Founder-led media that grew the company behind it
6 founders whose own newsletter, podcast or social feed grew the company behind it, with what each channel reached and a source for every figure: Adam Robinson and RB2B, Bill Kerr and Athyna, Harry Stebbings and 20VC, Nathan Barry and Kit (formerly ConvertKit), Packy McCormick and Not Boring Capital and Tyler Denk and beehiiv. 2 of the channels are entries in the Owned Media Directory; the rest are documented here until they are added.
This is every channel in the directory with a Founder-led origin, plus the examples I have sourced and not yet added, laid out as one table: who the founder is, which channel they publish under their own name, which company benefited, what the channel reached, and a link to where that number came from. Where the founder has put a figure on the attribution themselves, the row quotes it; where they have not, the row states what the channel and the company each reached and leaves the arithmetic to you. Click a column heading to sort.
Founder-led media table
| Channel | What grew | Format | Source | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adam Robinson Co-founder and CEO | Adam Robinson on LinkedIn Not yet in the directory | RB2B | RB2B went from $0 to $5M in annual recurring revenue in 12 months with LinkedIn as, in Robinson's words, its sole distribution channel. He reached 125,000 followers within two years of posting. | Social | SaaStock |
Bill Kerr Founder and CEO | Open Source CEO | Athyna | Reached 400,000 subscribers and about $375,000 in trailing twelve-month revenue by April 2026. beehiiv's case study attributes up to 17% of Athyna's pipeline to Kerr's writing, with clients arriving at negative acquisition cost because the ad slots in each send are already sold. | Newsletter | beehiiv |
Harry Stebbings Founder | The Twenty Minute VC Not yet in the directory | 20VC | Stebbings raised $140M across two 20VC funds in June 2021, a fund TechCrunch described as launched off the show's success and a fifteen-fold step up from an $8.3M first fund, then closed a $400M third fund in October 2024. | Podcast | TechCrunch |
Nathan Barry Founder | nathanbarry.com Not yet in the directory | Kit (formerly ConvertKit) | Barry set his blog readers a public challenge on 31 December 2012: build a web app to $5,000 a month in recurring revenue within six months. The app was ConvertKit, renamed Kit in October 2024, which Sacra estimates reached $43M in annual recurring revenue in 2024. | BlogNewsletter | Nathan Barry |
Packy McCormick Founder | Not Boring Not yet in the directory | Not Boring Capital | McCormick raised the $8M Not Boring Capital Fund I over three months in 2021, when the newsletter had 60,238 subscribers, and wrote that there was no fund without its readers. Fund III followed in February 2023 at $30M. | Newsletter | Not Boring |
Tyler Denk Co-founder and CEO | Big Desk Energy | beehiiv | Passed 30,000 subscribers in its first six months (July 2024) and more than 120,000 by November 2025. beehiiv, the newsletter platform Denk writes about from the inside, reached about $30M in annualised revenue by mid-2025 on Sacra's estimate. | Newsletter | Creator Spotlight |
Figures are as reported by the linked source on the date above. Subscriber counts are the founder's own or a named publication's; revenue and fund sizes are as the founder or the press reported them, and third-party revenue estimates are labelled as estimates. A row marked Not yet in the directory is sourced but has no channel page of its own until I add it.
What the founder-led channels have in common
- Built in-house
- 27
- Founder-led
- 2
- Acquired
- 8
Founder-led is the smallest of the three origins in the directory, at 2 of the 37 channels against 27 built in-house and 8 acquired. That is partly the tag being strict (a company show with a founder host is Built) and partly that the founders who do this well tend to be running small companies that have not yet reached the directory, which is why 4 of the 6 rows above are sourced here first and added to the directory second. Newsletter is the format that dominates, in 4 of 6 rows.
The outcome the channel produced falls into three kinds. The first is pipeline. Open Source CEO feeds Athyna, and the beehiiv case study puts the attributable share at up to 17%. The second is distribution for a product the founder also sells. Big Desk Energy is written on beehiiv about building beehiiv, Nathan Barry built ConvertKit in public for the readers who tested it, and Adam Robinson calls LinkedIn RB2B's only distribution channel. The third is capital. Not Boring and The Twenty Minute VC each became the deal flow and the LP introductions for a fund, $8M and $30M in Packy McCormick's case, $140M and then $400M in Harry Stebbings'.
The order of events splits the table in half. For Barry, McCormick and Stebbings the audience came first and the company was built into it: a blog with a paying readership before ConvertKit existed, a newsletter about fifteen months old when Fund I closed, a podcast five years old when the first fund launched. For Denk, Kerr and Robinson the company came first and the founder's channel was added to it, which is the version most operating founders reading this are choosing between. Both halves reached figures that a brand-built channel of the same age rarely does, and in every row the masthead is a person's name.
Questions this table answers
Which founder-led newsletters actually grew a company?
Four founder-led newsletters in this table have a documented company outcome. Tyler Denk's Big Desk Energy passed 120,000 subscribers while beehiiv reached about $30M in annualised revenue. Bill Kerr's Open Source CEO reached 400,000 subscribers and is credited with up to 17% of Athyna's pipeline. Nathan Barry's blog readers watched him build ConvertKit, now Kit, to an estimated $43M ARR. Packy McCormick's Not Boring raised the $8M Not Boring Capital Fund I in 2021 and a $30M Fund III in 2023. Harry Stebbings' podcast and Adam Robinson's LinkedIn feed sit alongside them because the mechanism is the same.
Sources: Creator Spotlight, 20 November 2025, Tyler Denk, 4 July 2024, Sacra on beehiiv, beehiiv, 30 April 2026, Nathan Barry, 4 February 2014, Sacra on Kit, Not Boring, 12 July 2021, Not Boring, 15 February 2023, Forbes, 15 October 2024.
What counts as founder-led in the Owned Media Directory?
Founder-led, in the Owned Media Directory, means the channel is published under the founder's own name and voice and the company benefits by association. Big Desk Energy is Tyler Denk's newsletter, not beehiiv's. A company show that happens to be hosted by a founder, like Stripe's Cheeky Pint with John Collison, is tagged Built, because Stripe would keep it if he stepped back. The directory currently tags 2 channels founder-led.
The full definition, with the Built and Acquired tags beside it, is on the origins section of the explainer.
Is there a database of founder-led newsletters that grew a brand?
Yes. This page is the Owned Media Directory's list of founder-led channels with a sourced growth outcome next to each one, and the Founder-led origin filter on the channel feed shows the current directory entries. Platform case studies and individual teardowns go deeper on one newsletter at a time; this table is for comparing several side by side, with the company that grew named on every row and a link to where each figure came from.
Know a founder-led channel that is missing?
The bar is the same as every row above: a channel under the founder's own name, a company that benefited, and a public source for what it reached. If you know one, send it over with the link to that source and it will be added with the citation.