Ep 68: Creating Content for 3+ Million Subscribers at Morning Brew | Neal Freyman (Managing Editor, Morning Brew)

Neal Freyman is the Managing Editor at Morning Brew, a new media company that provides informative and digestive business news to over 3 million subscribers. He oversees Morning Brew’s flagship product - a daily newsletter, as well as the weekend light Roast edition and native advertisements. The Morning Brew happens to be one of my favourite newsletters so I was excited to dive into the behind-the-scenes with Neal!Highlights:4:43 Studying at the University of Maryland College Park7:16 Teaching geography and urban studies 8:07 Applying to work at Morning Brew as a writer (and being rejected!)9:00 Sending a nice rejection letter10:05 The newsletter industry in 201713:05 Working as a young newsletter startup out of a room in NYU14:41 Morning Brew’s ideal customer and how that definition has evolved over time18:12 Having readers get super pi**ed at them18:45 Creating a political newsletter20:18 “Write, grow and sell” as the tactic for Morning Brew’s explosive growth from 2016-2019 22:51 Writing continuously for 5 years 24:24 Milestones that contributed to Morning Brew’s growth26:19 Main reasons for Morning Brew’s subscriber count going from 100k to 1.5 million in the 2018/19 period27:01 The importance of Morning Brew having its own in-house referral system29:40 How Morning Brew manages to get 25% of its signups from its referral program32:29 Capitalising on momentum, as Alex Lieberman discussed34:24 How Morning Brew launched the Emerging Tech newsletter37:18 The importance of having a strong online following like Alex Lieberman & Austin Rief41:44 Checks & balances42:49 Becoming Managing Editor of Morning Brew44:23 Maintaining a close knit working culture45:43 When Neal felt that they had created a great product with the newsletter47:59 Staying relevant49:35 Retaining talent staff51:40 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic53:01 The Essentials54:02 Impact of Morning Brew’s reported $75 million acquisition by Business Insider54:35 Creating the podcast arm of Morning Brew: Business Casual & Founder’s Journal56:23 Building in public59:39 Entering the education space with the MBA Accelerator📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/68       💌 Sign up for the weekly STIMY newsletter: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605 🪙 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sothisismywhy