8 ms·

Morning Brew went from college newsletter to $75M in 5 years

136 points by smalera 6y ago

aarondia 6y ago
They were the first newsletter that my friends and coworkers consistently read, although I never got hooked. They speak in the tone that appeals to college students, and on the topics that they are all starting careers in.
burlesona 6y ago
It's a little light and snarky for my taste, but if you see it as a thin slice of "what people are talking about" more so than "what happened," then it makes sense. If you read this every day it basically hands you clever hot takes on current events you can use to sound smart with your friends. Not hard to see the appeal. Personally, for thin-sliced news that's more about "what happened," I prefer Axios :)
- whydoineedone 6y ago
  that's actually spot on. I used the newsletter to impress my MBA friends a couple of times but felt like a fraud.
- ghego1 6y ago
  I also really like Axios, always very informative
- ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
  I agree about the tone, but the 5 minute daily read to get some idea about things that happened the day before is really appealing. I get to have at least some idea what happened without having to scroll past the same topic repeated for the thousandth time or some sort of clickbait title. I looked for some other "5 minute news" alternatives when I first found it, and didn't really find anything in the same vein.
- nicbou 6y ago
  Then you would love Wikipedia's current events page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
  - gibspaulding 6y ago
    This is great! I've been passively looking for a concise list of world events without any sports for a while now. We'll see how it works long term, but I was able to get the daily list to show up in my RSS feed with this: https://patrick.cloke.us/posts/2017/05/26/rss-feeds-for-wikipedia-current-events-and-nhl-news/ https://patrick.cloke.us/posts/2017/05/26/rss-feeds-for-wiki...
ericmay 6y ago
I need to figure out how to scale my newsletter to this point :)
- eli 6y ago
  The trick is to sell the ads yourself directly to marketers who want to reach your audience without networks or middlemen.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    It looks like the trick is to balance direct marketing with other income streams, so that no advertiser feels like they have leverage over your content. Linus Tech Tips has merchandise in part because it means that their single biggest income source is not a sponsor. Swag might not be your thing, but the message I got was pretty clear: make sure you can always walk away from any advertiser, either because they're a small part of your revenue, or you're living below your means.
    - eli 6y ago
      Sure, like any business it's a bad idea to rely on only one or two big customers. I think people don't give readers enough credit. They can tell if you start compromise your coverage for an advertiser. And you'll never be able to recruit and retain quality journalists if they get even a whiff that they won't be editorially independent.
  - cavalcade119 6y ago
    How does one find these marketers?
    - Swizec 6y ago
      Sales and lots of business development. I know people running ad-monetized newsletters who have entire sales teams just for this. Kinda like how magazines work. Because really a newsletter is just a digital magazine.
cavalcade119 6y ago
A video recently went viral of David Bowie in 1999 saying that the internet was going to be the future. We're at a similar place with newsletters - a frontier that is on the verge of exploding. I run Thinking About Things [0], a simple newsletter that is a single link every other day to something interesting. The response has been astonishing - it's gotten thousands of subscribers in a single year with no marketing. It started as a way to send articles to family and friends and yet the simple act of triage and curation seems to be something that many find valuable. It's impossible to underestimate the degree to which curation is becoming the differentiator in the digital economy; those who can be trusted to provide valuable content from the fire hose of all that's available on the internet will become the new information brokers. [1] thinking-about-things.com
- Swizec 6y ago
  > those who can be trusted to provide valuable content from the fire hose of all that's available on the internet will become the new information brokers Isn’t this what journalism was supposed to do before they discovered money?
  - sjg007 6y ago
    We are currently in an unbundling phase and probably an extreme version of it. Too much choice so we go back to 3 TV channels and you watch what's on that day.
- wunderflix 6y ago
  We share the same passion and world view :) I definitely believe too that curation will become increasingly important. I started my own daily newsletter [1] about startups, tech trends and business ideas just recently. Sending out a daily newsletter is much tougher than I would have imagined... But at the same time it’s really rewarding because your basically shipping something every day :) [1] www.shoto.io
- wortelefant 6y ago
  "Curation is becoming the differentiator" is not only relevant for newsletters, but also for readers. To paraphrase Cal Newport, in a distracted world, the ability to focus and to singletask is a "superpower". Curation is a service (newsletters etc), but also a skill.
neronero 6y ago
