Austin Rief

The dumb newsletter spreadsheet: grow subs 5-10%/mo, hold CPMs flat

Austin describes how he and Alex modeled Morning Brew on a basic spreadsheet: subscribers compound 5-10% a month while CPMs stay flat, which over time gets you to hundreds of thousands or millions in monthly revenue. The simplicity was the point.

“But Alex and I would sit there every night and we'd go through a spreadsheet and it was the most basic spreadsheet of, you know, newsletter subscribers grow 5 or 10% a month and CPMs stay flat. And over time you can get to hundreds of thousands or millions of, of dollars of revenue a month. And I think it was really that simple.”

Steal thisModel a newsletter business on one spreadsheet: monthly subscriber growth rate times a flat CPM, and see where it compounds in 3-5 years.

Pick an industry full of suckers

Austin's edge wasn't being smart, it was choosing a field full of incumbents who'd done the same thing for a decade. He invokes the poker maxim: if you can't find the sucker at the table, you're the sucker.

“I do think one of the big advantages, you know, they say at a poker table, if you look around and you can't find the sucker, you're the sucker. Well, I think we picked the industry with a lot of suckers. There were a lot of people who started 5 or 10 years before us and they just weren't smart.”

Print out every competitor's newsletter and red-pen it daily

For the first 2-3 hours each day, the Morning Brew team printed out their own newsletter alongside Axios, The Hustle, and The Skimm, then went story-by-story with pen and paper, circling what worked and crossing out what didn't to relentlessly raise content quality.

“We would, for the first 2 to 3 hours, print out Morning Brew, print out Axios, print out The Hustle. Print out the skim, and with a paper and pen, and Alex led the charge, would go through every single story. He'd circle what he'd like, he'd X out what he didn't like.”

Steal thisEach morning, print your work next to your top competitors' and mark up every line by hand to set a relentless quality bar.

MacBook giveaways grew Morning Brew 25,000 subs in a single day

In 2018, the breakout year, Morning Brew ran MacBook giveaways and reinvested every available dollar into Facebook ads, adding as many as 25,000 subscribers a day. Austin's only regret was not finding more money to spend.

“I mean, 2018 was the year for us. That was the year that, I mean, there were days in 2018 we were growing 20,000. You know this. We would do these MacBook giveaways. We would grow 25,000, 25,000 subscribers in a day. So yes, we spent every dollar we could possibly find.”

Escape newsletter economics by going into industry verticals

Once a single newsletter hit diminishing returns from paid growth, Morning Brew launched industry-specific verticals (retail, marketing, finance/CFO). Niche audiences command higher CPMs, don't require breakneck growth, and shift the model from a race to the bottom to an engagement play.

“And that's where we learned about industry dives. And we started to really take the approach of, wait, our audience works in retail, they work in marketing, they work in as CFOs or in finance. What if we took that path? The CPMs are higher. You don't need to grow as fast. It's not a race to the bottom. It's more of an engagement play. And so that's when we went into our industry verticals.”

Steal thisWhen a flagship newsletter plateaus, spin up niche industry verticals that earn higher CPMs without needing massive scale.

You can be right and not be an asshole

During the contentious sale process, Austin's now-wife told him he was being an asshole on calls with aggrieved investors and employees. When he protested that he was right, she said you can be right and not be an asshole, a lesson that reshaped how he operated.

“my now wife was in the other room and I'm on the calls with these people and my wife goes, Austin, you're an asshole. And I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, you're a total asshole. And I'm like, but I'm right. And she goes, you're totally right, but you can be right and not be an asshole. And I was like, oh.”

SoFi rejected Morning Brew: '300 million eyeballs, why do we want 3 million emails?'

Pitching SoFi during COVID, Austin expected a huge stock deal. Instead an exec deadpanned 'I don't get it,' and the head of biz dev flipped his Zoom background to SoFi Stadium, bragging 300 million eyeballs a year and dismissing Morning Brew's 3 million emails.

“the head of business development, flips the background of his screen and he shows SoFi Stadium, right? He shows that their big stadium and he goes, 300 million eyeballs a year. I'm like, what? He goes, that's how many people see this stadium. You think we want 3 million emails? What are we going to do with 3 million emails? And that was the entire call.”

