
How Morning Brew grew to 2.5M subscribers in 5 years ☕
Here are the early growth tactics used to reach 20M+ revenue in 2021
A thread👇👇

Current outlets like the Wall Street Journal lacked the high level roundup that most young people needed to quickly stay informed and not put them to sleep
At 20 years old, Alex created a PDF newsletter (originally called the Market Corner) and sent it to 45 friends and family. They then got their first 300 subscribers by putting out flyers and speaking at lectures to fellow students at Michigan University
Referrals account for 30% of their total subscribers today. This component was key to accelerating their growth flywheel.
They have a section at the bottom every newsletter called “share the brew”, which takes the readers to the referral program hub.

They also made it easy to share right away via link, email, or social media

Once they signed up, Morning Brew sent an email reminding them of their reward progress (designed to encourage more referrals, maintaining the viral loop)


They used enticing email subject lines that got noticed, while showcasing the brand's quirky personality.
Their copywriting was key to their success, leading to a daily open rate of 45% (15% -25% considered “good” in most industries)

They sent emails to 4 groups of readers with different subject lines (but not all readers, a smaller portion), and whichever one had the highest open rate was used for the remaining (majority) of followers.
Their content was perfectly catered to their younger audience.
They gave quick rundowns of current events, breaking down content into bite sized chunks to not feel overwhelming. Students were tired of too much business jargon. It solved real problems
- $75M valuation
- Acquired by Business Insider
Keys to success:
- Finding a unique niche and solving a problem
- Created content people loved and relied on
- Referral system with clear rewards and tracking
- A/B testing Copywriting
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Matt Mochary has been CEO coach to @naval, the founders of OpenAI, Notion, Rippling, Robinhood, Coinbase, Reddit, Plaid, Flexport, Opendoor, partners at Sequoia, YC, Benchmark, and many others.
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇
The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
He also open-sourced his entire curriculum, templates and all. Here's a link 👇

The Mochary Method Curriculum ➔ https://t.co/A8J51IzYhz
My recent conversation with @mattmochary where we talk about fear, anger, innovation, how to lay people off well, and his coaching practice ➔
Also in podcast form ➔
For more from Matt, buy this book
💪 And we're down to the last 48 hours until the biggest live-streamed startup event hosted by @thepatwalls & @shipstreams kicks off!
With this, let's get motivated with some curated readings & posts by fellow #24hrstartup participants & indie makers. Check them out below!
✍️ Andrew Parrish wrote - "Why I'm Participating in the 24 Hour Startup Challenge".
@makersup's takeaway - Makers love possibilities, the joy of building. Any aspiring maker should experience the end of lurking on forums & reading @wip's to-dos.
Read:
👩💻 @anthilemoon created a list of @women_make_ members participating in the #24hrstartup challenge. Do let her know if she missed anyone!
More at: https://t.co/zYKVZEq8aq
😺 We can't forget one of the key platforms in shipping indie, can we, @ProductHunt?
Check out @ProductHunt's guide to launching at: https://t.co/VB6WgGx6sa.
In addition, it would be wise to prepare for the launch. Fine tune your assets and post at
🚢 Well, we definitely can't leave out the man behind all of this, @thepatwalls!
Launching isn't easy, but know what you'll be facing even before coding. Check out @thepatwalls' "words of shipping" at:
With this, let's get motivated with some curated readings & posts by fellow #24hrstartup participants & indie makers. Check them out below!
✍️ Andrew Parrish wrote - "Why I'm Participating in the 24 Hour Startup Challenge".
@makersup's takeaway - Makers love possibilities, the joy of building. Any aspiring maker should experience the end of lurking on forums & reading @wip's to-dos.
Read:
👩💻 @anthilemoon created a list of @women_make_ members participating in the #24hrstartup challenge. Do let her know if she missed anyone!
More at: https://t.co/zYKVZEq8aq

Creating a list of @women_make_ members participating in the #24hrstartup challenge this weekend \u2013 please let me know if I missed anyone! \U0001f469\u200d\U0001f4bb #womenmake pic.twitter.com/Kh7O7fKv7h
— \U0001d400\U0001d427\U0001d427\U0001d41e-\U0001d40b\U0001d41a\U0001d42e\U0001d42b\U0001d41e \U0001d40b\U0001d41e \U0001d402\U0001d42e\U0001d427\U0001d41f\U0001d41f (@anthilemoon) November 14, 2018
😺 We can't forget one of the key platforms in shipping indie, can we, @ProductHunt?
Check out @ProductHunt's guide to launching at: https://t.co/VB6WgGx6sa.
In addition, it would be wise to prepare for the launch. Fine tune your assets and post at
🚢 Well, we definitely can't leave out the man behind all of this, @thepatwalls!
Launching isn't easy, but know what you'll be facing even before coding. Check out @thepatwalls' "words of shipping" at:
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Following @BAUDEGS I have experienced hateful and propagandist tweets time after time. I have been shocked that an academic community would be so reckless with their publications. So I did some research.
The question is:
Is this an official account for Bahcesehir Uni (Bau)?
Bahcesehir Uni, BAU has an official website https://t.co/ztzX6uj34V which links to their social media, leading to their Twitter account @Bahcesehir
BAU’s official Twitter account
BAU has many departments, which all have separate accounts. Nowhere among them did I find @BAUDEGS
@BAUOrganization @ApplyBAU @adayBAU @BAUAlumniCenter @bahcesehirfbe @baufens @CyprusBau @bauiisbf @bauglobal @bahcesehirebe @BAUintBatumi @BAUiletisim @BAUSaglik @bauebf @TIPBAU
Nowhere among them was @BAUDEGS to find
The question is:
Is this an official account for Bahcesehir Uni (Bau)?

Bahcesehir Uni, BAU has an official website https://t.co/ztzX6uj34V which links to their social media, leading to their Twitter account @Bahcesehir
BAU’s official Twitter account

BAU has many departments, which all have separate accounts. Nowhere among them did I find @BAUDEGS
@BAUOrganization @ApplyBAU @adayBAU @BAUAlumniCenter @bahcesehirfbe @baufens @CyprusBau @bauiisbf @bauglobal @bahcesehirebe @BAUintBatumi @BAUiletisim @BAUSaglik @bauebf @TIPBAU
Nowhere among them was @BAUDEGS to find
