The News Might Be the Most Successful Newsletter You’ve Never Heard Of

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Many newsletters were created during the pandemic to help readers get access to information about COVID-19. Some have since fizzled, and others have stuck around, but few have had the success of The News — a small initiative in Brazil that blossomed into one of the buzziest media companies in South America. 

The News — stylized as “the news” — may have had a low-key (and lower-case) start, but is now a major operation, with over two million active readers. It also spawned seven spin-off newsletters — including ones around health, careers, and mindfulness — as well as a successful podcast and YouTube channel, all under the umbrella of a company called the Waffle Group. Their leadership team said they have no plans to slow down.

Even in a country where independent newsletters continue to flourish, The News stands out. Their operational strategies, multi-pronged monetization plan, and unique voice have propelled the brand to the forefront of the newsletter industry in Brazil. 

The birth and growth of The News

The News was founded by Hernane Ferreira Jr. and Bruno Costa in March 2020, a period that highlighted the need for reliable information. The most popular newsletters in Brazil then were either owned by legacy news organizations, which put most of the content behind a paywall; or Meio, an established independent newsletter founded by experienced journalists, whose more in-depth approach could be a barrier to entry for some readers.

The team at The News saw a gap — the need for quick information about what was happening in the world, delivered in Portuguese — and built a newsletter around it.

If you’re familiar with Morning Brew, the format for The News will seem familiar. Every morning, they summarize a handful of top stories, using bullet points and bold font to make the emails easy to skim. They pitch the newsletter as a quick way to catch up on the biggest stories. (“Mais inteligente em 5 minutos” is their tagline — even a non-Portuguese speaker can probably translate that.) And yes, like Morning Brew, they even have a coffee mug in their logo.

“If it weren’t for the pandemic, The News might not have been created,” said Eduardo Kaloustian, head of marketing at the Waffle Group. “However, over time, there wasn’t a big turning point that accelerated growth exponentially. It was always steady and constant.”

Much of that growth can be credited to The News’ writing style. It is fast-paced and fresh, a more modern take on how to deliver information. Topics range from Brazilian stories to world news, tech, business, and media, all in a daily digest of what readers need to navigate their day. It isn’t a groundbreaking format — plenty of newsletters, from Axios to TheSkimm have been sending emails like these for years. But what makes The News stand out is their voice, well-versed in internet slang and trends; and their focus on building a newsletter in a market often overlooked by legacy news organizations in the U.S. and Europe.

The News has also leaned into other growth tactics, many out of the Morning Brew playbook, like a referral program designed to encourage readers to share the newsletter with friends. The first version of the referral program launched in 2021, and the program continues today. Readers who share The News with friends can win branded coffee mugs, backpacks, and even iPads. Any Brazilian in a WhatsApp group has probably seen a link to The News show up in their messages over the past few years.

“Many readers were recommending The News to their networks organically,” Kaloustian said. “So we thought, ‘What if we enhance this?’ We decided to add rewards to further encourage sharing. It worked like a charm. People loved it from Day 1.”

This grassroots approach laid a strong foundation for the company’s expansion, Costa said. Until 2022, all of their growth was through organic channels, from word-of-mouth to their website. “It took us almost two years to invest our first dollar in paid traffic,” he said. “We literally spent two years growing just with the audience.” They’re now investing in ads on platforms like Google, Meta, and TikTok to help grow their newsletter.

While no single event has drastically boosted the subscriber count, periods of heightened interest in news, such as elections, have seen increased sharing among readers. This engagement has led to a steady growth in the subscriber base over time.

As the audience has grown, the staff has also multiplied. Today, Waffle Group has 33 people on the team — the oldest of whom is 35. (The average age of their team: 26.) In general, the content team is not made up of journalists, although there are some on the team. What their team said they look for the most is the ability to deliver results. Having a journalism background “is not and has never been a requirement for us,” Bruno Costa, one of The News’ co-founders, told me. “We like to tell stories in a light-hearted way. Being a journalist or not does not change that, in our view. In fact, none of the founders are [journalists]. This is in line with our tone. We speak the language of the reader, not the language of traditional journalism.”

