As media businesses throughout the globe were imploding due to the Covid crisis, Morning Brew co-founders Alex Lieberman and Austin Reif were finalising an acquisition for their media company to Business Insider for over $75 million at the age of 28.
Morning Brew Co-founders Alex Lieberman (left) and Austin Reif (right)
What adds to their accomplishment is that the University of Michigan alumni had only raised $750,000 throughout the history of their business, meaning they’ll pocket most of that acquisition amount for themselves.
What initially started as a light-hearted business newsletter ended up growing into a multidimensional media operation with 60 employees.
Where They Were At
At the time, the company flagship newsletter “Morning Brew” had 2.5 million subscribers and their other newsletters - Retail Brew, Emerging Tech, Marketing Brew, and The Essentials had a total of 3 million subscribers.
Their flagship (daily) newsletter was at a 40% open rate. That means they were getting 1 million unique opens per day.
The company had just done $20 million in revenue with $6 million in profit and was exploring different channels of monetization besides their go-to advertisement and sponsorship model to drive those numbers up.
What’s happened since then?
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Last numbers that we have are from 2021 where Morning Brew did $50 million in revenue (remember how they were exploring other monetization channels?) with a valuation of $200 million.
Their podcast arm is doing really well and in January 2023, Morning Brew announced that they were acquiring Our Future - a digital media startup that produces short-form business video content and helps large companies thrive on emerging platforms.
The move signals a shift towards short-form video content. The young founders have realised the power of everybody under the age of 25 being hooked on Reels of TikToks.
What does the story tell us?
Despite what may seem like a recent resurgence, email newsletters have been around since 1977. However, over the years, they’ve morphed from a simple medium to deliver messages to your audience into a lucrative type of media company.
With top newsletters like The Hustle, Morning Brew, The Milk Road, and Newsette getting acquired at eight-figure valuations, these deals seem to be a part of an overarching trend.
As people realise how lucrative this space is, you’re going to see more stories like The Milk Road which went from not existing to getting acquired for 8 figures within 10 months (not a typo) and a larger and larger fight for your inboxes.
For now, please stop giving away your email IDs in LinkedIn comment sections, people are making generational wealth off them.