The Pomp Podcast
Austin Rief, Co-Founder of Morning Brew: How The Morning Brew Increased Revenue 5X In One Year
- Austin Rief co-founded Morning Brew in 2015 with Alex Lieberman, scaling from 300 subscribers to nearly 2 million through grassroots college ambassador programs and word-of-mouth growth.
- The founders deliberately raised only $750,000 in convertible debt in 2017 and haven't raised since, allowing them to stay profitable and avoid pressure to chase unsustainable growth targets.
- Morning Brew expanded beyond the core newsletter into Emerging Tech Brew, Retail Brew, Business Casual podcast, and The Turnout (politics newsletter) to serve readers across different verticals and vertically integrated reader engagement.
- The company treats advertising as native brand partnerships rather than programmatic, maintaining editorial integrity by declining sponsors that don't align with brand values.
- Future paid products will focus on career development and professional education rather than news, leveraging the "100 true fans" model where customers pay for genuine value extraction, not just brand loyalty.