The Daily Aus breaks even on back of newsletter focus
Sam Koslowski in podcasting mode with The Daily Aus
Youth news publisher The Daily Aus has broken even for the first time and is accelerating revenue growth, according to co-founder Sam Koslowski.
Koslowski told Mumbrella that the Daily Aus (TDA) had “totally inverted the revenue mix” from social media to newsletters over the past 24 months.
“I’d say we’re probably the leaders of news newsletters in Australia. We’ve got 310,000 subscribers across five newsletters with a 60% daily open rate. And our biggest one is our morning newsletter that goes out to 210,000 people every morning.”
According to Kowlowski, TDA had already exceeded FY25 revenue “and we’re not even halfway through the financial year”.
TDA launched as an Instagram account from Koslowski and co-founder Zara Seidler in 2017. The account grew to 3000 followers and plateaued there until the pair decided to quit their jobs and go full time.
“Our first day of work in 2021 was the exact day that Meta took all news platforms off Facebook … we started a newsletter in that minute and put a post on Instagram saying we don’t know if we’re going to be taken off this platform … and we put on 5,000 subscribers that day.”
Koslowski declined to give details around the privately held publisher’s finances – he and Seidler remain majority shareholders – but said that fiscal discipline had been tight.
“From day dot it was all about chasing sustainability. The way we’ve modeled our business, we don’t launch anything unless it’s got a sponsor. We spend an incredibly small amount of money on marketing. Growth will come because of great content, and that comes from hiring journalists rather than from racking up a big ad bill.”
The wider publishing environment shaped TDA’s approach.
“So we… were coming in to an environment where people had some pretty strong reservations around the financial sustainability of youth news plays. We’ve got some multi-billion dollar examples [of failure] around us in Buzzfeed, Vice. And then in an Australian context, Pedestrian and Junkie, all of whom have really struggled financially.”
Interestingly, for a business dominated by advertising revenue, TDA makes no money from its web site, instead using it as marketing for newsletters. This means that the trend of declining search referrals stemming from Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode – Koslowski refers to it as “Google Zero” – is not a problem.
The publisher has just launched a youth advisory function, which will serve to diversify its revenue mix.
“This is about being able to be as strong as a business as possible … a diversified flywheel is the key to success. And we greatly admire the work of [global news platform] Semafor … we have a strong team now, which means Zara and I can chase some of those opportunities that have come to us organically.”
In terms of audience acquisition, Koslowski said TDA had foregone big numbers by keeping an objective editorial stance and avoiding opinion.
“We’re not here to necessarily just grow a social following and we have concentrated on building a news brand. And a news brand needs to be trusted more than any other. It doesn’t matter how big your audience is if you’re not trusted.”
