E63 – The Merge Origin Story

It started with an email to 300 fighter pilots.

Joey Arora turns the tables on Mike "Pako" Benitez to get the full origin story of The Merge.

Mike spent 25 years on active duty between the Marine Corps and Air Force, flew the F-15E Strike Eagle, and graduated from the Air Force Weapons School. During COVID in 2020, he saw the defense world had nothing like the newsletters the startup world lived on. So he built one.

Six years later, The Merge runs three days a week, with a premium tier and a podcast.

Topics include:
• Writing op-eds on active duty
• Marine Corps enlisted to Air Force weapons systems officer
• The first newsletter in November 2020
• How Save Rounds and On the Radar were born
• The three audiences Mike writes for
• Merge Premium and the Thursday deep dive
• From newsletter survey to podcast

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Links
Sign up for the newsletter!themerge.co
Support us on Patreon!patreon.com/the_merge
Mike LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/mike-benitez
Joey LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/joeyarora

Follow us on...
LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/themerge
Instagraminstagram.com/merge_newsletter
Xx.com/MergeNewsletter
Facebookfacebook.com/themergenews
Websitethemerge.co

Chapters
00:39 intro
01:37 getting into writing
02:45 a newsletter for defense
03:26 the first email
04:12 fun as the driver
04:48 how "on the radar" started
05:37 Mike's military career
06:21 Marine Corps to Strike Eagle
07:26 why it's called The Merge
08:35 editorial philosophy
09:33 the birth of Save Rounds
10:04 the three audiences
12:23 Merge Premium
14:51 the sixth anniversary
15:27 why the podcast exists
16:45 what's next
17:32 outro

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