The 2017 newsletter arbitrage is gone; content is the only moat now

Austin's blunt diagnosis: people copy the old playbook expecting 2017 economics, but a subscriber is worth far less today. Mediocre content plus growth hacks gets you a million subs whose ads sell for $3,000 instead of $50,000 because engagement is too low. Content is everything.

“And then they get to half a million or a million subscribers if they can, and their ads don't sell for $50,000. They sell for $3,000. And the economics don't work because there's not enough engagement because the content's not good enough. And so just people aren't focusing on the content. It's all about the content.”

Use content to build a real-world business at the extreme, like Overtime

Austin's billion-dollar swing: use content to build something bigger, taken to the extreme. Overtime started as sports clips on social and escalated into running a basketball league competing with the NCAA and NBA. Apply the same to padel or tennis niches.

“Use content to build something like a trend, but do it to the extreme. So I think the best example right now, look at what Overtime's doing. Oh, Dan Porter, who's been on the show, is amazing, right? And for the first 3 years of this business, I didn't get it at all.”

Steal thisUse a content audience as a wedge to build a real-world business (a league, an event series) and take the swing to the extreme.

Pick an enemy, real or fake, to motivate the team

Austin argues that having an enemy, even an invented one, drives a team harder. For Morning Brew it was The Skimm and The Hustle; for Beehiiv it's ConvertKit. He's writing one of his first new newsletters about it.

“And I think having an enemy, whether it's real or fake, right? For us, it was the skin and the hustle. I think it's really, really important. You know, Beehive has ConvertKit, and I think it just motivates everyone just a little bit more.”

Steal thisName an enemy for your company, even a made-up one, and use the rivalry to galvanize the team.

Bongo Bingo did $20M/year selling boozy bingo raves

Austin Rief cites a competitor in the 'bingo rave' space, Bongo Bingo, doing roughly $20M a year in revenue pre-COVID running club-meets-bingo nights with performers and confetti.

“Apparently people in the industry, so these Bongo Bingo guys apparently pre-COVID were doing $20 million a year in revenue.”

Use a game as the 'hook' to keep people drinking at the bar

Austin breaks down the boozy-bingo / shuffleboard model: the game itself is just a sticky hook that keeps people in a venue for hours so they keep buying drinks. The real product is the bar tab, not the game.

“So there's a shuffleboarding place in Brooklyn, right? They keep you there because you play shuffleboard for hours and hours and you're just buying drinks and that's like the shtick. That's the hook to get you in. And it's the same thing, game of bingo. I'm sure they have performers mid-game. They keep you there for 7 hours. You just buy a bunch of drinks.”

Steal thisWrap a sticky game or activity around a bar so people stay for hours and the real margin comes from drinks.

Sell consumer for $50, then go B2B and sell the same thing for $20K

Austin describes the Museum Hack arbitrage: the same experience sold to a consumer for $50 can be sold to a company like Morning Brew as a team event for $20K, where HR just signs off. The B2B version of a consumer offering carries far more margin.

“He blew up and then of course he went B2B because that's where the money and all this stuff is, right? Selling in, you sell it to consumer for $50, you sell it to Morning Brew for $20 grand and our HR team just signs off and approves it.”

Steal thisTake a $50 consumer experience and repackage it as a B2B team event priced in the thousands.

Beehiiv did to newsletters what Shopify did to e-commerce

Austin argues there's no alpha left in newsletters: Beehiiv made starting one so easy that the space flooded, just like Shopify did for e-commerce stores. Everyone chasing a 'Milk Road for X' exit ends up with a fine-but-not-valuable business.

“And I think Beehive did for newsletters what Shopify did for e-commerce, right? E-commerce stores started and people got super pumped. They're like, you know, investors invested in Away and then all these businesses because they're like, oh, Shopify makes it so easy to start an e-com store. And that's awesome. The problem was they made it too easy.”

Build into passion audiences, not $15-LTV businesses

Austin says the two businesses he loves are high-priced enterprise B2B and products built into passionate niche audiences. He cites Al Doan's quilting business as proof that a 'weird niche' passion audience can throw off hundreds of millions in revenue.

