What happens when you have a knack for telling the news in a fun and engaging way? You found a company that’s worth millions, of course. Meet Alex Lieberman, co-founder of The Morning Brew, a company that, according to CNBC, generated about $50 million in sales in 2021. Yet all of this stems from a college undergraduate being bored in school.
A Business News Roundup With a Difference
It was 2015, and Lieberman, then a senior at the University of Michigan, only had a few more classes to take care of. He already had a position lined up at Morgan Stanley when he left, so he had a bit of time on his hands. So, he decided to start on a personal project.
Many of his classmates would complain about the boring, stodgy news they’d get from the Wall Street Journal, so Lieberman decided to change this. He took the news and gave it an easier-to-read and understand spin. In the space of a few months, he already had more than a dozen subscribers.
Shifting Trajectory On Hitting the Tipping Point
Morning Brew, as he called his newsletter, was on a steady growth pattern for a while. Over time, the revenue he got from his newsletter went from $3 million all the way to $20 million over two years. Lieberman refers to this as the Balloon Effect.
He defines this effect as the slow and steady growth of a business because of long years of hard work in the field until it hits a tipping point and explodes in popularity. It’s a unique way to look at business growth.
Changing How We See Business Expansion
Most business students will know about the two types of growth curves. Linear growth is as low and steady growth over time. Exponential growth happens when a business starts growing continually month after month.
The Balloon Effect is a combination of these two growth curves. The business slowly grows along a linear axis, and then, when it hits the tipping point, it explodes into massive growth over a short period. He suggests that businesses can create an environment where this is more likely to happen.
Many Business People Hit Burnout Before The Tipping Point
Building a business is hard, even if you like what the company stands for and believe in what you’re doing. The slow and steady growth pace gives founders more time to recover and gives their businesses more longevity.
The fact is that reaching this tipping point is not inevitable. Some companies remain growing slowly and steadily over time without ever hitting that infection point. However, slow and steady growth offers the best option for a founder to be on the spot if it hits that tipping point.
Focusing On The Modern Business Leader
Explaining why he thinks The Morning Brew is so famous, he highlights that it’s the same product he started with back in college many years ago. It’s a simple look at business from the perspective of what the founders are doing.
To make an approachable newsletter about something typically dry like business news, Lieberman focuses on the individual who runs the business and their personality. However, he also thinks that sticking to one formula like this isn’t suitable for scalability.
Niching Down Offers Opportunities
The Morning Brew is still one of the largest newsletters in the country, quickly getting over a million unique opens. However, Lieberman doesn’t believe a business should ever rest on its laurels. Instead, it should look for opportunities in the space it’s adjacent to.
Thanks to Lieberman’s attention to other areas his subscribers were interested in, he spun off a few other newsletters in the same style as The Morning Brew. Among these newsletters are The Emerging Tech Brew (covering emerging technologies) and Retail Brew for retail professionals.
Leveraging Subscribers Through Good Content
Lieberman believes that The Morning Brew and other newsletters spun off of it do so well because his subscribers genuinely value what he gives them. The company recently introduced a referral system that led to some surprising results that cemented Lieberman’s opinions.
Out of The Morning Brew subscribers, the company saw at least 300,000 people get at least one referral, with some getting even more. Lieberman said it was surprising to him since he would never have expected that behavior, yet it shows how much people love and believe in what he’s giving them.
The Product Has to Deliver
After studying some internet celebrities that have become successful, like Mr. Beast or David Dobrik, he noticed a pattern. These individuals create good content repeatedly and use it to grow their community by delivering that great content.
These internet successes are great examples of how the Balloon Effect works. For as many as eight years, these businesses grow slowly and steadily, then in the space of a few months, their popularity explodes, and their income grows critically. This is something he’s seen happen so often it could be its own phenomenon.
Giving Readers The Stories They Crave
The thing that Lieberman sees setting The Morning Brew apart from other business newsletters is their focus on the story behind the brands. He believes that telling a good story is one of the most crucial things any business can do, and dissecting those stories makes for good reading.
He says that his subscribers are just as interested in unraveling the “why” of a business as much as him and his co-founder. By giving readers that fix and delving into why a company is successful, he ensures that his readers keep returning for more.
More Information Than a Newsletter Can Hold
Lieberman is more than just the co-founder at The Morning Brew. He’s also the host of Founder’s Journal and 60 Second Startup, which both offer unique insights into founding and branding a business for success. These adventures in broadcasting aren’t just for his own ego but to offer practical help and advice to new business owners who may need guidance. It’s Lieberman’s goal to give back to the business community by teaching others what they should do.
