Morning Brew

How Alex Lieberman Grew Morning Brew to 2.5M Subscribers & Sold for $75M

Morning Brew is a daily newsletter delivering quick and insightful updates about the global business world.

Monthly Revenue

$4.1M

Score

95 🔥

Founders

Monthly Traffic

2,512,464

Profitable

Yes

Year Started

2017

Customer

B2B & B2C

Revenue Per Visitor

$1.63

Founders

Monthly Traffic

2,512,464

Profitable

Yes

Year Started

2017

Customer

B2B & B2C

Revenue Per Visitor

$1.63

Who is Alex Lieberman?

Alex Lieberman is the co-founder and Executive chairman of Morning Brew, a newsletter that shares informative business news.

Alex, a serial entrepreneur, is a co-founder at Storyarc, a modern executive’s personal media company, and an investor in various startups, including MicroAcquire, Bark Social, and SoleSavy. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

What problem does Morning Brew solve?

Business-minded millennials want to stay updated with the latest news surrounding the business world.

How did Alex come up with the idea for Morning Brew?

Back in 2014, Alex noticed that his college peers lacked knowledge about current business news while he was helping them prepare for interviews. In response, he decided to create a valuable resource for them and launched a daily newsletter called The Market Corner.

Initially, it was in PDF format, but it later evolved into what we now know as Morning Brew.

How did Alex build the initial version of Morning Brew?

In in Fall of 2014, Alex initially introduced the Market Corner as a PDF newsletter and sent it to his email list. Austin, a student, reached out to get involved in building the newsletter.

They built the email list to over 70K subscribers and, in May 2017, raised a $750K note from friends and family to fund and grow their business.

A snapshot of Morning Brew landing page from 2017

What was the growth strategy for Morning Brew and how did they scale?

Referral program Morning Brew runs referral programs, awarding each subscriber for referring a friend. With every successful referral, the subscriber wins a gift hamper. Here is an example tweet announcing the giveaway for each referral:

embed:tweet

Word of Mouth Referrals

To expand his subscriber base, he encouraged early subscribers to provide email addresses of potential new subscribers with their consent. His method of inviting subscriptions through word-of-mouth referrals and adding new subscribers by request laid the groundwork for the newsletter's scaling efforts.

I told them, 'If you have friends or colleagues who you think would enjoy our content, and they give you permission, send me their email addresses. I'll take care of adding them to our list personally. — Alex Lieberman (Source)

What's the pricing strategy for Morning Brew?

Morning brew subscription is free. They make money through advertisements, sponsorships, and partnerships.

Morning Brew Acquisition: How much did Morning Brew sell for and what was the acquisition price?

Morning Brew was acquired by Business Insider for $75M on October 30, 2020.

Morning Brew co-founders Alex and Austin were excited about “Axel Springer’s history of welcoming entrepreneurs with open arms and empowering them to build their businesses independently."

Here is what Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE, had to say about the acquisition.

Discover Similar Business Ideas Like Morning Brew

How I Anonymously Launched A Newsletter While Keeping My Day Job [$3K/Month]

BowTiedOpossum founder shares how he grew his anonymous paid newsletter to $3k per month in 9 months using Twitter as his main acquisition strategy.

$6K Monthly Revenue

Read by 11,047 founders

How I Started A $3K/Month Blog Writing About Motherhood

This case study follows a blogger who started making over $3,000 per month within a year and a half of launching her blog about motherhood, and shares tips on diversifying income streams, networking, and prioritizing spending.

$3K Monthly Revenue

Read by 7,650 founders