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The Stretch x beehiiv: How 5M Followers Became 100K Email Subscribers in 8 Months
Why Movement By David Chose Email To Build Depth, Ownership, And Revenue
Kanishka & Taylor Cromwell
November 03, 2025
When a creator has over 5 million YouTube subscribers and close to 3 million Instagram followers, most people would tell you to keep doing what's working. Keep making videos. Keep chasing views. Keep building on those platforms.
But David Thurin, the founder of Movement By David, saw things differently.
He wanted a space he fully owned, where he could go deeper than short-form content ever could. A place for structured routines, educational guides, and two-way conversations with their most engaged audience members.
That place became The Stretch, a weekly newsletter dedicated to flexibility, mobility, and long-term health. In under a year, the publication has already grown past 100,000 subscribers, all powered by beehiiv’s growth tools, carefully crafted lead magnets, and a clear sense of mission.
This is the story of how David did it, why email became his most powerful channel, and what other creators can learn from building something they actually own.
Table of Contents
At a Glance
Movement By David had the reach that many creators dream of-5 million YouTube subscribers. 3 million Instagram followers. You might ask, Why even invest time and resources into building a newsletter?
The reason, as so many other creators have realized, is that social media reach- even when you have millions of followers- doesn’t equal depth or ownership. Both of which you need to build a sustainable business.
There were three critical limits he noticed:
Short-form videos were perfect for quick hits and attracting new followers, but they didn’t allow space for detailed protocols or full explanations.
Social visibility was unreliable and unpredictable. Algorithm changes or platform shifts could dramatically cut distribution overnight.
Comments from the community were lively, but mostly surface-level. They wanted genuine conversations, feedback loops, and long-term engagement.
By adding a newsletter as an extension to their social media presence, he created an owned space where he could share structured routines, educational content, and deepen relationships with his most engaged followers.
Why beehiiv?
When it came time to launch, Thurin wanted a platform designed for growth, built by people who understood what it meant to scale a publication. beehiiv stood out because it was created by the same team that built Morning Brew’s growth engine, scaling that newsletter to millions of subscribers.
beehiiv offered the infrastructure and creator-focused tools to match his ambition: frictionless signups, built-in earning options, and the analytics needed to refine content week after week.
By April 2025 - just eight months after launch (!) - The Stretch had grown past 100,000 subscribers. This growth largely came from targeted lead magnets and consistent promotion across YouTube and Instagram.
Thurin credits beehiiv for how easy it’s been to tap into this growth:
Why Trust Me
Taylor Cromwell is a writer and strategist focused on the creator economy and solo entrepreneurship. Through her newsletter Creator Diaries and client work with companies like beehiiv, HubSpot, and Stan, she shares insights, case studies, and interviews that show how creators build sustainable businesses.
How They Funnel Followers to Subscribers
The Stretch’s subscriber growth was engineered through a clear funnel strategy that turned millions of social media viewers into loyal email readers. As any creator would know, it’s more strategic than saying “subscribe to my newsletter” in your bio.
Lead Magnets That Solve Real Problems
The single biggest driver of their newsletter sign-ups has been free eBooks focused on specific problem areas: hips, shoulders, hamstrings, and spine.
Each eBook provides a structured training protocol that readers can follow right away. This specificity made the offer irresistible.
Someone struggling with tight hips didn’t just get generic advice — they received a proven plan for their exact pain point. After receiving valuable, specific tips, diving deeper into the content system feels like the natural next step.
The promotion strategy for ebooks was simple but consistent: mention the free guides in YouTube videos, link them in Instagram captions and Stories, and use clear CTAs that funneled viewers directly into the newsletter.
Clear, Consistent Calls-To-Action
Thurin understood that attention spans are short. So he designed the CTAs to be quick and direct: “Join The Stretch and get your free hips protocol today.”
This combination of specific lead magnets, frictionless signup, and consistent calls-to-action built the foundation of The Stretch’s first 100,000 subscribers, and it continues to fuel its explosive growth today.
A Deep Dive Into Their Content Strategy
Educational content has always been at the core of the Movement By David brand, and that ethos carries over to The Stretch.
Thurin quickly learned that what works on social doesn’t always translate to email - and vice versa. Each channel plays a different role.
On YouTube and Instagram, the goal is attention. That means:
Motivational shorts to inspire action in 30 seconds or less
Quick demos that show one stretch or movement in bite-sized form
Entertainment-driven clips that ride trends and keep the feed lively
But once someone enters the inbox, the content levels up. Subscribers have raised their hand, signaling they want depth, structure, and takeaways they can apply right away.
“Readers come in with the intent to learn and apply, so our flexibility guides and follow-along advice shine here. On social, content can be more varied, such as motivational posts, quick demos, or entertainment-driven shorts. In email, people want depth and takeaways they can use,” Thurin said.
Weekly Cadence and Sync With YouTube
The Stretch publishes once a week, and each issue often ties back to the Movement By David YouTube channel.
