This is Fatherpreneur.

The newsletter that's written by a dad with a mustache who's been creating content for 10 years.

In less than 5 minutes, you'll learn quick and actionable tips for creating content that people actually enjoy.

I am a firm believer in the power of networking. 

For the last 10 years, I've made it a habit to have real-life conversations with people who I'm connected with online, without any strings attached.

I've met hundreds of people this way.

That's how I met Pete Huang, creator of The Neuron. When he was working at Coinbase we interacted on each other's LinkedIn content a few different times, and I reached out in DMs. We hopped on a video call, talked for about 30-minutes, and now we're friends. 

But what does networking have to do with content creation?

Creating engaging, successful content goes hand-in-hand with having a deep, powerful network of like-minded creators and builders. I wrote a blog for growing your newsletter to 1M subs, and step 3 is all about teaming up with partners to grow together.

Networking Networks

I'm an avid user of social media. It helps me build professional relationships, make money, and meet new people I would otherwise never interact with in real life.

In 2015 someone cold contacted me on LinkedIn and offered me a job on the spot based on the experience in my LinkedIn profile. It paid $15 an hour. I worked remote from my apartment in Clemson, SC for a year during undergrad. His legal firm was in Boston and I was a marketing specialist managing a nationwide customer acquisition campaign. After 3 months he called me and said “I’m giving you a raise to $20 an hour. Keep up the good work.”

In 2016 my personal blog was publishing 1-3 articles per week, as well as a regular newsletter, and a loyal subscriber offered to support me internationally to write and teach from Madrid, Spain, which I did. Amazing opportunity of a lifetime to travel, write, and learn.

In 2020 I saw a post from a friend of a friend on Facebook about an opportunity (that at the time I thought was a weekend long project). I reached out to someone I had never met who was looking for someone to build a highly customized, scalable growth subsidiary for their business. What I thought was a weekend project was a full time job. I worked there for a year making 6 figures, all from a Facebook post.

In 2021 a connection of mine posted on Twitter that they were starting a company. I immediately connected with him and helped in the early days to build a brand, establish a marketing team, and create automated content systems. Eventually I was hired as the Marketing Lead and helped build a team of nearly 50 people, and was named a founding team member before I replaced myself and moved on.

For that startup, I used a complex tech stack to mimic Morning Brew's newsletter behemoth. I used Wordpress, Woocommerce, Sparkloop, Mailchimp, Printful, and some custom APIs. During the creation, former Morning Brew employees launched a startup called "beehiiv", which automated a ton of the complex systems I was creating.

Before beehiiv, designing a newsletter vertical like Morning Brew was:

1. Costly - each software in the stack required its own subscription, which added up fast.

2. Cumbersome - maintaining a website, newsletter, incentive program, fulfillment + APIs.

3. Fragile - If one part in the system broke, everything did.

In the coming months, I started moving my clients to beehiiv and became a super fan of their software. It's also when I became friends with Tyler Denk through networking (Twitter + LinkedIn DMs, and a few video calls).

Throughout 2022, Tyler and I kept in touch.

beehiiv kept growing.

We kept talking.

Now I'm a full time employee at beehiiv.

I joined their growth team to help build a sales pipeline alongside their current outbound strategy and marketing funnel.

Social media, when used consistently and strategically, is a completely life changing tool that will always help you if you build your network intentionally.

I am grateful that I’ve been an avid user of many social media platforms (personally and professionally) for over 10 years.

Everyone will choose to use social platforms for different reasons, but I cannot recommend networking enough. When done consistently over time, your entire life will change dramatically.

Gary Vee

With networking, when you put yourself out there, a lot of random stuff starts to happen. Like this one time I had a conversation with Gary Vaynerchuck.

Keep networking and putting yourself out there and great things will happen.

And that's it for today!Make sure to subscribe to Fatherpreneur for more actionable quick-tips on creating content that people actually enjoy.