“I think We've all built businesses where the LTVs are like $15. That's pretty tough. I love selling significant enterprise products. The other one is building into passion audiences. That's, I think, where I'd actually go. So, you know, we went to Camp My First Million last year and we met that guy. I think his name was Al, who's building for Quilters.”

Build the next Traeger: $1,500 smoker plus recurring $50-100/mo pellets

Austin pitches a creator-led competitor to Traeger and Green Egg in meat smoking: sell a $1,500 smoker plus razor-and-blades pellet refills at $50-100/month, partnering with meat-smoking influencers who aren't taking big swings. He believes it's a multi-billion-dollar brand opportunity.

“I want to build the Traeger or the Green Egg competitor, sell the $1,500 product, sell the $50 a month, $100 a month pellets, and build the next Traeger, which I think is a multi, you know, billion-dollar brand.”

Steal thisPair a high-ticket smoker with recurring consumable pellet refills and recruit niche meat-smoking influencers to sell it.

Build a creator collective: make custom products for peers, share affiliate revenue

Austin describes how a woodworking creator (KM Tools) scaled by partnering with other woodworking creators: he builds each one a custom product for their niche, helps them all sell, pools everything into a shared store, and pays affiliate commissions across the network.

“Let me make you your own custom little thing in your woodworking niche. And I'm going to help you all sell them as well. And then we can build a collective store of all our, all our products. And, and Sean, if you sell one on behalf of Sam, you will kick him an affiliate. This is a big business.”

Steal thisRecruit peer creators in your niche, build each a branded product, and cross-sell through a shared affiliate store.

Every brand on the shelf will have a creator face attached

Austin predicts that walking into Target or a liquor store, every brand will eventually have a creator or known face associated with it, because built-in distribution is too valuable to leave on the table. He thinks the real opportunity is in niches, not the biggest creators.

“but I still think ultimately you're going to walk into a liquor store, you're going to walk into Target and every brand is going to have a face and association because why wouldn't it, right? If there's a brand that could have nobody attached to it, or a brand that could have someone attached to it, why wouldn't that brand have the built-in distribution of you guys or someone, you know, more widely well-known or just someone? Like, I just don't see how that doesn't play out.”

A creator brand wins on real product + real story, not fame

Austin argues fame alone no longer drives creator-brand sales; you need a genuine product solving a real need. He points to Dani Austin, a mid-sized creator whose brand is worth more than far bigger creators' because it solves an actual problem rather than ripping off a big brand.

“I think we're past the point where just fame is going to drive, right? I think that works for, for a few people, but I think you actually need to have a great product. I think you had them on the pod You know, Dani Austin and her husband Jordan. Yeah, and he's big, but Dani's not as big as some of these other creators, but her brand is worth way more than almost every brand out there because it's actually a product that has a need.”

Steal thisPick a creator brand on a real product need, not on follower count.

Dinner with SBF: Beyond sausage, no eye contact, narrow genius

Austin recounts a 2021 birthday dinner with Sam Bankman-Fried at FTX's Bahamas compound: SBF cooked everyone one Beyond sausage and two Brussels sprouts, talked with his back to guests, and showed an extreme narrow genius—knowing every senator's stance on crypto but nothing about football despite FTX sponsoring Tom Brady.

“Sam was a genius when it came to the things he had to know for FTX and crypto. So for example, Tom Brady was sponsored by FTX, right? Sam could have told you every single thing about Tom Brady, could have told you his stat line, everything about him, but I don't think Sam knew what a first down was. I don't think he knew a single thing about football, but if it benefited crypto, he was the smartest person on the planet.”

Ask 'What's the Aman for X?' to define top-tier customer service

Austin frames Aman resorts as the gold standard of customer service and suggests a business lens: instead of 'the Milk Road for X,' ask 'what's the Aman for X?'—the absolute pinnacle of service in a category, charging $1,500-$6,000 a night.

“I think the, a good way to think about a business is what's the Aman for X? So Aman is just the absolute top customer service. I mean, I think the cheapest Aman, there's maybe 60 or 70 of them. The cheapest one is maybe $1,500 a night. I think they're regularly $2,500.”

