Milk Road
Milk Road was a daily cryptocurrency newsletter co-founded by Shaan Puri and Ben Levy in February 2022.1 The newsletter explained crypto and Web3 news in conversational English, publishing five days a week on the Beehiiv email platform.34 It grew from zero subscribers to 250,000 in ten months, reached a $1 million annual revenue run rate within six months through sponsorship advertising, and sold to Bitfo -- a cryptocurrency media company operating EthereumPrice.org and BitcoinPrice.com -- in December 2022 for a reported eight-figure sum.11013 The name was a play on the Silk Road, the defunct darknet marketplace.2
Founding
The idea for Milk Road originated in late December 2021, when Ben Levy sent a cold direct message on Twitter to Tyler Denk, co-founder and CEO of Beehiiv, about launching a crypto newsletter.23 Levy and Puri had worked together previously and were looking for a new project in a subject area they both followed closely.1 Puri had spent years watching his My First Million co-host Sam Parr build The Hustle, a daily business newsletter that HubSpot acquired in February 2021 for approximately $27 million, and saw an opportunity to apply the same playbook -- short, witty, daily dispatches for a specific audience -- to cryptocurrency.19
Puri described the logic on My First Million shortly after launch: the newsletter would be "a smart friend showing you one or two cool things a day that's going on in crypto and explaining it in simple, plain-Jane English."1 He later distilled the founding thesis into a tweet: "We took 2 unique abilities and combined them -- great copywriting and knowledge about crypto. There are maybe 5 people in the world that can do it. That's why it worked."10
The earliest version of Milk Road was a Google Doc that Puri and Levy emailed to friends for feedback.16 The logo was a quick design made in Canva.12 They spent $2,000 to acquire the milkroad.com domain and built the newsletter on Beehiiv, which provided email delivery, a hosted website, built-in referral tracking, audience polls, and analytics.13
Growth
Within three weeks of the February 2022 launch, Milk Road had more than 16,000 subscribers, a rate of over 750 new readers per day.14 Puri's existing audience -- over 100,000 Twitter followers and the My First Million podcast listenership -- provided the initial distribution that most new newsletters lack.4 He openly documented Milk Road's construction on both platforms, driving curiosity and early signups.4
In spring 2022, the founders deposited $1 million of their own money into a public cryptocurrency wallet so readers could track the investment in real time.12 The value dropped 70 percent during the crypto market crash that followed, but the stunt attracted more attention than it cost.1 Puri tweeted afterward: "Lesson: crazy stunts are good. But wear a helmet in case you crash."1 He also made a self-deprecating video about losing money on the Luna collapse, which went viral and accelerated signups further.9
Paid social media advertising drove the largest share of subscriber growth.5 Growth marketer Matt McGarry ran Facebook campaigns that brought in more than 150,000 subscribers at an average cost of $1.00 to $1.30 per acquisition.52 The total Facebook ad spend was approximately $180,750.2 Two creative formats outperformed all others: meme-style ads and social proof ads citing the subscriber count.24 TikTok campaigns ran alongside Facebook, and in at least one cohort produced higher open rates and lower unsubscribe rates.24
The referral program was deliberately simple.4 Readers who referred a single subscriber received a PDF report written by Levy titled "What 12 Crypto Whales Are Betting On."14 No additional tiers, no physical merchandise -- one referral, one digital reward, fully automated through Beehiiv.4 Beehiiv's cross-promotion recommendation network provided additional organic growth; after a reader subscribed to any participating newsletter, Milk Road appeared as a suggested follow.34 The newsletter's referral system accounted for approximately five to ten percent of total growth.8
By mid-2022 -- roughly six months after launch -- Milk Road had crossed 100,000 subscribers, maintained a 45 percent open rate (well above the industry standard of approximately 34 percent), and reached a $1 million annual revenue run rate from sponsorship advertising.11011 At 100,000 subscribers, the team commissioned a brand refresh and introduced "the Milk Man," a winking milk-carton mascot that became the newsletter's visual identity.64
