How three Morning Brew alums are building their own network of niche media outlets
Smooth Media works with the largest knowledge creators and recently acquired a 30-year-old B2B media outlet.
Editor’s note: This piece was produced by Carson Brunson, a freelance writer based in Nashville.
When Morning Brew was founded in 2015 by two University of Michigan students, the newsletter didn’t quite have the same campus-wide clout as, say, the football team — but it did have a loyal following, especially in the business school.
“It was a cool newsletter, but it was a finance newsletter,” said Josh Kaplan, who attended U-M with Morning Brew co-founders Austin Rief and Alex Lieberman. “At the time, there was a version where it was a lot more about helping people prepare for their investment banking interviews — so cool within the business school, for sure.”
After he graduated from U-M in 2017, Kaplan landed a job as a technology consultant at one of the Big Four accounting firms, but he quickly realized he was more excited about his friends’ newsletter venture. In 2018, he joined the team and helped expand Morning Brew into other niche segments with Tech Brew, Retail Brew and Marketing Brew.
Kaplan also helped Morning Brew explore additional media formats outside of newsletters, like the “Business Casual” podcast, which was released in September 2019 and broke down the biggest questions in business. “We were really disciplined and focused on staying in that newsletter-specific world for many, many years, but now you look at the company, and they’re everywhere. It’s amazing how much they’ve grown on all platforms,” he said.
After Morning Brew was acquired by Insider Inc. in 2020, Kaplan and two of his colleagues, Jenny Rothenberg and Kinsey Grant, wondered: “What else can we do?” Using what they’d learned from Morning Brew, they began working on what would become Smooth Creative Holdings.
Today, that holding company has grown to include Smooth Media, The Publish Press and Energy Central. In a recent interview, Kaplan delved deeper into Smooth Media’s strategy, explained how he works with big YouTubers, and discussed why he decided to acquire a 30-year-old B2B media brand.
Let’s jump into the findings…
The inception of Smooth Media
Shortly after Kaplan left Morning Brew at the end of 2020, he began consulting for Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, aka Colin & Samir of YouTube and podcasting fame. As the duo carved out their niche in the creator economy. Kaplan helped with everything from hiring the right team of editors and producers to refining their advertising strategy and revenue model.