We need to talk

*Special Announcement* [The Hustle] [Mon, Jan 16] Dear Hustle reader, We’ve just raised a seed round from some great investors and [are inviting you to invest as well]. Hold on - who are you and where’s my news? Let’s take a step back. This is Sam, CEO of The Hustle. Typically this would be John, Kendall, and Lindsey sending the business news you need to get you through the day. But it’s technically a holiday, they’re off, and I’ve taken the wheel to tell you something that’s important and concerns you. How we turned our little project into a big business We launched The Hustle daily email 9 months ago. The goal was simple: give our community high-quality business news and create a trustworthy brand so people could be informed and make better decisions throughout their day. Since then, our readership (and team) has swelled. The project John and I were tinkering on has quickly become a 10-person company with 200,000+ daily users (aka you), meaningful revenue, substantial growth and a vision to build a massive company. Now, although The Hustle started with us creating [funny content] for our friends, we’ve since expanded our community a bit. In fact, there are many of you who don’t even know us. Sure, you get your news from us, but here’s our background: - After selling our last business, John and I host a conference called [Hustle Con] (Winter, 2015). - We spread the word about Hustle Con by creating [content]. It works. 500+ people pay money to come (Spring, 2015). - After reading that the average CNN and Fox News viewer is [in their 60’s], we use our conference profits along with cash from a small angel round and launch The Hustle, a Vice meets business content blog (Fall, 2015). - Predicting that the whole “chasing pageviews to make money” thing would no longer be a sustainable business model and terrible user experience, [we switch] to a daily email (April, 2016). Everything improves: numbers, user experience, and our excitement working on the product. - Thanks to email advertising and hosting conferences, we are able to hire more people for sales, editorial, tech, and events. [Say no more, I’m in] Why raise outside funding? Good question. If you’re the average user then you’re in your 20’s or 30’s, live in a big city, and have a fantastic job in tech, media, or finance and are climbing up the ranks. Each morning (or afternoon, depending on where you live) we have your attention and trust for 10 minutes. And as we’ve seen with the whole fake news thing recently, earning the trust and attention from smart and high achieving young people is tough (and extremely valuable). In our eyes, we’ve got something more than just a simple newsletter and events business, but a fast growing community of people who are notoriously tough to win over (young and smart professionals). That’s why we’ve raised funding - to capitalize on our community growth/engagement, put fuel on the fire, and release even more products to solve more problems throughout your day. [Burn, baby, burn] OK, what’re the details? We’ve already raised enough money from a few Silicon Valley investors to give us solid runway, but since most of our current investors found us because they were users and because many of you have asked to invest, we thought it’d be fun to open up a small portion of the funding round to you, our community. To do that, we’re using [SeedInvest], a crowdfunding platform that lets the general public invest in startups like ours. This means you can now join our current investors. The entire investor list can be found on our SeedInvest profile page, but they include: Tim Chen and Jacob Gibson (founders of NerdWallet), Leo Resig (founder of TheChive), Tucker Max (author), Matthew Brimer (founder of General Assembly), David Nemetz (co-founder of Bleacher Report), Social Starts (media vc fund), TransMedia Capital (media vc fund), Ramit Sethi (founder IWillTeachYoutoBeRich.com) and more. [Insert your name here] The not-so-fine print Unlike private seed-stage investing, which is relatively casual, SeedInvest has a few rules to protect potential investors. One of the biggest rules says that the same information available to one potential investor available to every potential investor. In other words, I, or anyone at our company, can’t privately answer questions about our business during the fundraising process. No emails, texts, or phone calls. Instead, you can comment or ask questions on our SeedInvest profile and I will answer it publically. Also, and this is a big one, we need to make this perfectly clear: early stage startup investing is extremely risky. There’s a disclosure on SeedInvest that explains this, as well as one at the bottom of the email, but we want to reiterate that. [Mo risk, mo reward] Let’s make magic happen There’s obviously still more details that you need. That’s what SeedInvest is for. To get the entire picture of our business, vision, current investors, and to see a nifty video explaining the opportunity, please click the button below: [Let's do this →] Your normal news will resume tomorrow. Hasta manana, Sam, founder of The Hustle [@thehustledaily] *Disclaimer: Hustle Con Media, Inc. ("The Hustle") is offering securities under Regulation CF through SI Securities, LLC ("SI Securities"). The company has filed a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its offering, a copy of which may be obtained here [. This Company's profile and accompanying offering materials may contain forward-looking statements and information relating to, among other things, the Company, its business plan and strategy, and its industry. These statements reflect management's current views with respect to future events based on information currently available and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as they are meant for illustrative purposes and they do not represent guarantees of future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements, all of which cannot be made. Moreover, no person or entity assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of forward-looking statements, and is under no duty to update any such statements to conform them to actual results. [SUBSCRIBE] [JOBS] [ADVERTISE] [AMBASSADORS] [EVENTS] You opted in by [signing up], entering a [giveaway], or through [divine intervention]. [1381 9TH AVENUE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, UNITED STATES] • [415.506.7210] Never wanna hear from us again? Break our hearts and [unsubscribe].