Morning brew is a daily business briefing built for millennials | techcrunch

What’s the best way to stay up to date on things happening within your industry? Seasoned finance professionals read the Wall Street Journal. Anyone who wants to work in politics reads The

Washington Post. In Silicon Valley we have industry-specific news sites like TechCrunch supplemented by Hacker News and others. But what about young business professionals who either don’t

plan on staying in one industry their whole life or just want to stay up to date on the broader business/tech/startups/politics world? Morning Brew is a daily newsletter designed for young

business professionals. Each morning email has a stock market recap, a few short briefs on the most important business news of the day and a small section with lifestyle content. The result

is the perfect mix of Wall Street essentials (like market analysis) and tech news (like a deep dive on Y Combinator). The newsletter, which now has just under 200,000 total subscribers, was

founded by Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief in 2015 when they were students at the University of Michigan. “We worked with more than 75 students to help them prepare for interviews and

internships and we’d always ask the question, “How do you keep up with the business world?” It was like every student had rehearsed their answers together beforehand, saying something to the

effect of “I read the WSJ…and I read it because it’s a prerequisite to say you’re well-read in business and it’s what my parents do, but it’s dense, dry, and too long to read

cover-to-cover,” explained the duo. So Morning Brew was born. While initially college-focused, that segment has shrunk to 30% of their total audience with the average reader now 28-years-old

working in finance, tech, or consulting. Of course there’s nothing stopping an older reader from signing up, and if anything sites like Axios have shown that even non-millennials may now

prefer short bullet-point briefings over traditional long-form reporting. But business-minded millennials are definitely the long-term focus of Morning Brew – and for good reason. The

segment is extremely sought after in the advertising world, which has helped the startup monetize early. So far they’ve hosted sponsored native content from brands like Discover Card, Casper

and Duke University. The diversity of sponsors shows just how many different industries are trying to reach the demographic. Similar to other newsletter businesses like theSkimm, Morning

Brew has mainly relied on word of mouth referrals and an ambassador program of 700+ students to drive new signups. Total subscribers are nearing 200,000 with a daily open rate hovering

around 50%, which for reference is at least double most other popular industry newsletters. The long term goal is to grow the newsletter into a brand that can touch all aspects of a young

professional’s life, including networking. The site is launching a monthly event series this summer to bring together millennials to network and watch panel discussions, which should provide

the off-line community building that has proved successful for other media brands. The startup has raised $750,000 in seed funding from notable media execs including Brian Kelly, founder

and CEO of The Points Guy, and is targeting a Series A in 2019.