My First Year at the Brew (and the path from newsletter startup to media company)

On July 15th, 2019, I arrived at Morning Brew’s old WeWork office at 85 Broad not only as a very early employee, but also the company’s first “senior” hire. My task was to architect and build the revenue org and function from a team of three to what we are today (and beyond). As of July 27th, 2020, the Rev Org has 19 employees spanning five departments (Brand Partnerships, Account Management, Strategy & Operations, Integrated Marketing and Creative), with plans for five more hires by EOQ3. 

As far as professional years go, this has been the longest, hardest and most complicated that I can remember. It’s also been the best and most fulfilling. Since starting at Morning Brew last July, I’ve never felt more energized, hopeful and filled with purpose. As I begin year two, I wanted to reflect and share this life changing experience. 

*PART 1: THE JOURNEY*

Back to July 2019...

A year ago, we had 3 salespeople who handled everything from ad ops to sales to account management to contracts billing. They were doing too many things, and not necessarily the right things. Each of these employees possessed different, unique skill sets that needed to be explored and nurtured. It was clear that their drive and potential was limitless. What was originally three people doing similar tasks quickly became the start of 3 new departments: Brand Partnerships, Strategy & Operations and Integrated Marketing. 

Around this same time, our Senior Leadership Team started the EOS Model, as defined in Gino Wickman’s book, Traction. One of the most important and earliest exercises we did was to plan our teams and org charts over the coming months and quarters by mapping the “right people” and the “right seats.” Fortunately, we had the right people, and now the right seats. But, to hit our $13M+ goal in 2019 (and $20M+ goal in 2020), we had to add more of both, and do so quickly.  

The first 6 months (July ‘19 - January ‘20)...

And we did. The team grew from three people to 11 people in six months, including mid-to-senior level hires in our existing departments, as well as new ones within Revenue, including foundational members of our Account Management and Creative departments. 

In addition to the hiring, we accomplished a few large initiatives and milestones along the way:

• Rolled out V1 of a new incentive-based payment structure, consisting of a combination of MBOs and a team-based goal and commission. MBOs, or “Management by Objectives,” require individuals to set SMART goals. For us, these fell into four categories (Driving organizational revenue; Increasing team collaboration; Enhancing individual output; and Focusing on personal development. That last one is unique - it can be starting to write more, learning a new language...anything, really...so long as the employee sticks to it over the quarter and believes it will make them a better version of him or herself.
• Overhauled our narrative and collateral to start looking, acting and talking like a media company, and not just a newsletter company. Visuals and a tight story go a really, really long way.
• Switched our CRM to boostr, which allowed us better visibility and control over our revenue, pipeline and account information. This also laid a lot of the groundwork for the future framework of our sales team.
• Launched new ad products in the newsletter (the “Secondary” placement), podcast (our host-read mid-rolls) and on-site (branded content).
• Attended major industry events and conferences, such as CES, Brand Innovators Summits, TechCrunch Disrupt and others that not only raised Morning Brew’s profile in-market, but also generated sales ROI.
• Negotiated our first ever year-long and category exclusive partnership opportunities.

The next 6 months (January ‘20 - July ‘20)...

In the next six months, the team grew to 19 people, with another five planned by the end of the quarter. This started as a time of doubling down on our success, but, as we all know, the universe had other plans starting in March. We still managed to see success, and thrived in the face of adversity. As our co-founder (and my boss), Austin, so eloquently put it recently on Twitter, in a nod to the Traction/EOS process, “At the end of the day, the only thing that matters when building a company is right people in the right seats. If you’re working with A+ people, everything else will work itself out.” We have the right people in the right seats.

Some of our team’s accomplishments during H1 2020 that are worth highlighting:

• As a result of our outreach and B2B marketing, we received multiple high six-figure and low seven-figure RFPs and proactive opportunities.
• We outperformed the many other media companies through COVID’s impact on Q2, exceeding our revised goal by 7% (and only missing our original, pre-COVID Q2 goal by 14%). I documented some of the initial thinking, action and learnings here: Calling Plays Without a Playbook and the Intersection of Peacetime/Wartime Leadership.
• Not taking our eye off of the importance of planning for the future, we initiated a sales re-org to prepare for more exponential growth in 2021, shifting the team to a pod-based category sales structure, with each pod being responsible for different advertiser categories, and bringing in senior salespeople to oversee each of three pods.
• We continue to increase our product suite to match Morning Brew’s goals, subscriber behavior and partner demand, including more content and audio products, and virtual events.
• We empowered junior sellers to have more conversations and close deals with small and mid-sized clients that map to our B2C and B2B media franchises, respectively.
• Sold launch partnerships in two new franchises - The Essentials and Marketing Brew.

To capitalize on some of this momentum, I was able to secure some good industry visibility and thought leadership opportunities, such as appearing on Live Intent’s weekly webinar to discuss newsletter content and monetization strategies, a DTC Media opinion piece in Ad Age, presenting (virtually) at (Digital Dialogues: E-commerce Reimagined) on DTC Media and the “Era of Delivery” (link to Twitter thread and video), and recording a great podcast on CreativeBTS about B2B Media and Marketing Brew.

The future!

The future's so bright for us at Morning Brew. I’m more excited and energized today than I was a year ago, which I didn’t think was possible. This team and company is special, and I’m fortunate to be surrounded by such talented people and amazing clients. Our team’s north star, which we’ll continue to chase, is the intersection of our “three uniques” (another Traction strategy). Ours are:

1. Quality. We work hand-in-hand with all of our advertising partners to create and translate messaging so that it lives as natively and impactfully as possible on our platform. The work is all done in-house. 
2. Partnership. All of Morning Brew employees care so deeply and completely about not only our purpose and mission, but also our partners and the people on the other side of the phone/computer screen. This shows in our follow-up ("flup") notes, relationships, client service and renewal rates. 
3. Results. All would be for naught if our products, solutions and campaigns didn’t perform well for our partners. I believe this speaks to the power of our audience and creative as much as anything else. 

As always, please reach out to get in touch! My email is jason@morningbrew.com. I will be sharing “Part 2: Learnings” in the coming weeks and months.