Steal thisDefine your category's premium tier by asking 'what would the Aman of this look like?' and build to that service level.

Morning Brew: $70-75M revenue, double-digit margins, 250 people

Austin Rief states Morning Brew's scale at the time of recording: roughly $70-75 million in revenue for the year, a double-digit profit margin, and around 250 employees.

“Yeah, $70, $75 million of revenue this year, double-digit profit margin, 250 people or so.”

The Great Wall of Opens: track one number on the wall every day

At Morning Brew, Rief and Alex Lieberman printed both Morning Brew and The Hustle every morning and compared them line by line, then wrote their open rate on the wall at 11am daily for two years to stay maniacally focused on write, grow, sell.

“Like, I woke up every day, write, grow, sell, write, grow, sell. Like, we wrote it on the wall. And at 11:00 AM every single day, we had the Great Wall of Opens, and we track our open rate and write it down the wall. And we had that for probably 2 years running every day.”

Steal thisPick the one number that defines your business and post it on a wall every single day.

Pre-sell the advertiser before you hire the writer

Morning Brew's B2B newsletters were break-even before launch because they pre-sold a sponsor (often a B2B SaaS company) into a new vertical newsletter before even hiring the writers to produce it.

“it was the craziest business where we'd launch a newsletter and it'd be break-even before we even hired the writers because we'd pre-sell, you know, advertiser, let's call it like a B2B SaaS company into one of these newsletters.”

Steal thisPre-sell a launch sponsor for a new vertical before hiring the team to produce it.

The 3 categories of newsletters (and why 'Morning Brew for X' wins)

Rief splits newsletters into three types: editorial (Substack-style long writing), aggregation/summaries (Morning Brew, The Hustle), and curated links (5 Bullet Friday). He argues the biggest opportunity now is 'Morning Brew for X' - aggregation aimed at a growing niche where tone lets you own a large share of the TAM.

“But basically I split up newsletters into 3 categories. One are the editorial newsletters, right? You have your Substackers, your, your Packy McCormick's full newsletter, maybe 2,000 words, maybe 10,000 if you're some of these writers. That's like category 1, right? Category 2 is what we did, aggregation, right? And Sam and I kind of went more general, general business, went for scale. And then after that, you kind of have like the, let's call it Morning Brew for X, right?”

Steal thisBuild the aggregation newsletter for a growing niche, ride the tailwind, and own the brand.

Consumer newsletters must be high-dollar; otherwise go B2B

Rief's rule for picking a newsletter niche: if you target consumers it has to be a high-dollar audience (the newsletter for Ferrari or Rolex owners who spend six figures a year); otherwise go B2B. Crypto worked because it was 'prosumer' - both at once.

“So I think if you're going to go consumer route, right, target consumers, it's got to be high dollar. It's got to be, you know, the newsletter for Ferrari owners or the newsletter for Rolex owners, right? Something where people spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on this. B2B is great as well. That's the other place I would go.”

Steal thisOnly build a consumer newsletter for an audience that spends big; default to B2B otherwise.

A college kid gets a $1M RFP from Discover's CMO in his frat house

Rief recalls being a senior living in a beer-can-strewn frat house when the CMO of Discover emailed an RFP asking for media plans worth up to $1 million - more than the entire company was worth - teaching him that big-brand ad spend is a relationship-driven black box.

“I mean, one of our first advertisers, Discover, gave us $1 million. I was in college. I'm a senior in college living in my frat house, right? Like, beer cans everywhere. And I get an email from the CMO of Discover, like, here's an RFP. I'm like, what in the fuck is an RFP?”

Use 'Michigan time' to pitch 1,000-person lecture halls for emails

To get Morning Brew's first subscribers, Rief exploited the 10-minute gap between classes ('Michigan time'), pitching the newsletter to 1,000-person Econ 101 lectures, then standing over students staring them down until they wrote their email on a printed sheet - getting to 50,000 subs by repeating it at other campuses.

“And so at 10:05, I get up there, I pitch on, pitch them on Morning Brew, and then I basically print out an Excel document and I'd walk around. I would just stand in front of people and just stare them in the eyes until they gave me their email.”

