How GRIT Capital Migrated 360,000 Subscribers from Substack to beehiiv

Situation

GRIT Capital is a financial media platform founded by former $100M money manager Genevieve Roch-Decter. The company focuses on sharing investment knowledge with the general public through their website, social media, and three newsletters covering stocks, crypto, and finance news weekly.

Led by General Manager Christian Blackwell, GRIT Capital operates three successful newsletters with a combined audience of over 360,000 subscribers. Their flagship newsletter, Rate of Return, reaches 245,000 investors with weekly finance tips. They also publish GRIT Alpha, providing stock picks to 75,000 investors, and Rich Habits, which delivers financial news to 45,000 readers.

The team recently faced a major challenge: migrating their entire subscriber base from Substack to a new platform that would better support their growing operation and collaborative workflow.

Growth Highlights

• Built three finance newsletters with a combined 360,000+ subscriber base
• Rate of Return newsletter reaches 245,000 investors weekly
• Maintained consistently high open and click-through rates
• Rich Habits podcast rose to become a Top 10 Business Podcast on Spotify with 6+ million downloads

Challenge

After starting on Patreon and later moving to Substack, the GRIT Capital team began experiencing limitations with their platform. As their audience grew to the size of a small city, they needed more robust tools for team collaboration, content creation, and monetization.

Blackwell and his team, including co-author Austin Hankwitz, wanted a platform that would make their media more accessible to their audience. They needed features that could support multiple contributors working on the same newsletters and provide advanced growth and monetization tools.

The biggest challenge was ensuring a smooth migration of 360,000+ subscribers without disrupting their established audience or damaging their high engagement rates.

Key Challenges

• Managing the technical complexity of migrating 360,000+ subscribers
• Finding a platform that better supports team collaboration
• Maintaining high engagement during and after the platform transition
• Needing more advanced tools for growth and monetization

Solution

After evaluating their options, the GRIT Capital team selected beehiiv as their new newsletter platform. Blackwell described beehiiv as "a Swiss Army knife for newsletters" with "a lot of tools all in one place," making it an ideal solution for their needs.

The team executed a careful migration from Substack to beehiiv, transferring all three newsletters: Rate of Return (245,000 subscribers), GRIT Alpha (75,000 subscribers), and Rich Habits (45,000 subscribers). They maintained their consistent publishing schedule throughout the transition to keep engagement high.

Blackwell and his team quickly adapted to beehiiv's editor, utilizing shortcuts for adding images, block quotes, and external links to streamline their content creation process. They also began exploring beehiiv's advanced features for growth and monetization, including Boosts and the recommendation system.

Results

Since migrating to beehiiv, GRIT Capital has optimized their workflow with better team collaboration features. Blackwell highlighted how beehiiv functions "like a Google Docs for newsletters," making it easier for multiple team members to work together on content.

The team now monetizes their newsletters through two primary channels: paid premium subscriptions and sponsored advertisements. Their VIP version of Rate of Return generates revenue at $1 per day per subscriber, offering additional content including weekly newsletters, digital courses, monthly livestreams, and portfolio access.

Looking ahead to 2025, GRIT Capital plans to focus on growing both free and paid subscribers across their newsletters while filling more ad slots. They're particularly interested in leveraging beehiiv's ad network to simplify the monetization process as they manage multiple properties.

Key Takeaways for Newsletter Creators

• Consistency is critical—maintain a regular publishing schedule to build audience trust
• Structure and attention to detail matter for professional newsletter production
• Multiple sets of eyes on content helps catch errors before publishing
• Responsive subscriber support builds community and addresses issues quickly
• Focus on simplicity in your content and pursue topics you're passionate about