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How Startup Marketer Jason Levin Grew His Strategy Newsletter
Writing a newsletter and making memes for 150 Sundays straight
Kanishka Kumawat
August 14th, 2024
I live by this quote from Naval – “Play long-term games with long-term people”. Be it work or relationships, all returns in life come from compound interest in long-term games.
But have you ever wondered what it takes to build a community over the course of a decade?
Today, I'm excited to share Jason Levin's story with you, who has two publications on beehiiv today – Cyber Patterns and Meme Alerts, and is also the Head of Growth at Product Hunt.
Besides his premium subscription base, Jason has grown his ghostwriting business, book sales, course sales, and so much more. This story will inspire you to start writing today (and also build an email list).
But he couldn’t have done it without beehiiv 🚀
Table of Contents
Each edition of beehiiv case studies is meant to share stories of how publishers on beehiiv are building their newsletters and leveraging the platform and how you can do it too!
This was also my first case study interview, but Jason made it feel like chatting with a friend. I enjoyed talking to him and writing this piece. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it, too!
- Kanishka
Jason started writing online 15 years ago with a baseball blog at the age of 13 on WordPress!
Today, he’s about to hit 150 Sundays straight with his weekly newsletter to over 20,000 nerds.
That’s Jason Levin for you.
His newsletter Cyber Patterns is just what you might need to learn about organic social media growth tactics, especially for startups and VC firms.
And this is a case study of how he built this newsletter empire.
Jason’s weekly newsletter Cyber Patterns is the base of all his business. By leveraging his newsletter and owning his audience, he’s launched a paid community for marketers, his first book Memes Make Millions (that has sold 1000s of copies), his course How to Become a Memelord, his YouTube channel, and much more!
Jason even started another publication on beehiiv called Meme Alerts where he shares viral meme templates every single day.
How Did Jason Begin His Writing Journey?
“It takes many years to become an overnight success.”
A quote that has been phrased differently by many influential people over the years perfectly encapsulates Jason’s story, which spans more than a decade.
I wanted to know how it all began for him, and here’s what Jason shared, "I started with a baseball blog on WordPress when I was 13, but it was terrible. Then, in college, I launched a music magazine, which was also a struggle on WordPress. beehiiv changed everything—it's simplified website and newsletter building, providing incredible customization and data insights."
But when you stick to one thing long enough to build your brand around it and become known for it, that’s when you make something unique.
“I'll be at 100,000 subscribers in the next couple of years and a million in a few years after that, so like, for me, it's just a matter of time and patience and compounding and just doing the same thing every week.”
Jason also has an amazing piece on this called 10 years of losing on the internet.
150 Sundays straight: Jason's Journey with beehiiv
What made me more curious about Jason’s journey was the newsletter. How did he think of starting a newsletter?
I learned that he understood with social media you rent your audience, while with a newsletter, you own it.
“It will last forever you know, email is the audience that you can't take away right so TikTok might be going away soon in the US and anybody who's built an audience, you're just screwed, right? But you can't do that with email. So that is why it's so important. I really think that social media is just like the rented audience and the community that you build that helps you build up the newsletter.”
Why Did Jason Choose beehiiv?
“beehiiv is a newsletter platform on steroids. beehiiv is a world where writers are some of the most powerful wealthy people on the internet. That's what beehiiv is. That's the world that they see.”
Since day one, beehiiv has had only one focus – To be the newsletter platform built for growth. People want to make money by writing online and that’s exactly what beehiiv helps them with.
Jason was originally on Substack but made the switch to beehiiv because of Tyler, beehiiv’s CEO.
I was curious about what made beehiiv the top choice for him.
Jason shared, “beehiiv had just announced their $33 million raise and Tyler is DMing me at 2 am about bugs. That dude cares about making sure that his customers are happy. I don't even have the enterprise plan and here he is responding to my messages – to me, that's really special that is customer support of another level. For me, it was all about the team. I couldn't name any other company that does that
Jason’s Favorite beehiiv Features
1. Just automate it!
“Automations are pretty sick. I sell my book on a whole different website, and I use Zapier to send it over to beehiiv. When somebody buys my book or joins my newsletter, they get a special email. Depending on how they answer their survey, they get a different email. It is not just one email, it's a series of emails, so I think the automation is super powerful, and I actually need to invest more time in it.”
If you are looking to build an automated email sequence for your newsletter, check out this video:
2. Landing page customization
“I created a landing page for a lead magnet and I was paying some other service to host it. Then my friend told me that I could just host it on beehiiv. Now, I'm saving 700 bucks a year just hosting it on beehiiv. That's pretty sick.”
Learn more about landing page customizations here:
3. beehiiv templates
Building a weekly newsletter is not easy but templatizing it definitely helps.
“I use the beehiiv templates, where I have the same kind of structure in every email so it starts with the intro, and then it's got, you know, my curation selection of the intro then like the meat of the essay, the blog, and then a curation section and some memes at the end, of course. So I just have the same kind of template. I like that a lot.”
To me, Cyber Patterns’ design stands out because of the Cyberpunk vibe it has. From the content break to the top-notch memes – Jason brings a unique style.
Key Takeaways
Here’s what I’d love for you to note from this case study:
Having a Long-Term Vision: Jason Levin's journey emphasizes the importance of playing long-term games with long-term people. Over the past decade, he has consistently delivered valuable content through his newsletter, building a thriving community and a successful writing business.
Mindset for Ownership and Monetization: Unlike social media platforms where audience access is rented, newsletters provide a direct channel for engagement and monetization opportunities, such as premium subscriptions and freelance work.
Authenticity and Relatability: By being genuine and relatable in his Instagram videos and newsletter, Jason has built meaningful connections with his audience. If you're looking to build your own community, it's definitely worth considering Jason's example of prioritizing authenticity and embracing a relatable voice.
For someone who has been in this space for over a decade and worked with the best people in the world, Jason has some advice that might help you kickstart or grow your newsletter.
“When I started my newsletter, I had a full-time job. I wasn’t making any money online, but since my newsletter took off, I started getting gigs and working with founders and VCs!
My newsletter was my portfolio that got me into these startups. And now, the newsletter is, you know, [continuing to do] the same thing. It keeps getting me into more and more startups and VC firms. And so, if you're a good writer, there's no limit to what you can do online.
Start a weekly newsletter. It doesn’t have to be perfect and will get you in the habit of doing it every single week and pressing publish. So, yeah, do it weekly, for sure.”
Want to learn more about building a weekly newsletter? Read more about it here.
That’s a wrap!
I hope this case study was insightful and look forward to sharing more such stories with you.
Until next time. Happy emailing!
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