Morning Brew CEO: No More Alpha Left in the Newsletter Game
Austin Rief · Brainstorming +$1M Weird Business Ideas With Morning Brew’s CEO Austin Rief (#543) · Jan 24, 2024 · at 13:31
Morning Brew co-founder Austin Rief explains to Sam Parr and Shaan Puri why the newsletter space has become saturated and commoditized.
0:00 / 0:04exact quote · 4.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I think there's no more alpha in the newsletter game. Everyone talks about everything.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Austin Rief
Eventually Every Retail Brand Will Have a Creator Face Attached
“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?”
BuzzFeed's media business model was never worth a $1B valuation
“And, you know, even in 2015, 20 17, we were like, yeah, PuzzFeed, it just doesn't make sense. It's not worth a billion dollars.”
Sam Bankman-Fried Only Mastered Details That Directly Benefited FTX
“Sam was a genius when it came to the things he had to know for FTX and crypto. So for example, Tom Brady was a like 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, b…”
Pitching acquisitions to CMOs fails because it threatens their marketing competence
“Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we were telling the marketing team of a company, we can market your product better than you can. You know, what CMO, what head of marketing is going to buy a company, unless they have a ton of humility, if they believe that…”
Newsletter subscribers are worth significantly less today due to market saturation
“The value of a subscriber is significantly less than it was when we started because there are so many newsletters out there.”
Startups need an enemy: Morning Brew used TheSkimm and The Hustle
“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 convert kit. And I think it just motivates everyone just a little bit more.”