Very interesting, but the guy sounds as if he's choking on dick.
- vecter 6y ago
  Hi and welcome to Hacker News! There's no need for that kind of vulgarity. Setting aside whether or not that's a meaningful topic of discussion, there are other ways to get the point across.
  - hellbannedguy 6y ago
    Why do I feel this flagged statement might be the most honest? I will never know though?
alex_g 6y ago
I thought the newsletter trend was a bit ridiculous, and then I started writing one. Writing a blog feels a bit like throwing messages into the wind, and tweeting sometimes feels like trying to start a conversation in the middle of a concert. Writing a newsletter and knowing there's a group of people who signed on to hear directly what you have to say feels so much more personal.
- codetrotter 6y ago
  I find the idea of a newsletter compelling. But I never read any of the newsletters that I signed up for. So to me it feels like even if I did have people sign up for a newsletter that I’d write, most of the recipients would not be reading it either. Like 98.8% of this hypothetical audience of mine probably would not read the letters I feel like.
  - alex_g 6y ago
    Do you find the idea of writing a newsletter compelling, or the idea of having a successful newsletter compelling? I started my newsletter because I recognized I was constantly thinking/analyzing a specific topic, but not really doing much with that knowledge, and could not find an existing community focused on that topic. I started writing to put into words what I was thinking, and found I really enjoyed writing with an audience in mind, even though I had none. If someone signs up for a newsletter of yours, that is pitched as some sort of original writing, there's a very high chance they're going to read it. If they stop reading, or unsubscribe, you can ask them why, and get valuable feedback so you can improve your writing. You end up with someone interested, or feedback. I see it as a win win. The bigger problem is finding the hypothetical audience!
    - comeonseriously 6y ago
      > Do you find the idea of writing a newsletter compelling, or the idea of having a successful newsletter compelling? Slightly OT, but I often ask people I know, when they're struggling with things like this, "Do you want to be an <x>, or do you want to have been an <x>?", because they're two completely different things.
enobrev 6y ago
This is fairly unrelated, and late enough after this was posted that not many will see this, but it's interesting how marketing works. I fast-forwarded through an ad for Morning Brew after some youtube video the other day and thought to myself that it might be worth looking into. I'd completely forgotten about it until I saw this come up. Haven't even read the article yet, but I have subscribed. Had I seen one without the other, I don't think I would have ever noticed or cared about them - or at least not any time soon. But the two in combination got my email address onto their list. This is also that sort of stat that never shows up in analytics dashboards. I googled it and subscribed. There's no way for them to know that the ad, which I barely watched, along with this bit of PR, which I haven't actually read, was what brought me to them (unless they see it here, I suppose).
- cercatrova 6y ago
  This is well known in psychology, a combination of the mere exposure effect as well as Baader–Meinhof phenomenon (frequency illusion). The latter makes sure you notice again something you've already seen. The former makes you associate that thing to being good, by its mere presence. And as to your first sentence, HN will put newer comments at the top of the comments list in order to get people to see and engage with them (as I've done) :).
- maaaaattttt 6y ago
  I learnt during my studies (can't remember the exact name or details of it) that seeing a product through 7 different channels (print ad, TV commercial, etc.) will leave you under the impression of knowing and thus trusting a product. Of course other factors come into play, but in front of the yogurt aisle for example, (given similar tastes, packaging styles, prices, etc.) you'll be much more likely to buy the one you've heard of through many channels, rather than the one you've barely heard of. Even if you've tasted none before. If somebody recognizes this approach, I'd love to know the name of it Edit: it could be the mere exposure effect mentioned in the other comment, but I'm pretty sure the number of different channels had a play in the process.
FounderBurr 6y ago
Why would someone pay $75 much less $75 million for a site that’s just little blurbs?
- recuter 6y ago
  You need to read the interview the right way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4
chouxbuns 6y ago
I like the idea of morning brew as a way of getting my morning news, but I do find it a bit US centric still. Anyone know of any good UK equivalents?
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
It seems like there's a market here... I envision a future "news email" where stories are curated by AI, where all of the parameters (and I mean absolutely all of the parameters) of that news email are completely user-customizable... I'm sure there are already services like this -- but in my opinion, like a search engine, these services can always be done better, one way or another, in some aspect or some other aspect... In other words -- there's a lot of room in that market...

