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Nathan May

Nathan May is the founder of The Feed Media, a newsletter growth agency he started in February 2024 that scaled to roughly $1M ARR in 10.5 months with around 1,000-1,500 invite-only newsletter subscribers. The agency runs paid Meta ads for newsletter operators spending $50K-$500K/month — clients include Arnold Schwarzenegger’s newsletter, Tyler Denk, Jesse Pucci, The Rundown, The Points Guy, beehiiv’s flagship newsletters, and previously The Neuron, which his team grew from 150K to 500K subscribers over 17 months before its January 2025 acquisition by TechnologyAdvice. Across his client base, Nathan’s team has driven close to 4 million newsletter subscribers in 18 months. Before The Feed, he built Block by Block (custom Minecraft maps for YouTubers) at age 14-15, did consulting at BCG, and helped build Apex, a $15-20M mobile-app acquisition portfolio where he discovered newsletters through two Singaporean indie founders running a $12M/year app and newsletter business. He sold a small crypto newsletter (Nifty Nest) to The Milk Road, runs the invite-only Newsletter Growth Memo, and co-runs the Newsletter Accelerator with beehiiv. He almost acquired The Neuron in early 2025 — lost the bid, then turned the loss into newsletter content, and the winning party became both a subscriber and a client.

Key Patterns

  • He counts his actual buyers (not his audience) and works backward from a finite list of named humans
  • He prioritizes subscriber quality over CPL because cheap subs erode sponsor revenue downstream
  • He gives away playbooks publicly — including failures — because trust is the bottleneck in B2B services
  • He refuses to delegate writing because the founder’s voice is the actual leverage
  • He sets explicit kill criteria ($15K, 3-6 months) before starting any new newsletter idea
  • He builds in public from losses, not just wins, and converts lost deals into content

Background and Origin

From BCG and Mobile Apps to Newsletters via Two Singaporeans — The Block by Block → BCG → Apex → newsletters path, and the two Singaporean indie founders who flipped his thinking

Newsletter Strategy

The 600 Decision-Makers Map — He counted ~600 actual buyers across newsletter companies and reached them by name instead of running a funnel The “Mind If I Add You?” LinkedIn DM — The exact LinkedIn outreach script that got Industry Dive, Morning Brew, and beehiiv CEOs into a private newsletter The Welcome Section That Builds Status — Naming new heavy-hitter subscribers in every issue as a retention mechanic Free Stuff Better Than Their Paid Stuff — Open-sourcing real numbers and client playbooks as the highest-converting B2B content Never Delegate the Writing — The founder’s words are the leverage; delegating to a content team breaks the asset

Quality Beats Cheap CPL - 4-5x Engagement Lift — Subscribers from higher-cost ads engage 4-5x more; measure CPL + open + CTR per cohort, not lowest CPL Let the Customer Be the Copywriter — Mining Reddit, organic social, competitor ads, and internal first-party data for ad hooks The Neuron - $1.80 Cheap Subs to Acquisition Target — The flagship turnaround case: cheap subs replaced with a quality-cost framework; CTRs doubled in two months

Business Model and Strategy

The Media Mullet - Free Up Front, High-LTV Out Back — Ad-supported newsletter in front, high-LTV community/product/agency in back First Question Is Monetization, Not Subscribers — Pick the model and the kill criteria before chasing subscribers Why Paid Newsletters Are Really, Really Hard — The four niches where paid subscriptions work, and why ads + back-end usually wins Niche Within a Niche - The Wet-Dog-Food Agency — The 25-employee dog-food agency: niche deeper than feels comfortable Almost Bought The Neuron - Lost the Bid — Lost the bid for the asset he’d grown, wrote the playbook publicly, and the winning party became a client

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