like Oliver using beehiiv, but these were real problems that needed to be addressed.

As soon as I left breakfast I hopped into a cab and immediately called Preeya, our COO. I rehashed the conversation and presented the idea of building a program that would address and remove most of these obstacles for a select group of journalists who face similar constraints.

To her credit, she sprang into action and started piecing everything together. She talked to dozens of journalists to better understand their problems and their goals. She consulted with dozens of lawyers, accountants, insurance brokers, software vendors, etc. to help craft the perfect package that would support these journalists.

“Sprang into action” may be an understatement. That phone call was in late September, and we launched this thing last Thursday.

Obviously we had no way of knowing it would play out like this, but the timing could not have been better.

• You can’t go anywhere without hearing about how podcasts and independent outlets had an outsized impact on the election.

• Last week CNN axed its top talent… with another round of layoffs allegedly coming soon.

• ABC News went through a round of layoffs in early October.

• The Washington Post is requiring all employees to return to the office next year.

• Between YouTube and Spotify, Trump’s interview on Joe Rogan got 13x more views than the average primetime viewership of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News… combined.

The digital era has transformed media, pitting traditional newsrooms against individual creators in a relentless race for views, engagement, and ad dollars. The result has been a steady erosion of legacy media organizations, with layoffs and cost-cutting affecting some of the industry’s most talented journalists.

Meanwhile Oliver, Catherine Herridge, Ryan Broderick, and thousands of other independent journalists have complete ownership of their audience, distribution, and their lifestyle. Solutions like beehiiv put ownership back into the hands of creators and empower them to build sustainable businesses.

These journalists are thriving. And thanks to the beehiiv Media Collective there should be a whole lot more of them soon.

At that fateful breakfast back in September, Oliver floated one additional idea: a launch party for Status.

And while I’m often pretty bearish on events driving real ROI from a marketing perspective, once plans for the beehiiv Media Collective began to formalize, it presented an opportunity for the event to double as both a launch party for Oliver and a launching pad for our new initiative.

So that’s exactly what we did. I flew to New York last Wednesday on a pretty tight schedule:

• Wednesday night: dinner with the team

• Thursday morning: sunrise yoga

• Thursday day: some IRL co-working

• Thursday night: Status x beehiiv Launch event

• Friday morning: flight back to LA

Being at The Box with some of the team until 3am wasn’t on the initial agenda, but that’ll happen to the best of us. Cheers to research.

The event itself was really spectacular. Oliver did a phenomenal job bringing together what he described as “the crème de la crème of the media world.” You can view the full digital photo album here.

I gave a speech about the shifting media landscape and officially introduced the beehiiv Media Collective. The reception was overwhelmingly positive and several people rushed up to chat afterwards.

We did more of an official hard launch on Friday morning 👇️.

Friday was coincidentally the 3rd anniversary of launching the company. It felt fitting to launch something of this magnitude on a day like that. The video (above) shows the culmination of 3 ridiculously challenging years, pushing forward at full speed, to make something like this possible.

We’ve spent years building a…

• Reputation.

• Remarkably talented team.

• Platform that makes it simple to generate revenue via paid subscriptions and ads.

• Beautiful publishing experience.

• World-class website builder (coming soon).

• And dozens of other powerful features…

I’ve never been so convinced that beehiiv is going to play a huge part in supporting the top journalists and creatives of our time. Here’s to a brighter, more resilient future for independent media.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe: mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/beehiiv-media-collective

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Some of my favorite content I found on the internet this week…

• Related to the email today, Scott Galloway shares his thoughts on “the podcast election” (No Mercy / No Malice)

• Thread of the worst UI on the internet (Twitter)

• Lenny chats with the CMO of the fastest-growing startup in history (Lenny’s Podcast)

• Margins was one of my favorite newsletters but has mostly gone dark the past few years. Ranjan sent an email last night sharing the story of his daughter, who passed away a year ago (Margins)

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