This creates a natural loop between platforms: viewers discover the newsletter through social content, then return to videos for demonstrations and extended lessons.
P.S. beehiiv makes it incredibly easy to sync your YouTube videos with your newsletter for a more seamless content experience.
Hybrid Format That Balances Depth and Variety
The team experimented with long essays, short tips, and standalone guides. What proved most effective was a hybrid format anchored by one strong narrative topic, followed by four consistent content buckets:
Narrative: a deep dive on one key idea or mindset shift
Movement of the Day: a practical stretch with clear instructions
Stretch With Me: a follow-along video
Your Voice Matters: polls, Q&As, and reader input
Today’s Challenge: a small action readers can take immediately
Myth-Busting: a series of debunking common misconceptions about flexibility, mobility, and overall health.
This rhythm keeps the newsletter both predictable and fresh. Readers know what to expect, but there’s always a new takeaway or perspective.
Co-Creation With the Audience
Polls are one of Thurin’s favorite feedback loops.
By embedding simple surveys in every issue, he learns directly what readers want to see next. These insights shape the editorial calendar, ensuring each edition reflects subscriber priorities.
This style of co-creation also helps readers feel like collaborators instead of consumers.
What You Can Learn From Their Earning & Revenue Strategy
From the beginning, The Stretch treated the newsletter as a direct revenue engine instead of a side project.
Rather than leaning on platform payouts or rushing into sponsorships, Thurin built earnings around what he already did best: premium flexibility and mobility programs.
Some of his top learnings:
Free eBooks funneled readers into paid products like advanced protocols and structured guides. Because subscribers joined specifically to improve flexibility, the upsell felt natural. The alignment between audience intent and product offering kept conversions high.
One of the earliest surprises came when newsletter sales quickly outpaced YouTube AdSense earnings. What started as an experiment soon proved that an owned channel can be more lucrative than platform-dependent payouts, even at scale.
While products remain the core driver, the team plans to layer in sponsorships selectively, working only with partners aligned to their mission. beehiiv’s built-in monetization ecosystem - Ad Network, Boosts, and Paid Subscriptions - offers additional paths as they scale, without requiring new systems.
“Currently, our primary source of monetization is our own products. Our audience is highly aligned with our offerings, so keeping it simple has worked. The wildest part is we haven’t even pursued brand deals yet—everything so far is organic and fully owned,” Thurin said.
By focusing first on products and engagement, The Stretch built a revenue engine that’s both profitable and sustainable, with plenty of room to expand.
Analytics and Measurement
Growth is one thing. Sustaining it is another. The Stretch credits much of their refinement process to beehiiv’s analytics, which give visibility far beyond basic open and click rates.
In the early days, the team tracked opens and clicks like most newsletter operators. But they quickly realized those numbers only told part of the story. The metrics that mattered most were signals of true engagement:
How many readers were voting in polls?
How many replied to share feedback or ask questions?
Which CTAs consistently drove product purchases?
With beehiiv, The Stretch can segment subscribers based on behavior. Beginners who click on “hip mobility” resources can be guided into a starter series, while advanced readers engaging with longer protocols can be offered premium challenges or programs.
This personalization improves the reader experience and increases conversions.
Iterating Through Feedback Loops
Every poll, reply, and purchase creates a feedback loop. Thurin uses these insights to shape upcoming issues, measure what resonates, and refine offers. Engagement rises, feeding more data back into the cycle.
Most importantly, the team reframed success. Instead of asking “What’s our open rate this week?” they now ask:
Are subscribers participating?
Are they sharing wins back with us?
Are they sticking around long enough to become product buyers or advocates?
That shift - from a content distribution lens to a community health lens - aligned the newsletter strategy with the broader mission: helping people move better, feel better, and stay engaged for the long term.
Lessons, Advice, and What’s Next
Early on, Thurin experimented with multiple directions, trying to be everything at once. Engagement took off when he narrowed his focus to the strongest positioning, flexibility and mobility. This clarity now defines the newsletter’s format, cadence, and growth engine.
His advice for other creators is straightforward:
For The Stretch, the newsletter now sits alongside YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook as a core growth engine, and in many ways, the most reliable one.
What’s Next for The Stretch
Thurin isn’t slowing down. A podcast is in development to expand the conversations that start in the inbox. He’s set an ambitious goal of reaching 500,000 subscribers by the end of 2026, and is preparing to bring on sponsorship partners who align with his mission of helping people move better and live healthier.
The bigger vision is clear: build The Stretch into a media brand that not only educates but also connects people worldwide who care about mobility, flexibility, and long-term health.
If you’re ready to start your own newsletter journey, there’s no better time to begin. The Stretch shows what’s possible when creators combine audience reach with a focused, well-structured newsletter, and beehiiv provides the infrastructure to make it happen.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or already reaching millions, the same principle applies: email gives you depth, ownership, and community in a way no algorithm can.
Start your own newsletter with beehiiv today and turn your audience into a lasting community!
