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

What this episode covers

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 Park 7:16 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 letter 10:05 The newsletter industry in 2017 13:05 Working as a young newsletter startup out of a room in NYU 14:41 Morning Brew’s ideal customer and how that definition has evolved over time 18:12 Having readers get super pi**ed at them 18:45 Creating a political newsletter 20:18 “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 growth 26:19 Main reasons for Morning Brew’s subscriber count going from 100k to 1.5 million in the 2018/19 period 27:01 The importance of Morning Brew having its own in-house referral system 29:40 How Morning Brew manages to get 25% of its signups from its referral program 32:29 Capitalising on momentum, as Alex Lieberman discussed 34:24 How Morning Brew launched the Emerging Tech newsletter 37:18 The importance of having a strong online following like Alex Lieberman & Austin Rief 41:44 Checks & balances 42:49 Becoming Managing Editor of Morning Brew 44:23 Maintaining a close knit working culture 45:43 When Neal felt that they had created a great product with the newsletter 47:59 Staying relevant 49:35 Retaining talent staff 51:40 Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic 53:01 The Essentials 54:02 Impact of Morning Brew’s reported $75 million acquisition by Business Insider 54:35 Creating the podcast arm of Morning Brew: Business Casual & Founder’s Journal 56:23 Building in public 59:39 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