College Runway Advantage

Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief believe that starting Morning Brew while still in college gave them a significant advantage in building their newsletter business. Unlike competitors who needed immediate revenue, they had a "fake timeline" that allowed them to focus on growth before monetization.

Key Points:

• Origin Story:

  • Started in 2015 when Alex was a senior and Austin was a sophomore at Michigan
  • Initially called "Market Corner" - a PDF attached to an email listserv
  • Evolved from helping students prep for job interviews
  • Identified a need when students said Wall Street Journal was "dry" but necessary

• College Runway Advantage:

  • "We basically had a year and a half to two years of like fake timeline where we didn't have to worry about bringing in revenue"
  • This was a "huge advantage" compared to competitors like The Hustle

• Early Growth Timeline:

  • No revenue in year one (2015-2016)
  • By end of 2017:
    • Reached 100,000 subscribers
    • Generated $300,000 in revenue
    • Finally started taking salaries ($60K each)
    • Made first key hires

• Key Early Hires:

  • Tyler Denk (now CEO of Beehive) as "growth engineer"
  • Michael Schwartz as first writer
  • Neil Freiman who "took the Morning Brew voice to the next level"
  • Focused on "nontraditional hires" for writing positions

• Business Evolution:

  • Inspired by other successful newsletters like theSkimm
  • Used basic spreadsheet models to project growth
  • Raised from 28 individual investors ($2,500-$100,000 checks)
  • Eventually sold to Business Insider for approximately $75 million