Codie Sanchez is the founder of Contrarian Thinking, a media company and investment firm that teaches people how to build cash-flowing businesses, especially “boring” ones like laundromats, car washes, and service companies.
At the beehiiv Creator Business Summit, Sanchez turned her 40-minute session into a high-leverage playbook for transforming audience attention into real, boring business money.
Codie laid it out clearly: product-market fit can be accelerated when creators build in public, test fast, and monetize slow.
She drew parallels to celebrities and influencers who quietly back “boring” businesses behind the scenes—using their reach to seed trust, drive traffic, and create off-screen revenue.
This is the tactical playbook that let her build “Contrarian Thinking” from a newsletter into a 2.5 million-subscriber ecosystem and an acquisition machine.
Building a 3-Layer Wealth Stack (In Order)
This article isn’t just a recap of Codie Sanchez’s Creator Business Summit talk—it’s also a distillation of the core principles she lives by and teaches every day.
Codie grounds her approach in a simple, sequential model:
Audience: Build attention through authentic, problem-driven content.
Community: Transform passive readers into active participants and case studies—her “1,000 True Fans” aren’t theory; they’re buyers of $400M+ in real businesses.
Cashflow Businesses: Use audience trust as distribution leverage to launch (and buy) cash flow businesses: laundromats, service companies, platforms.
The real insight? Most creators stop at the surface layer: audience. Codie’s engine compounds because community buys into both her journey and her deals.
As Sanchez says, “show, don’t tell”.
Sanchez never positions herself as a “guru.” Her playbook is built on transparency:
Document the businesses and problems she’s actually solving—her laundromat is filmed, her land deals shown start to finish.
Use every documented problem (writing an LOI, negotiating a deal, due diligence) as a source for content, lead magnets, and, ultimately, products (like BizScout, a business buying platform).
Trust flows from “show, don’t tell.” The play: share failures, process, doubt, and eventually the solution you found for yourself.
Takeaway:
Creators obsess over top-of-funnel growth. Codie Sanchez plays at the bottom, turning distribution into durable ownership.
The Problem-Product Loop
Every obstacle becomes content, which becomes asset:
Hear a problem: “I don’t know how to talk to sellers.”
Create a script and teach it: Free content.
Productize: Templates, calculators, scripts become products, buy-in offers, or backend platforms.
Feed back into the community: User results fuel more case studies, more trust.
The loop is never-ending; it’s also the system behind her own tool, BizScout, which started as FAQ content.
The System Building a Content Business
Content is high-velocity not because Codie has a content “gift”—it’s the system. Her Notion dashboard tracks every asset, every channel, every product. Key SOPs:
Reuse every piece of content everywhere
Build editing and posting pipelines so the team can run on rails
Rapid feedback loops (her favorite days are spent filming, measured and iterated on for future content)
Tech stack: beehiiv for newsletters, Notion, Frame, Tweet Hunter/typefully for posting
The Content-to-Capital Flywheel
Codie’s not creating content to go viral—she’s creating to solve problems and fund deals.
Have a System
Codie’s team runs content ops across multiple businesses: Contrarian Thinking, Contrarian Capital, BizScout and more.
They use one dashboard to view everything being created across the company.
They operate a shared editing pipeline to repurpose content efficiently and consistently.
Don’t Be Boring
Subject lines that slap: One of Codie’s top-performing emails had a 56% open rate—with the subject line:
❝“I love guys with wood…”
It got clicks—and delivered a valuable lesson on lumber investing.Design that doesn’t feel corporate: Personality > polish.
Unexpected CTAs: Instead of “Subscribe now,” try:
❝“Explore your path to financial freedom.”
Key Insight: Codie isn’t building content for entertainment—she’s building a system that fuels investments, acquisitions, and long-term wealth.
The Attention Arbitrage Insight
Codie Sanchez is not an anti-creator. She's a post-creator.
She views content as arbitrage—where followers subsidize deal flow, not dopamine loops.
And through it all, Sanchez hasn’t touched venture funding.
“Creators don’t need VCs—they need operating leverage and equity exposure.”
For all content you create, ask yourself, is there s problem and can i turn this into content?
Closing Thoughts: From Likes to Legacy
Sanchez’s session wasn’t inspirational—it was operational.
It turned likes into leverage and content into capital. Whether you’re a creator with 10K followers or 10M, her frameworks are replicable.
Your Turn: Activate Codie Sanchez’s Playbook
Here's how to take Sanchez’s frameworks and apply them this week:
1. Start Your Newsletter (on beehiiv)
Your newsletter is your foundation. It’s the platform where you own attention—not rent it. Use beehiiv to launch fast and scale smart.
2. Make It Weekly
Consistency compounds. A weekly cadence builds habit, trust, and expectation with your audience—without overwhelming them.
3. Own Your Audience
Platforms change. Algorithms shift. But your email list? That’s your asset. Prioritize collecting emails over followers.
4. Drive Readers to Your Product
Don’t just entertain—convert. Guide your audience toward your digital products, services, or “boring” business offers.
5. Sell Your Own Products (First)
Like Disney, the most durable brands sell their own stuff. Before you monetize others’ products, build and promote your own.
6. Monetize with Ads
Once you’ve built trust and traction, layer in newsletter sponsorships. This adds passive revenue without diluting your brand.
7. Protect Your Real Estate
Your newsletter isn’t just content—it’s the most valuable real estate in your business. Treat it like a storefront. Every pixel should move your business forward.
Want the full kickoff webinar that breaks this down step-by-step?
The speakers at the Creator Business Summit don’t just talk about growth—they build it on beehiiv.
From Milk Road to Contrarian Thinking to The Koerner Office, these creators are scaling real businesses on the platform built for content-first growth. With native monetization, built-in recommendations, and a fully customizable website out of the box, beehiiv gives you everything you need to launch, grow, and monetize, all in one place.
If you’re serious about putting what you learned into action, start with the platform made for serious creators.