136 points by smalera 6y ago

They were the first newsletter that my friends and coworkers consistently read, although I never got hooked. They speak in the tone that appeals to college students, and on the topics that they are all starting careers in.

burlesona 6y ago

It's a little light and snarky for my taste, but if you see it as a thin slice of "what people are talking about" more so than "what happened," then it makes sense. If you read this every day it basically hands you clever hot takes on current events you can use to sound smart with your friends. Not hard to see the appeal. Personally, for thin-sliced news that's more about "what happened," I prefer Axios :)

whydoineedone 6y ago
that's actually spot on. I used the newsletter to impress my MBA friends a couple of times but felt like a fraud.
ghego1 6y ago
I also really like Axios, always very informative
ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
I agree about the tone, but the 5 minute daily read to get some idea about things that happened the day before is really appealing. I get to have at least some idea what happened without having to scroll past the same topic repeated for the thousandth time or some sort of clickbait title. I looked for some other "5 minute news" alternatives when I first found it, and didn't really find anything in the same vein.
nicbou 6y ago
Then you would love Wikipedia's current events page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
- gibspaulding 6y ago
  This is great! I've been passively looking for a concise list of world events without any sports for a while now. We'll see how it works long term, but I was able to get the daily list to show up in my RSS feed with this: https://patrick.cloke.us/posts/2017/05/26/rss-feeds-for-wikipedia-current-events-and-nhl-news/ https://patrick.cloke.us/posts/2017/05/26/rss-feeds-for-wiki...

ericmay 6y ago

I need to figure out how to scale my newsletter to this point :)

eli 6y ago
The trick is to sell the ads yourself directly to marketers who want to reach your audience without networks or middlemen.
- hinkley 6y ago
  It looks like the trick is to balance direct marketing with other income streams, so that no advertiser feels like they have leverage over your content. Linus Tech Tips has merchandise in part because it means that their single biggest income source is not a sponsor. Swag might not be your thing, but the message I got was pretty clear: make sure you can always walk away from any advertiser, either because they're a small part of your revenue, or you're living below your means.
  - eli 6y ago
    Sure, like any business it's a bad idea to rely on only one or two big customers. I think people don't give readers enough credit. They can tell if you start compromise your coverage for an advertiser. And you'll never be able to recruit and retain quality journalists if they get even a whiff that they won't be editorially independent.
- cavalcade119 6y ago
  How does one find these marketers?
  - Swizec 6y ago
    Sales and lots of business development. I know people running ad-monetized newsletters who have entire sales teams just for this. Kinda like how magazines work. Because really a newsletter is just a digital magazine.

cavalcade119 6y ago

A video recently went viral of David Bowie in 1999 saying that the internet was going to be the future. We're at a similar place with newsletters - a frontier that is on the verge of exploding. I run Thinking About Things [0], a simple newsletter that is a single link every other day to something interesting. The response has been astonishing - it's gotten thousands of subscribers in a single year with no marketing. It started as a way to send articles to family and friends and yet the simple act of triage and curation seems to be something that many find valuable. It's impossible to underestimate the degree to which curation is becoming the differentiator in the digital economy; those who can be trusted to provide valuable content from the fire hose of all that's available on the internet will become the new information brokers. [1] thinking-about-things.com

Swizec 6y ago
> those who can be trusted to provide valuable content from the fire hose of all that's available on the internet will become the new information brokers Isn’t this what journalism was supposed to do before they discovered money?
- sjg007 6y ago
  We are currently in an unbundling phase and probably an extreme version of it. Too much choice so we go back to 3 TV channels and you watch what's on that day.
wunderflix 6y ago
We share the same passion and world view :) I definitely believe too that curation will become increasingly important. I started my own daily newsletter [1] about startups, tech trends and business ideas just recently. Sending out a daily newsletter is much tougher than I would have imagined... But at the same time it’s really rewarding because your basically shipping something every day :) [1] www.shoto.io
wortelefant 6y ago
"Curation is becoming the differentiator" is not only relevant for newsletters, but also for readers. To paraphrase Cal Newport, in a distracted world, the ability to focus and to singletask is a "superpower". Curation is a service (newsletters etc), but also a skill.

