Startup newsletters fall into two camps. Most summarize news. A smaller group explains why companies win, how revenue flows, and where the pressure points emerge as growth slows.
Below are some of the best startup newsletters that belong to that second group. They focus on business models, incentives, metrics, and strategy rather than momentum alone. They are especially useful for founders, business operators, investors, and marketers who want to understand how startups actually work under the hood.
1. Revenue Memo
Best for: Clear, practical breakdowns of revenue models and monetization strategy
Revenue Memo focuses on one question most startup content avoids: how companies actually make money.
Each edition breaks down a startup or tech company’s business model from the inside out. Revenue streams, pricing mechanics, cost structures, incentives, and strategic trade-offs are explained in plain language. The emphasis is on fundamentals, not hype or tactics in isolation.
Unlike news-driven newsletters, Revenue Memo is built around durable questions. Where does revenue really come from? What breaks at scale? Which parts of the model matter most to long-term profit? That makes it useful long after a headline fades.
Visit https://www.revenuememo.com/ to subscribe to the Revenue Memo newsletter.
What you’ll learn:
How startups structure and scale revenue
Why certain monetization strategies compound while others stall
Where margins are created, defended, or quietly eroded
Who it’s for: Founders, entrepreneurs, business operators, growth and marketing leaders, and investors who care more about business fundamentals than surface-level tips.
Best for: Product-led growth and execution insights
Lenny’s Newsletter has become one of the most widely read resources in startups, particularly among product and growth teams.
The content focuses on how products are built, improved, and scaled in practice. Topics include onboarding, experimentation, growth loops, org design, and team dynamics. Much of the value comes from translating lived operator experience into repeatable patterns.
While it is product-centric by design, many insights tie directly to retention, expansion, and revenue. For product-led companies, this connection is critical.
What you’ll learn:
How product decisions drive retention and growth
Practical frameworks for experimentation and iteration
How high-performing teams structure product and growth work
Who it’s for: Product managers, founders, and operators building product-led startups who want execution-level guidance, not theory.
3. Mostly Metrics
Best for: SaaS metrics, unit economics, and financial clarity
Mostly Metrics is focused on the numbers that determine whether a SaaS business actually works.
The newsletter breaks down metrics like ARR growth, churn, retention, CAC, LTV, payback periods, and margins. Instead of treating metrics as benchmarks to copy, it explains what they signal about underlying strategy and execution.
This makes it especially valuable for founders moving beyond early growth into scale, where financial discipline starts to matter more than momentum.
What you’ll learn:
How to interpret SaaS metrics in context
Which numbers matter at different stages of growth
Why some “good-looking” metrics hide structural risk
Who it’s for: SaaS founders, operators, and investors who want to make better decisions using financial reality rather than vanity metrics.
4. Platformer
Best for: Understanding platforms, power, and constraints at scale
Platformer focuses on how large technology platforms grow, consolidate power, and collide with regulation, moderation, and public scrutiny.
While not a startup teardown newsletter, it provides essential context for founders building marketplaces, networks, or consumer platforms. Many of the challenges it covers only appear at scale, but they shape strategy far earlier than most teams expect.
Reading Platformer helps founders think beyond early traction and anticipate second-order effects.
What you’ll learn:
How platforms gain and defend power
Where regulation and governance reshape strategy
Why scale introduces new, non-obvious constraints
Who it’s for: Founders, executives, and investors building or backing platform businesses who want to understand long-term structural risk.
5. StrictlyVC
Best for: Staying current on startup and venture activity
StrictlyVC plays a different role than the others on this list. It is fast, concise, and news-driven, covering funding rounds, acquisitions, and shifts in venture capital with minimal commentary.
Its value is situational awareness. While it does not provide deep strategic analysis, it helps readers understand where capital is flowing and how sentiment is shifting across the startup ecosystem.
Paired with deeper newsletters, it rounds out the picture.
What you’ll learn:
Which startups and sectors are attracting capital
How investor behavior is changing
What is happening across the startup market right now
Who it’s for: Busy founders, operators, and investors who want high-signal updates without committing to long reads every day.