How a 10x Marketer Catalyzed the Next Billion-Dollar Adtech Company

On a recent episode of the Prof G Pod, Tyler Denk, CEO of the newsletter publishing platform and ad network Beehiiv, identifies three factors that allowed the company to climb from 0 to $1M in ARR (“by far the hardest part” of growing a software company, in his own words):

1. Strategically selecting investors such as Scott Galloway who themselves operated newsletters so that they could provide feedback and become evangelists for the product.

2. Building his own audience as a founder by telling the story of Beehiiv’s evolution (or “building in public”).

3. Shipping features very quickly to compete with feature-rich incumbents.

Notice that, even though all three of these factors relate to product and technology (no. 1 allowed Beehiiv to collect better and more feedback about the product, no. 2 empowered them to share product updates with an engaged audience, and no. 3 pertains to product development), all three are also clearly about marketing. 

Finding investors with their own audiences (no. 1) allowed the company to strategically cultivate influence. Building an audience (no. 2) essentially meant Denk himself became the company’s chief evangelist or influencer. And shipping features constantly (no. 3), while ostensibly more of a product function than a marketing one, was made far more valuable by factor no. 2 — i.e., if you follow Denk’s content, you know Beehiiv is constantly shipping features, whereas you likely wouldn't know that, certainly as a prospect and probably even as a customer, if you weren’t glued to Beehiiv’s updates by following Denk and Beehiiv’s journey.

Though it may not call itself an adtech company and many may not see it that way, I would argue that it’s perfectly reasonable to call Beehiiv the next billion-dollar adtech company. Its core product is essentially a monetization and growth platform for email publishers. And over time, as it amasses scale, it will become a highly valuable ad network. So, it’s worth thinking about what adtech companies can learn about growth from the Beehiiv story.

Elsewhere in the Prof G Pod episode, Denk mentions his late co-founder, Andrew Platkin. He calls Platkin, who tragically died within a year of Beehiiv’s founding, a 10x engineer, noting that the term probably doesn’t do him justice. In the context of Denk’s comments on the three factors that propelled Beehiiv to $1M ARR (the company is now nearing $10M ARR and just raised a $33M Series B), it occurred to me that we might call Denk, a self-taught engineer and the company’s de facto chief evangelist, a 10x marketer.

A 10x engineer is someone so talented and productive that they can do the work of ten average colleagues. This is a common term in tech circles. I’ve never heard the term 10x marketer, but I’d argue it’s actually probably more realistic (if not necessarily more common). Because the job of a marketer is to boost the company’s awareness and differentiate it from competitors to drive new business. And a highly talented and prolific marketer who can cultivate an audience for a product can certainly perform that job 10 times as well as (and with 10 times the impact of) a bunch of average marketers.

Consider the case of Denk and Beehiiv. He has 21,000 followers on Twitter. His newsletter reaches 15,000 subscribers. The audience he’s cultivated has essentially made him a public relations engine, too, leading to mentions and features on very widely consumed business podcasts and outlets such as the Prof G Pod, My First Million, and TechCrunch. The awareness, differentiation, and, ultimately, the pipeline and sign-ups Beehiiv has generated via Denk’s evangelism are worth more than what you’d get out of 10 average marketers. 

But this raises the key question: What exactly makes a 10x marketer in 2024? How can other adtech companies replicate aspects of the Beehiiv model? And can a marketer as such even be a 10x marketer, or am I really just describing the role of an eloquent and charismatic founder?

A 10x marketer likely has the following traits:

1. They tell the company’s story in a very clear and engaging way.

2. They ideally already have an engaged and sizable audience of the people the company is selling, or they have demonstrated an ability to develop that audience.

3. They are prolific and relentless in telling the company’s story. They tell it across channels and multiple times per day. They understand that, in today’s media and marketing ecosystem, you win partially on volume and the ability to take advantage of direct communications channels.

4. They have some charisma. They’re not afraid to be personal and let people in on the human dimension of building the company — whether through their own story or the stories of the team, especially the founders.

5. They have a keen sense of differentiation — what makes the company different from its competitors, and how do we reinforce that both in style and content?

6. They’re deeply engaged with the company’s audience. They know what the audience values and how to deliver it. Similarly, they make the company’s users the heroes of its story. For example, when a user praises the company or especially tags it on social media, they make that user feel special and reinforce their brand affinity.

7. They’re good at enlisting other influencers to broaden the company’s audience and magnify its marketing halo. They actively cultivate networks of influence.

Frankly, it helps a lot if one of the company’s co-founders or leaders is a 10x marketer, and if I were designing an adtech company in a lab, I’d want to be sure that one of my two or three co-founders embodied this persona. But I don’t think all 10x marketers are founders. You can certainly enlist adtech marketers who embody these characteristics.

In fact, if anything, I would argue that a handful of these people exist in our industry, and they’re undervalued because we tend to pay people 20% better than average when they’re worth 10x more than average. For the CEOs willing to go a little further to bridge that gap, 10x marketers, whether they’re marketers in official title or not, may be available for hire.