Launch House joins the startup content boom with a newsletter
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Launch House, which runs in-person and virtual programs for startup founders, is debuting the first product of its media ambitions: an email newsletter, dubbed Homescreen, geared towards entrepreneurs.
Why it matters: Producing high-quality content remains a popular and powerful marketing tactic in the startup world, with everyone from VCs like Andreessen Horowitz to vendors like Stripe partaking.
- Last year, marketing software company HubSpot acquired The Hustle, a media company that also publishes newsletters geared at entrepreneurs and small business owners.
- And while Launch House hasn't commented on it yet, a January SEC filing suggests it's raising a venture fund of its own.
What they're saying: "The goal is to inspire more people to do entrepreneurial things [like] join startups, start companies," explains Launch House co-founder Brett Goldstein, echoing much of what other players in startup-land have said of their own media ventures.
Details: The newsletter, which will be published three times a week to start, will initially aggregate and curate news and content, Toby Howell, who joined Launch House from Morning Brew, tells Axios.
- It will be a combination of relevant news, cultural bits like viral tweets from industry insiders, and analysis, with the goal of "keeping founders specifically up to date with what's going on in the tech ecosystem," he says.
- And with Launch House's main product already being a community — entrepreneurs who join its programs can access everything from in-person events to its virtual network — it plans to create a referral program that lets select subscribers to the newsletter have access to some of these same perks.
- The company has been testing its newsletter internally and within its close network, and says that it has seen an open rate of 60% among its 670 subscribers.
Between the lines: "We keep alluding to a broader vision... there's going to be a platform for founders to tell their stories organically," says Howell.
- The company shied away from revealing more details, though Howell said he plans to eventually expand his team beyond his current staff of two part-time helpers.
The bottom line: The startup world may be irritated at the press for focusing on negative tech news, but it's not denying the power of good content.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note that Toby Howell previously worked at Morning Brew (not Homebrew).