Each issue also included an embedded poll, a Beehiiv feature, that gave readers a one-click way to share opinions on that day's content.14 The feedback helped the team adjust topics and tone in near real time.1
Content and team
Milk Road published weekday mornings, with each issue designed as a five-minute read covering one or two crypto stories.48 The tone was casual and meme-heavy -- closer to Barstool Sports than to a financial wire service.8 Levy described the editorial approach in an April 2022 interview: "We're not offering analysis on daily price action and instead are looking at the future of the space."8 The team deliberately avoided investment advice, declining reader questions about which coins to buy.8
Puri wrote many of the early issues himself.4 As the newsletter grew, the team expanded to include a dedicated writer (identified in Puri's tweets as Diego), a social media manager (Billy the Kid), and an ad salesperson (Wouter), who sold over $250,000 in advertising within his first 60 days.96 The SEO-optimized website published each issue as a web page; within the first few months, Milk Road's site generated over 175,000 Google search impressions and approximately 50,000 clicks from non-branded queries.42
Sale to Bitfo
In late 2022, Puri messaged Levy on Slack: "How much would you sell this for right now?"17 Levy responded, "I don't know. Do you want to sell it?" and Puri pushed for a number.1 The two discovered they had independently arrived at the same figure.1
On the same day, Levy had begun a separate conversation with Kendall Saville and Michael Wittmeyer, co-founders of Bitfo, about a potential partnership to drive referral subscriptions.1 Bitfo operated a portfolio of cryptocurrency websites -- including EthereumPrice.org, BitcoinPrice.com, and PlaytoEarn.online -- and had been considering building a "NerdWallet for crypto" to complement those properties.114 Saville and Wittmeyer realized that Milk Road, which was already landing in their inboxes daily, offered exactly the audience and brand they would have needed to build from scratch.1
Wittmeyer explained the strategic logic on My First Million: "Google has really moved toward rewarding brands that users are actually searching for. Milk Road is being searched hundreds of times a day. And that's such an indicator to Google that humans are interested in this brand."7
The partnership conversation escalated into acquisition talks.1 Negotiations were complicated by a noncompete clause Wittmeyer held from a previous project involving gambling content; Milk Road had at one point hosted a gambling-related sponsor, and the issue surfaced during due diligence.1 Saville later tweeted that the deal nearly fell through twice.14
The acquisition closed in December 2022, ten months after Milk Road launched.1 The price was not publicly disclosed, but the deal included equity in Bitfo.1 Investor Suleman Ali -- who had been the first guest on My First Million episode one -- tweeted: "Congrats to my boys @ShaanVP & @benmlevy on selling their company @MilkRoadDaily! 8 figure outcome in 1 year!"132
Puri announced the sale on Twitter: "I just sold my 2nd company! (The Milk Road) super happy. -- grew from zero to 250,000 readers in less than 1 year -- self funded & profitable."6 Levy's own tweet reflected the pair's operating philosophy: "Our goal has always been to have the most fun, no matter what the price of BTC is."12
Puri explained his decision to sell on the podcast: "I'm good at starting things. I'm good at finding the 'something' from nothing. But taking the 'something' and just fine-tuning it day after day, making it better -- which is where most of the value is created in business -- is not something that I get super excited about."71
Post-acquisition
After the deal closed, Puri joined Bitfo's board of directors while Levy continued running the Milk Road newsletter.19 Puri retained a minority equity stake in Milk Road through his Bitfo shares.9 Bitfo expanded the brand beyond the daily email, launching a resource website with crypto guides, calculators, and tools.19 The newsletter's tagline evolved to "Insights that help you spot today's opportunity for tomorrow's wealth at the intersection of Macro, Crypto and AI."11
Milk Road was Puri's second company sale, after the 2019 acquisition of Bebo by Amazon's Twitch for up to $25 million.6 Both exits trace through the Bebo diaspora: Puri's path from Monkey Inferno CEO to Bebo CEO to Twitch executive to My First Million host to newsletter founder describes one branch of the network that connects several nodes of the Founders, Inc. ecosystem.1