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.

Q: Do you collect much feedback from your audience right now?

Moe Hayek: I think we haven't been doing much in email besides adding a poll asking “Hey, what's your opinion on today's email?” But we get a lot of feedback on other platforms.

We’re more focused on having people share our work, or letting us know what they think, if they feel the need to do so unprompted. We’ll listen and we answer our replies, but we don’t want to get caught in a loop of always asking for feedback. Especially at a very early stage. Our focus is on adding as much value as possible right now or free, in our style, and then letting the market decide what they consider worth reading.

Q: Very impressive. Seems like everything is going in the right direction. Did you draw inspiration from any other media brands along the way?

Moe Hayek: Yeah, that's pretty easy to me. Honestly, I would say Morning Brew off the top of my head. They said “hey, we want to send out free newsletters to educate people about finance and keep them updated with the space.” Great story with them doing this as college students and scaling to what it is now.

We’re similar in that we follow the same model, but for Web3. They started off as a newsletter, and now they’re a huge media company. We’re starting as a media company and are doing pretty much everything from day one.

Q: So then, what do goals look like for SeedPhrase Daily in 2023?

Moe Hayek: For 2023, our goals are:

• 500,000 email subscribers.

• Help 1000s of people get onboarded to crypto with a positive ROI

• Showing our consumer Web3 capabilities, and what everyday habits can look like thanks to the technology

The last one is especially exciting. For example, someone who reads 30 emails in the last 60 days would get a “top reader” badge.

We're going to be announcing more on this later in 2023, and I think it will be a big differentiator for us. It’s very exciting, and I think adding these capabilities as a media company will take our gamification to the next level.

Q: Half a million subscribers is a big goal. How did you go about setting that number?

Moe Hayek: The number was set just because I've scaled previous brands, specifically on a DTC side, pretty quickly. So I know how to add fuel to a fire.

My last six months have been focused on building the right system and a strong operation to allow us to really accelerate our growth. Now that we know the system and data are sound, the research is good, and all the foundations are in place, we can dial in and get in front of more people. Now that it’s all clearly going in the right direction, it’s time to pour on the fuel and accelerate.

Q: Amazing! Do you have any advice to share with entrepreneurs/creators looking to reach the same stage?

Moe Hayek: Yeah, absolutely. I think for any entrepreneur that's trying to get into the creator space, they should probably focus on one thing and make sure to avoid distractions. That's going to help them monetize or grow. It’s easy for us to say “hey, we're doing the podcast and a newsletter, etc,” but that’s because we’re a team.

If you’re starting off as a side hustle, you probably only want to focus on one thing. Once you’ve done that and found a rhythm, you would then look to build systems around it. Systems are essential to make these things work.

Q: How do you think a new creator should approach finding their voice in the beginning?

Moe Hayek: That's a great question. It's been a struggle for us, too. I think the best piece of advice I can offer here is to not care too much about the numbers at first. Focusing too much on open rates and engagement before you have a dozen posts under your belt (ideally more) will just skew your thinking, especially when finding your voice.

First priority is to best represent what’s in your mind in the email. Refine it a bit, and make sure it comes out in the way that best reflects you. Maybe you like sarcastic jokes, memes, or movie references. Not being afraid to include those things because “the numbers might not look good,” is key. There’s some courage required here, but you can’t find your voice unless you’re willing to put yourself out there.

Q: Now that you’ve found your voice, what’s helped you build the business most? How has beehiiv been a part of this?

Moe Hayek: The number one thing I like about beehiiv is customer support. It’s honestly great, especially for beginners. Getting answers same-day is so key when I submit tickets because the whole newsletter runs on beehiiv. Delays getting answers delay so many other things.

The recommendation feature has also been a favorite. I wasn’t really focused on growth as I mentioned, but the cross-collaboration has been critical. Being able to reach out and build with other newsletters is cool. Once we started recommendations, we grew over 20-30% in subscribers. Segmentation has also given us useful insight.

Q: What’s the best way for someone to learn more about what you’re doing?

Moe Hayek: Best way is to subscribe and send us an email. I read every email that comes in. Like, no exaggeration. So I would do that, and then obviously the second one would be our social media. Youtube, TikTok, Instagram.

Darwin Binesh: Thank you so much Moe! Great insight.

Wrapping Up:

Thank you for reading this week’s beehiiv Creator Spotlight.

Be sure to subscribe to SeedPhrase Daily. Checkout more content @seedphrasedaily on all socials, and subscribe to Get All The Latest News And Updates From Crypto world In Under 5 Minutes every day.

Or, check out these articles to learn more:

• 🧠 Must Read: Market Analysis Post FTX

• 🧠 Nike, Adidas, Messi, & Playstation are Web3 Bulls.

• 🧠 Cefi is the problem. Defi will prevail.

Special thanks to Moe Hayek for joining!

See you next week for the next Creator Spotlight!