Hello Creators

In today’s edition, we are going to dive deep into Alex Lieberman’s journey into selling his newsletter for over $75 Million within just 5 years.

10-second Context :

Alex Lieberman started Morning Brew, a business newsletter, out of his college dorm room and ended up selling it for $75 Million just 5 years later.

Here’s how he did it 👇

Identifying the problem :

Alex was a finance major studying at the University of Michigan when he stumbled upon a problem.

Being from the wall-street background, he understood the importance of following business news. But there was a slight problem: Alex found most news sources to be boring and difficult to read, especially for college folks.

Acting on it :

To solve this problem, Alex starts writing "Market Corner"a PDF newsletter of daily business news to his collegemates.

Seeing Alex do it, his friend Austin Rief joins hands with him and spends months on fine tuning the newsletter.

Getting Serious :

The newsletter grows quickly and starts seeing traction, so in 2015, they rebrand it as "Morning Brew" highlighting the morning schedule of the newsletter.

Just a year later, Alex who was working at Morgan Stanley, quits his job to pursue Morning Brew full time. And after a few months, Austin, inspired by a message on a fortune cookie(you read that right) follows Alex and joins him full time.

By 2017, they raised $750,000 in a seed round from friends and family and reach 100,000+ susbscribers with 4 team members working full time.

The 'M' Hits :

In late 2018, just within a year, the newsletter subscribers grow by 10X and hits 1 Million + subscribers mark.

And within the next 2 years, they turn 5 and have 2 Million + newsletter subscribers.

The Acquisition :

The deal works out! In 2020, Insider, Inc. buys a majority stake in Morning Brew for roughly ~$75 Million making it the biggest ever newsletter publication acquisition.

The Lesson :

Today, morning brew's email is read by over 2 Million people daily! And hit roughly $20 Million in yearly revenue.

In just 5 years, Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief turned Morning Brew into a company worth $75 Million.

And this happened because of the sheer patience and belief put into just an email newsletter.

That's the power newsletter hold!

And…That’s a Wrap!

That’s all for this week.

We will see you next Tuesday with some more newsletter goodness.

— Sayan & Pratistha