These 2 Michigan University students founded one of the most popular business newsletter companies.
Alex & Austin made the news look cool with Morning Brew.
In just 7 years, Morning Brew got:
- $50M in annual revenue
- 4M+ subscribers
Breakdown of how they did it🧵
Morning Brew started in 2015.
In 7 years, it evolved into a Media Company:
- Sold a major stake to Insider for ~$75M
- Hit 100K subs in just 2 yrs
- Launched 9 Newsletters
- Multiple Top Business Podcasts
Before this, Alex was working at Morgan Stanley and managed to write for Morning Brew part-time.
When Morning Brew showed results, he pursued it full-time.
Austin joined full-time in the fall of 2016.
The growth they got was insane!
- Gained 900K subs in a single year in 2018.
- Currently have 1M Instagram followers.
- Went from 2 to 250 employees.
Alex & Austin changed the game.
Let’s dive into the Main Strategies they used👇
Strategy #1: Five-Star Content
Alex found the gap. Old school finance news was dull and boring.
So he published news in a concise, modern, laid-back & easy-to-digest way. The aim was simple - to give busy college folks an overview w/o reading word-to-word in a fun way!
Be it the headline, the pictures, or the storytelling -they make sure you have fun...
Here is a glimpse for you👇
The newsletter started as just a side hustle for fun.
Alex started Market Corner, a PDF version of the Newsletter to help finance students with business news.
The first 300 subs came through campus flyers.
Austin was just one of the readers & wanted to join as he had ideas on how the newsletter could evolve and grow.
Both expanded it to 1k subs by attending biz clubs- Austin manually walked with a laptop & asked for emails.
Alex’s hack for writers 📝 :
i) Chase trends
ii) Killer Visuals infographics
iii) Perfect your Content Strategy
iv) Be super careful with each word
v) Adapt to market shifts & audience whims
They are diving deep into each sector!
Now have 9 freaking newsletters😳
- Money with Katie
- Healthcare Brew
- Marketing Brew
- Money Scoop
- Retail Brew
- Tech Brew
- CFO Brew
- HR Brew
- IT Brew
Strategy #2: Unique Referral Program
Morning Brew's main marketing was from "word of mouth” - accounting for 30% of subscribers.
However, the founders discovered a killer method - A Killer Referral Program.
Gifting free swags to readers who brought more subscribers!
They made referral cool and intuitive:
- Quick Copy Link
- Multiple sharing on Socials.
This strategy brought them 25% of their 1.5M active readers.
Even offered giveaways for MacBooks 💻
College students went mad!
Strategy #3: Mastering Social Media
Apart from all the newsletter and geeky stuff, the Morning Brew team is pretty active on Social Media too.
They've posted behind-the-scenes parody entertainment videos related to Finance.👇
Morning Brew mastered the art of Content Repurposing.
They cleverly repackaged their newsletter content for their social media platforms, delivering a more tailored experience to their audience.
Took full advantage of Twitter / Instagram to promote their podcasts too...
Strategy #4: Constant Innovation
As I said, Morning Brew is a media biz now.
Evolved & expanded as per trends by understanding the audience.
Currently running 5 podcasts:
- Impostors
- Founder's Journal
- Our Future Podcast
- The Morning Brew Daily
- The Money with Katie Show
MB also has 5 YouTube channels - "Good Work" is the most subscribed.
Good Work's tagline "Fake Business News" is super hilarious!
Their combined subscriber count is 500K+ and some videos like this one 👇 even went viral.
This has to be the funniest take on Blackstone ever!😂
One of Alex's other super powers is in the world of personal branding.
He launched the "60 Seconds Startup Challenge" and it's not only gaining a ton of attention but it's also attracting great sponsors.
Why?
Alex understands the nuances of his audience and people eat this up.
Alex & Austin still play a key role in Morning Brew and still hold some stake in businesses. The duo went from running a PDF newsletter to a running a multi million-dollar brand.
Here is Alex revealing what worked *you might be surprised*👇
Alright. That's a wrap! Enjoyed the breakdown?
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