How Joe Pulizzi built and sold The Tilt, a newsletter and conference business geared toward creators

The Business of Content

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When Joe Pulizzi launched The Tilt in 2021, he already had a pretty good idea of how to build a successful media company. Back in 2017, he had sold his previous media startup, The Content Marketing Institute, to one of the world’s largest event conglomerates.

Joe ran The Tilt with a very similar playbook – first starting with a weekly newsletter, and then expanding into an in-person conference called The Content Entrepreneur Expo, or CEX. The venture was so successful that he sold it to Lulu Press in 2023.

In our interview, Joe talked about his newsletter growth strategy, what it takes to put on a successful conference, and why he prefers the term “content entrepreneur” instead of “creator.”