1:16:06How To Grow A $75M Newsletter Business | Morning Brew Co-Founder (#398)
From My First Million · Published Jul 5, 2023 · Watch on YouTube
TL;DR
Morning Brew co-founder Austin Rief describes bootstrapping the newsletter to $75M annual revenue and 250 employees by staying hyper-focused on “write, grow, sell,” tracking open rates daily, and treating competitors as motivation.
Key insights
- The reason Morning Brew didn’t raise venture capital early was that Austin was a sophomore in college and no one would fund him, which forced them to stay bootstrapped and profitable.
- Having an “enemy” (The Hustle) motivated both teams; each morning Alex Lieberman printed out both newsletters and did line-by-line comparisons to improve.
- Newsletters split into three categories: (1) editorial/substack-style long-form, (2) aggregation for scale (e.g., original Morning Brew), (3) “Morning Brew for X” – niche aggregation with a distinct t
Want the full analysis - every claim cited to the second it was said?
This page only shows a teaser. Sign up to chat with the complete, cited breakdown of "How To Grow A $75M Newsletter Business | Morning Brew Co-Founder (#398)".