How SeedPhrase Daily Went From TikTok to Media Empire

Joining us for this week’s Creator Spotlight is Moe Hayek from SeedPhrase Daily, a newsletter that shares highlights and insights on crypto/web3. With a concise, easy-to-read style that balances details and humor, SeedPhrase Daily helps newbies explore this world with ease. Their newsletter is “your reliable friend who can’t stop talking about crypto & web3.”

This week’s edition is a deep dive into Moe’s journey from a TikTok page to a full-fledged media company. With their newsletter acting as the centrepiece of it all, Moe will be joining us today to explore transitioning to a media brand, building out systems, and finding your voice as a creator.

Let’s get into it.

Q: Welcome Moe! Thanks for joining us. What can you tell us about SeedPhrase Daily, and how did you get started?

Moe Hayek: Yeah, absolutely. SeedPhrase Daily is our version (or my personal version) of being able to keep up with this space–everything involving crypto, web3, and NFTs.

I started this as a TikTok page (believe it or not) during the bull market. Lots of videos going over quick news and headlines about crypto/NFTs. It got a lot of traction on TikTok, and I started looking at my options.

In my mind at the time, the choice was between becoming an influencer, or building a brand around this content. I decided to build a brand. The content was still very focused on simplifying crypto/web3 in an entertaining way. The goal was to keep the content simple enough so people not in this space could bring it up over the dinner table.

Q: Amazing, and when did you guys start that TikTok account?

Moe Hayek: Around February of this year. It grew to about 300,000 followers within roughly three months.

Q: I see why being an influencer was an option! The newsletter came soon after? 

Moe Hayek: Exactly. Around the end of March, or early April, is when I first started SeedPhrase (the brand), and wanted to push towards a newsletter. beehiiv became our home, and it keeps getting better.

Q: Can you tell us more about SeedPhrase Daily as it is now? Are you still on TikTok? Podcast coming? What’s the bigger picture?

Moe Hayek: It’s a great question. SeedPhrase Daily’s goal is to be a full-blown web3 media company. Think of what Barstool is for sports. We want to be the Barstool of web3. We have different properties to do this. We just published our 22nd podcast episode, Instagram is going strong, TikTok is still great. We’re all over. All the traffic points back to our newsletter. It’s our main hub.

Q: So how is the newsletter going, by the numbers?

Moe Hayek: I think we have about 7,400 subscribers now.

Darwin Binesh: Do you feel like the earlier TikTok audience carried over to the newsletter and boosted your numbers?

Moe Hayek: I think for TikTok it's really good to go viral, but it’s important to capitalize on the virality.

I started the newsletter after TikTok had gone viral, so it wasn’t as I was “blowing up.” So, in a sense, I gained a lot of traction, and then I tried to redirect the traffic after the fact. In hindsight, starting the newsletter earlier would have been better.

Q: I’d like to change gears and explore more of what’s working for you within the newsletter itself–specifically the content.. Any insight on content strategy?

Moe Hayek: A lot of focus on releasing quality content, and being very consistent. No missed days, which is pretty hard for a daily newsletter sent Monday through Friday. The consistency has been key because people come to expect the email in their inbox.

Everything I just mentioned earlier with social media also points directly to the newsletter, so missing a day could be detrimental, but consistency has been so important.

And as mentioned before, we’re not necessarily doing a 20 min deep-dive. It’s about being concise, entertaining, and approachable enough to discuss at a dinner table. One of the biggest problems in the space was how nobody was building a proper audience to help onboard normies/new people into the space, and SeedPhrase Daily addresses that.

Q: Are you doing this yourself? Do you have a team?

Moe Hayek: Yes. So we started off as just me. We now have a team of eight people between researchers, writers, social media managers, editors, etc.

Q: Have you guys started monetizing your newsletter yet?

Moe Hayek: Actually, I haven’t monetized as much as I’d have liked to. That being said, the expenses are on myself for the time being. Over the last 16 months I was lucky enough to take advantage of the last bull run in NFTs and crypto. This is my first time building a media/newsletter company, and I'm still trying to figure out what the monetization part will be, and it’s coming along slowly.

We just launched a premium subscription, so we have a few subscribers there. There will be ads in the future as well.

How does SeedPhrase Daily collect feedback from their audience and what’s their advice to newsletter writers…?