How The Peak Built and Sold MorningBrew for Canada

The Peak built "MorningBrew for Canada" and sold it for $5M in less than 3 years.

Here's how: pic.twitter.com/D0rAyjOn4l

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

The Peak founders loved Morning Brew and The Hustle - but saw there wasn’t a newsletter focused on Canadian business news.

They decided to build it themselves.

In July 2020, they developed an MVP and started writing and publishing a newsletter every weekday.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

Here's how they grew it:

0-1,000 Subscribers: Brute Force

Most of the first 1k subscribers came from direct messages and LinkedIn posts.

They messaged anyone on their contact list who might be interested and asked them to subscribe.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

1,000-4,000 Subscribers: Facebook Ads

At first, they found traditional conversion ads to be too expensive, so they used giveaway ads like this one.👇

The quality of subscribers was lower, but they still achieved a <$0.60 CPA after removing inactive subscribers. pic.twitter.com/Yjb12iOLqb

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

4,000-8,000 Subscribers: Referral Program

In true MorningBrew fashion, The Peak built a referral program that gave readers a chance to win stickers, merch, and even a Macbook Pro.

In the early days, this accounted for ~30-40% of their subscriber growth. pic.twitter.com/jsyLIkGRW4

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

Growing From 8k to 115k Subscribers

Based on my research, these are the 5 main growth channels:

1) Meta Ads: They've been running ads since 2020, and have 100+ ads in their library.

2) TikTok Ads: The Peak has nailed high-converting UGC and uses it in both TikTok and Meta ads.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

3) SEO: Search is the company's second-largest traffic source. They currently rank for >5,000 keywords.

4) Referral program: At The Peak's scale now, referrals are likely <10% of subscriber growth. But's a growth channel that's mostly automated.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

5) TikTok Organic: The company's TikTok profile has >30K followers and many videos with 100k+ views.

It's not a huge growth channel now, but it has potential.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

How The Peak Makes Money

Subscribers alone don't lead to a multi-million-dollar acquisition.

Revenue does.

And the primary way The Peaks makes money is with sponsorships.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

Sponsorships

The Peak has 2 newsletters and 2 podcasts they sell sponsored ad placements in.

85% of advertisers renew and buy more sponsorships.

That's impressive. I'd bet the industry average renewal rate is <50%.

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

The Peak sold their first $4k of ads with cold outreach.

They reached out to 100+ senior marketers at companies who advertise in other newsletters with this message.

And sold ads at $50 per 1000 email opens. pic.twitter.com/i3DP3srEfo

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

Another, source of revenue for The Peak is its newsletter agency.

They offer newsletter writing, design, and publishing services to other companies.

It's unclear how much revenue this drove pre-acquisition, but I believe it was a smaller chunk. pic.twitter.com/B7qmtdXGQS

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

The Peak proves the "MorningBrew for X" model works.

They took a proven playbook that worked in the US for Morning Brew, The Hustle, and The Skimm and applied it in a new market (Canada).

... and executed beautifully. https://t.co/lsAsIbzzOg

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

Congrats to @bchang @taylorscollon @BloomTO and The Peak team!

— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023

I hope you've found this thread helpful.

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— Matt McGarry (@JMatthewMcGarry) June 13, 2023