Expansion became second nature to the Waffle Group very early on, as Costa — who now oversees all content for Waffle — pointed out. “As we grew, we started to see our audience asking for different segments,” he said. In late 2021 and early 2022, the team created three other brands: The Stories (about love and relationships, sent weekly), The Bizness (twice-weekly news from the business world), and The Champs (sports news, sent Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). “After launching, we realized that our generations — millennials and Gen Z — are asking for innovative, quality content that doesn’t have all the ‘boring’ traits of traditional journalism,” said Costa. “There was no other way than to think about designing a media group for the next generations.” 

All Waffle Group products share the same combination of coolness and authority. Their use of emojis and memes throughout different publications blends well with more serious graphs, like the ups and downs of the financial market. These two sides are combined to make The Yellow Quiz, a gamified, Saturday edition of The News that consists of a simple Google Form with 10 questions regarding the events of the past six days. The team looks at the results carefully — positive results indicate that readers are paying close attention to the stories that appeared in that week’s newsletters.

What sets The News apart

Traditional news outlets in Brazil have long been offering free newsletters as a means to drive traffic and increase readability in a very uncertain media landscape. But not many reach more than a million subscribers, which makes The News a unique case study. 

The timing of their launch, combined with its fast-paced format and engaging tone, has set it apart from other newsletters. “We got it just right,” says Kaloustian. “We nailed the creation moment, the unique way of delivering information, and the communication style.” 

Advertisers took notice. With a large, engaged audience based in one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, the team behind The News has been able to be selective about the types of brands they work within the newsletter. “We only feature products or services that are a top-tier fit with the audience and our company,” Kaloustian said. Recent newsletter advertisers included a mix of Brazilian companies and international brands, like Samsung and DocuSign.

The News also actively seeks out reader opinions — feedback is king. Every edition closes with a survey where readers can offer feedback, and each response is reviewed by the editorial team. Staff told me this helps them fine-tune their content, ensuring it remains relevant and valuable to readers.

Building a freemium model

While The News remains free for all readers, other products within the Waffle Group ecosystem, like their careers newsletter, called The Jobs, offer a subscription model due to the publication’s career-driven and business insights model. With The Jobs, some content is paywalled within the newsletter — only readers who pay 199 Brazilian reais per year (the equivalent of about $36 U.S.) can get access to all of their content. This diversified approach allows the company to reach a broad audience with its free content while generating revenue through premium offerings. Other newsletters recommend products and then monetize through affiliate relationships.

The only reason this model is doable is because of the Waffle Group’s business structure. “Having a larger group behind all the brands gives us the ability to create a variety of products — some free, some paid, and even some in video or podcast form,” Kaloustian said.

They plan to continue to expand into new formats. Their team hinted at upcoming video launches, in keeping with the company’s knack for diversifying.

“It makes sense to invest in audio and video simply because our vision as a media group calls for it,” Costa said. “We need to be in different formats to meet the needs and wants of our audience throughout their day. No one consumes all the content they need through newsletters. We all listen to podcasts, music, as well as watch videos.” One example: The Jams, a series of live music recordings that they think of as the Brazilian version of NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concerts.”  

“Jams is just the tip of the iceberg,” Costa said. “There’s more to come soon.”

Advice for aspiring newsletter creators

After four years of consistent growth, Kaloustian offered some advice to anyone looking to build a great newsletter. “Consistency and attention to detail,” he said. “Whatever the subject, know that the newsletter format calls for consistency. Start, and don’t stop. Give the process time, and pay attention to each of the smallest details. Details matter.”

Despite the foray into audio and video, newsletters will continue to be a cornerstone of Waffle Group’s content strategy. Costa likens this to the historical progression of Brazilian media giants like Globo, which expanded from print to radio and television. 

“We believe in the text-audio-video model, in that order,” he said. “Newsletters are our perfect format for text, just like podcasts are for audio and streaming is for video,” Costa said. “Newsletters will always be our safe harbor in terms of revenue. But we expect video to take the top spot in the near future.”

And with such a large audience — including readers outside South America — there’s always potential for international expansion.

“There is room for us to expand beyond Brazil,” Kaloustian said. “If the basic principle is to inform, educate, and entertain people, why not position the Waffle Group in the U.S. or Argentina, for example? These are paths that we are interested in.” 

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