How Four Global Affairs Experts Started, Scaled, and Monetized “International Intrigue”

Wouldn't it be great if you could stay on top of world events in just a few minutes a day — and it wasn't boring or confusing?

That's precisely what the team of global affairs experts who developed the International Intrigue newsletter set out to create. And with their daily five-minute briefings, they've hit the mark.

International Intrigue is the brainchild of former diplomats who understand how geopolitics, business, and technology intersect. The daily newsletter goes beyond headlines by providing context and analysis of current events.

Here are the key takeaways from our interview:

• How they turned a "hobby" blog into a real media business

• The approach they used to create focus within a large niche (content strategy)

• Driving growth with 2 key tactics (recommendations & referral program)

• Monetization with sponsorships (package deals)

Let's get into it.

How International Intrigue Got Started

According to Aine Stapleton, part of the founding team at Intrigue, the publication got its start because the creators were "running out of reasons not to" during the pandemic.

"I was doing my master's program in London at the time," she told us, "as was John, one of the co-founders of Intrigue. Both of us come from an international relations and global affairs background. I studied it. John was a diplomat. His friend Helen was a diplomat who had decided to leave the Foreign Service."

"John originally decided to start writing the weekly Substack in London lockdown,” she explains. “As I said, he was sitting at home with a good idea and nothing else to do. The goal was to speak [about foreign affairs] in a very casual manner — to use colloquial terms and not take any assumed knowledge, so you don't have to be an academic to get it."

People responded immediately. Within a few months, the publication had 2,000 subscribers and received a great response from readers. The friends started discussing creating a business around the newsletter. They knew there was a demand for more accessible sources of information based on their own experience. "Most of us were falling asleep reading The Economist, and, really, who turns on the daily news on TV anymore?"

"I think everyone [in newsletter publishing] looks to Morning Brew as the gold standard," says Stapleton, "but what does a global affairs Morning Brew look like? It's basically the idea that you can communicate big issues in a very simple way and include everyone in the conversation."

The team tries to keep their material readable and lighthearted, although their subject matter doesn't always lend itself to humor. "With global affairs, you can't joke about wars or hunger issues, but you can at least try and throw in some of the good stuff happening in the world."

Finding the Right Content Strategy

The daily version of International Intrigue officially launched in October 2021, and the newsletter has been on an upward growth trajectory ever since — although there were leaps that gave the creators some significant clues about the right direction for their voice and content.

"We've never lost more than we gained in a month — we've had consistent growth. But finding what fit was a struggle. We started out wanting to cover the whole world, really inclusively, and not focus on hot-button issues. But then last year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, we gained something crazy, like 6,000 subscribers in 48 hours, because we were doing nearly live coverage."

It was a real lightbulb moment. "That was when we realized that people do want to know about the hot-button issues, but in an easy-to-understand way. All the feedback we were getting then was, "Hey, keep covering top headlines, but cover it in your own way." So that was when we made a switch, which has really accelerated our growth. Staying with more of what's relevant, but keeping our tone."

The subscriber base is currently at around 20,000 and recently hit a strong stride. Many people would consider that a very healthy list for a publication that's been around just over a year, but Stapleton points out that it can be hard to keep perspective when you constantly hear about creators who've gone viral and shown explosive growth.

Working with Sponsors

Still, she keeps a balanced view. "One of the things we're really proud of is that we clean our list a lot, and we have really high engagement. Going forward, we want to make sure we're not selling an unengaged audience. [Sponsors and advertisers are always] hitting people who are really smart, are really engaged, and are likely to click on your ad."

Intrigue is currently supported by sponsorships. The sponsors who appear at the top of the newsletter each day are the most significant source of revenue. Figuring out how to price ads has been a big learning curve for Stapleton, who handles the advertising sales — but one of the secrets to her success is to remain flexible.

"I'm always willing to work with partners and talk to them," she says. She's happy to listen to her advertisers' needs and try to create packages that work for them, especially with steady sponsors who come back quarterly.

If you'd like to see how the ads look in the newsletter, subscribe here:

Generating Growth

Stapleton cites working with other newsletters as one of International Intrigue's most successful growth strategies.

"One of the great things about beehiiv is that, since it's a home of newsletters, you can find other newsletters easily."

In addition, Intrigue has worked with a referral program since its launch in October 2021 — a process that got much easier after they transitioned to the beehiiv platform.

"We started with a different platform, and when we decided to move over to beehiiv, that was an essential part of our transition. We wanted to keep it all within the beehiiv dashboard. It just saves so many headaches, having all the tools in one place.”

Regarding the beehiiv referral program, “That continues to go really well. I like how customizable it is in the sense that I can just plug it into the newsletter very easily but change the backend all the time."

Stapleton has found a way to customize the referral program, using incentives that work with her audience. "We've realized that merch — physical products — means nothing to our readers. They just want more content. Using the referral program in beehiiv, you can automate [additional content delivery]. I think that's exciting because, from my perspective, it's much easier than me manually going and giving people access to new pieces of content."

beehiiv: Making it Easier to Publish

The transition to beehiiv was not an impulse decision for the Intrigue team. They wanted a platform that would offer everything they needed to grow a serious business. They engaged the beehiiv team in a lengthy conversation over several months to make sure all the tools they wanted would be available to them. "And so far they have been," says Stapleton. "And if they weren't there, they've been continually released. I feel like every two weeks I’m getting a product drop email!"

Moving Intrigue to the beehiiv platform has been a good move, according to Stapleton. She cites having everything under one roof as her favorite part of the platform, but she also enjoys working with a smaller company because she's been able to suggest features and communicate her needs to the beehiiv team.

"The customization of the newsletter has been great — that kind of goes under the 'one roof' thing because before, we were patching it together, designing our newsletter in one app and uploading it to another. Also, the pace of product advancement — the ad network [beehiiv is launching] is another thing that will be huge for us, in terms of making it easier to hit publish every day."

Keep an eye on this newsletter. This is only just the beginning.

If you'd like to keep up with global affairs in a few minutes each day, check out International Intrigue. Or check out recent issues focused on topics like the Egyptian economy, semiconductor subsidies in China, or the tensions between Serbia and Kosovo.