Austin Rief is the Co-founder & CEO of Morning Brew, building the Wall Street Journal for the next generation. They started the company in 2017, and grew it to 6 million subscribers and $70 million in revenue in six years.
We talk through the journey starting Morning Brew with Co-founder Alex Lieberman while students at the University of Michigan, and Austin's playbook for starting a new media company from scratch today. We get into the creator economy, early stage investing, ad based business models, being the first advertiser on Instagram Stories, advice for hiring, and his secret for sourcing remote talent in Sri Lanka.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(03:42) How to start a media company from scratch today
(13:01) Future of the creator economy is niche products
(14:42) Opportunity in B2B media today
(17:05) Reflecting on investing during ZIRP
(21:30) Why its starting to feel like 2021 again
(23:16) Talking VC portfolio math
(27:09) Starting Morning Brew with Wall Street interview prep
(33:35) Being so dumb that they never pivoted from being a newsletter
(35:29) How newsletter business models works
(38:32) Morning Brew’s first viral Instagram post
(40:37) Acquiring subscribers for two cents on Instagram Stories
(42:29) Nik Sharma’s poor mans paid ads strategy
(44:32) Landing Discover as their first big sponsor
(46:06) How agencies and ad buying works
(49:49) Why sales roles are so hard to hire for
(53:04) Importance of offsheet references
(57:43) Sourcing talent in Sri Lanka with Oceans
(01:04:23) Austin and Alex’s unique co-founder dynamics
(01:07:16) Dental plans, rotisserie chickens, and company laptops
(01:10:00) Building WSJ for the next generation
Referenced:
Morning Brew: https://www.morningbrew.com
Try Oceans: https://www.oceanstalent.com/
Kevin Espiritu episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FefGL-qPzDo
Craig Fuller episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPPqO8eBq2M
Forbes article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2019/02/07/morning-brew/
Follow Austin:
Twitter: https://x.com/austin_rief
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-rief/
Newsletter: https://www.theaustinbrief.com/
Follow Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