Steal thisFind the captive-audience moment in your niche and collect emails in person, face to face.

Spend on what you love, protect the rest - the 'losing money is horrible' rule

Rief applies a Will Smith quote (via Morgan Housel) about fame to money: making it is awesome, having it is cool, losing it is horrible. So he spends lavishly only on things he genuinely cares about (travel, hotels, business class) and refuses waste like an extra $50K car to protect his wealth.

“the quote was something like, becoming famous is awesome. Being famous is cool, and losing any fame is horrible. And I feel the same exact way about money, right? I feel the same way. And so I have no desire to, like, spend money on things I don't actually care about.”

Steal thisSpend freely on the few things you truly love; cut everything else to protect your wealth.

How Austin Rief allocated his exit: 85-90% boring, small slices risky

After his Morning Brew exit, Rief hired a wealth team and put 85-90% into boring assets (S&P 500, target-date funds, real estate, bonds), with roughly 5-7% in crypto and 5% in venture investing.

“And then I put, you know, 5, maybe 7% in crypto, right? And I put another 5% in venture investing. Right. But the vast, vast majority is in really boring real estate, S&P 500, and like bonds.”

Steal thisAfter a windfall, park the vast majority in boring index funds and cap your risky bets at single digits.

Recession agency play: niche talent marketplaces that save companies money

Rief's downturn framework - help companies save money or help individuals earn side income - points to outsourced-talent marketplaces. He co-owns Oceans, which places Sri Lankan talent (some trained at Big Four firms) into US startups questioning whether they need full-time hires.

“And so you can create these niche marketplaces, and I'm getting investment opportunities for them all the time, and they're just not venture scale, but you bootstrap a marketplace. Let's call it like a content marketing, agency or content marketing marketplace for B2B companies, right? These stocks are down 90, 95%. They're trying to drop FTEs, but they still want content, right?”

Steal thisBootstrap a niche fractional-talent marketplace that helps cost-cutting companies replace full-time hires.

Outsourced-talent startup Oceans hit 7-figure ARR in 8 months

Rief says the Sri Lanka outsourced-talent business he co-owns, Oceans, went from zero to seven figures of ARR in about eight months.

“Yeah, yeah, I mean, the one I, the one I'm now a co-owner in has gone from zero to seven figures of ARR in like 8 months, right?”

A 'Tiny Capital' for tiny AI tools: roll up 20-30 $50K-ARR side projects

Rief pitches starting a holding company that buys the thousands of $50K-$150K ARR AI side projects founders have spun up, giving them an off-ramp, then cross-promotes and bundles them through an AI-newsletter audience instead of running ads.

“And so I think there's this opportunity for the AI for Morning Brew to start a little tiny capital or a little holding company where you can start to invest and buy these businesses, right? Give an off-ramp to these founders who've built these $50K or $100K or $150K ARR businesses and start cross-promoting them, bundling, marketing them.”

Steal thisBuild a holding company that acquires tiny AI tools and cross-promotes them through an owned audience.

AI wrapper startups are the next crypto bubble

Rief predicts a huge bubble in thin AI-wrapper startups built on OpenAI, citing founders raising $5M on a $25M valuation off a deck they've already pivoted away from - the same dynamic he watched play out in crypto.

“I think there's so many popping up, right? It's the next crypto wave, right? There's going to be a huge— huge bubble and, you know, and they're raising not at crypto prices, but I'm seeing, hey, two guys left some, you know, Andreessen Horowitz-backed company, we're raising $5 on $25.”

The barbell career: passive income or a multi-billion swing, no doubles

Rief frames his future as a barbell - either light passive income at 20-25 hours a week, or all-in on something with multi-billion-dollar potential. He refuses the middle game where success is only a 'double.'

“So to me it's barbell, right? I either want to have some passive income and work 20, 25 hours a week, more casual, or I want to go all in. But if I go all in, it's got to be huge, right? The potential has to be multiple billions. I don't think I'm going to want to run a business where it's like, it's nice and it's like a double, right? If I win, it's a double. I don't want doubles, right?”