neronero 6y ago

Very interesting, but the guy sounds as if he's choking on dick.

vecter 6y ago
Hi and welcome to Hacker News! There's no need for that kind of vulgarity. Setting aside whether or not that's a meaningful topic of discussion, there are other ways to get the point across.
- hellbannedguy 6y ago
  Why do I feel this flagged statement might be the most honest? I will never know though?

alex_g 6y ago

I thought the newsletter trend was a bit ridiculous, and then I started writing one. Writing a blog feels a bit like throwing messages into the wind, and tweeting sometimes feels like trying to start a conversation in the middle of a concert. Writing a newsletter and knowing there's a group of people who signed on to hear directly what you have to say feels so much more personal.

codetrotter 6y ago
I find the idea of a newsletter compelling. But I never read any of the newsletters that I signed up for. So to me it feels like even if I did have people sign up for a newsletter that I’d write, most of the recipients would not be reading it either. Like 98.8% of this hypothetical audience of mine probably would not read the letters I feel like.
- alex_g 6y ago
  Do you find the idea of writing a newsletter compelling, or the idea of having a successful newsletter compelling? I started my newsletter because I recognized I was constantly thinking/analyzing a specific topic, but not really doing much with that knowledge, and could not find an existing community focused on that topic. I started writing to put into words what I was thinking, and found I really enjoyed writing with an audience in mind, even though I had none. If someone signs up for a newsletter of yours, that is pitched as some sort of original writing, there's a very high chance they're going to read it. If they stop reading, or unsubscribe, you can ask them why, and get valuable feedback so you can improve your writing. You end up with someone interested, or feedback. I see it as a win win. The bigger problem is finding the hypothetical audience!
  - comeonseriously 6y ago
    > Do you find the idea of writing a newsletter compelling, or the idea of having a successful newsletter compelling? Slightly OT, but I often ask people I know, when they're struggling with things like this, "Do you want to be an <x>, or do you want to have been an <x>?", because they're two completely different things.

enobrev 6y ago

This is fairly unrelated, and late enough after this was posted that not many will see this, but it's interesting how marketing works. I fast-forwarded through an ad for Morning Brew after some youtube video the other day and thought to myself that it might be worth looking into. I'd completely forgotten about it until I saw this come up. Haven't even read the article yet, but I have subscribed. Had I seen one without the other, I don't think I would have ever noticed or cared about them - or at least not any time soon. But the two in combination got my email address onto their list. This is also that sort of stat that never shows up in analytics dashboards. I googled it and subscribed. There's no way for them to know that the ad, which I barely watched, along with this bit of PR, which I haven't actually read, was what brought me to them (unless they see it here, I suppose).

cercatrova 6y ago
This is well known in psychology, a combination of the mere exposure effect as well as Baader–Meinhof phenomenon (frequency illusion). The latter makes sure you notice again something you've already seen. The former makes you associate that thing to being good, by its mere presence. And as to your first sentence, HN will put newer comments at the top of the comments list in order to get people to see and engage with them (as I've done) :).
maaaaattttt 6y ago
I learnt during my studies (can't remember the exact name or details of it) that seeing a product through 7 different channels (print ad, TV commercial, etc.) will leave you under the impression of knowing and thus trusting a product. Of course other factors come into play, but in front of the yogurt aisle for example, (given similar tastes, packaging styles, prices, etc.) you'll be much more likely to buy the one you've heard of through many channels, rather than the one you've barely heard of. Even if you've tasted none before. If somebody recognizes this approach, I'd love to know the name of it Edit: it could be the mere exposure effect mentioned in the other comment, but I'm pretty sure the number of different channels had a play in the process.

FounderBurr 6y ago

Why would someone pay $75 much less $75 million for a site that’s just little blurbs?

recuter 6y ago
You need to read the interview the right way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4

chouxbuns 6y ago

I like the idea of morning brew as a way of getting my morning news, but I do find it a bit US centric still. Anyone know of any good UK equivalents?

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

It seems like there's a market here... I envision a future "news email" where stories are curated by AI, where all of the parameters (and I mean absolutely all of the parameters) of that news email are completely user-customizable... I'm sure there are already services like this -- but in my opinion, like a search engine, these services can always be done better, one way or another, in some aspect or some other aspect... In other words -- there's a lot of room in that market...