WEBVTT - Building and Scaling Niche with Morning Brew 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.840 I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:05.680 going to have to start making better content. I think 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:07.200 we're gonna be talking about this for a long time. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.239 When you program for everyone, you program for no one. 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:12.360 I think it's at were purpose driven platform. Like we're 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.720 trying to get to substance? How was that? Are you 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.439 happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:26.160 really is? Well? What's up? I'm Laura Currentti and I'm 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:30.440 Alexa Kristen. Welcome back at Landia. So Alexa, I am 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:35.159 out in Hollywood, Los Angeles, which is so pertinent for 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.199 our conversation. To open up today's show talking about the 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.480 Emmys and our favorite show, ted Lasso ted Lasso Big 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.280 Wins at the Emmy's. I love this show. It brings 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.240 so much joy and laughter. And as we were getting 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.760 ready for this record, talking a bit about how a 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.880 series on Apple TV plus, I think it's interesting to 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.880 think about how ted Lasso becomes brand and the ability 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.800 to permeate the world of business management. You have some 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:09.559 thoughts around this uh commerce fandom in a different way. 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.240 So knowing we're going to talk to our friends at 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:16.680 the Morning Brew about niche community building through media, I 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:18.600 thought this would be a fun place to start. I 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.920 think it's a great place to start. I love ted 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.200 Lasso as well. Then when I see on Twitter on 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.520 LinkedIn people talking about the business and management like leadership 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:33.160 lessons of ted Lasso, quoting the show and Laura, when 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.320 you and I were talking about this, I said, there's 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:41.319 an extension here, like an obvious extension of ted Lasso 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:46.080 NBA Crash Course or ted Lasso Leadership Course. There's so 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:52.920 much opportunity to start thinking about that content as a 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.520 jumping off point for additional products. And I think that 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:03.480 if Hollywood looked at product and product market fit and 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.200 seeing that there is a huge product market fit around 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:11.360 a business community that's dying for leadership lessons, that actually 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.240 makes you think a little bit differently, And isn't this 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.639 kind of heavy slog of learning? And I think that 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.320 that note that kind of heavy I'll call it my 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.800 This is such an Alexis m right, the heavy schlog 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.400 of learning. But I think the point is is that 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.480 there's so many places in spaces where content can show 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:35.960 up and have a different um meaning or feed a 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.240 different audience that maybe it originally didn't seek out to do, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:45.680 but they're finding that they have major footholds or fandom 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:50.880 by creating these types of extensions or new products, and 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.840 I think that's exactly what morning Brew has done. Alex 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.080 and Austin on the show they talk about in this 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.079 episode of how they thought about building niche communities, and 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.320 from a marketer perspective, I'm still kind of amazed that 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.799 a lot of marketers get caught in the kind of 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:13.880 mass media game versus building for niche audiences over and 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.920 over and over in mass and finding these areas and 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:23.000 building products to create fandom, to create what I call participation, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.200 So then you start to think about your metrics. Someone 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.320 asked me about, um, you know, how we were measuring 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.520 things at GE last week, and I said, well, we 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.320 went from the typical shares and likes and those types 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.800 of things into participation. And for my perspective, I was 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.160 talking about the podcast. I was talking about the message 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.200 and how fans were popping up fan fiction and how 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.120 they were doing cosplay. That is huge for a brand, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:55.320 and I think that morning Brew understands this concept kind 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.880 of fundamentally. I think Alex really started to see this 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.720 when he started really started to see that pull of 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.880 the of the market demand. Even at you know, University 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.120 of Michigan where they started this. The kind of focal 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.040 point of the conversation that we have with them is 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.000 around really starting to think about content and building content 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:21.160 as products products for niche audiences and serving those audiences 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.719 UM in a way where they can't get um, what 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.640 you're giving somewhere else, and then allowing and this is huge, 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:35.560 allowing those audiences to create in and around your I P. 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.520 Because we are getting to the place where participation and 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:45.120 ownership is king. These are the conversations around all the 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.240 n f T s, around crypto and content and so 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.840 as marketers start to think about, how do I allow 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.039 my audience to start to participate and have maybe a 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.120 piece of ownership, even if it's informal, Um, how do 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:05.719 we ignite imagination or creativity with our audiences? That starts 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.800 to become a very different model of media. UM. Then 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.159 I think we've seen before. Yeah, there's certainly the product 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.280 roadmap that this requires, right, and moving from foreign factors 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.000 to franchises and thinking about, you know, how you build 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.480 for communities, engage with communities, And then there's a conversation 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.080 for the c R oh, right, and the sales teams 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.640 and how they're packaging this. So many times over the 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.800 last few years on this show we've talked about, you know, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:41.080 sitting down with publishers talking about their pitch, and nine 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.800 times out of ten those pitch decks have started with 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:49.719 how many peoples reach right? If it starts with we 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.440 have an audience of X, it's a wildly different entry 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.960 point when you're talking about participation and how you price 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.200 that accordingly. And with that, we'll be right back with 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:09.599 Alex and Austin, co founders of Morning Brew. Alright, ed Landia, 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.080 we are back with our partners that yield Mo. If 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.160 you remember, we spent our first mini series talking about 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.720 how yield Mo works with brands to make audience attention actionable, 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.760 and in this mini series we take on how contextual 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.560 targeting is being reimagined as brands make every interaction with 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:30.159 their consumer meaningful. Welcome Lisa Bradner, GM of Data and 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:32.919 Analytics from yield Mo. Thank you so much, great to 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.560 be back. Always great to talk to you guys. So Lisa, 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.200 talk to us about what is yield Mo, What do 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:39.880 you do at yield Mo, and how are you working 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:44.120 with your clients sure, Yelm is a smart exchange. We 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.320 are focused on increasing the value of advertising inventory for 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.719 buyers and sellers. We do that through data and my 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.200 job is to help bring the right data to bear 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.400 so that we can help brands find the best impressions 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.760 for their goals and do so in a privacy safe 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.960 way that is right for consumers. So Lisa and helping 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:09.160 brands find the right data. How much does context factor 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.840 into that? And how is yield MO framing context as 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.720 you bring data forward to your clients At the highest level, 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.200 context is everything right? It's how do we show up 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:26.680 as brands in an appropriate way when we're wanted, when 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.600 we're helpful and deliver a service so that we are 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.400 just accepted as being in the right place at the 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.160 right time. Super easy to say, super hard to do. Right. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.880 It's kind of the marketing holy grail. But what we 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.880 look at is the data. Everything that's happening in the 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.400 moment and AD is served, and we look at all 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:52.400 of that data to understand what's going on, what's surrounding 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:56.000 that ad, where is that AD showing up, what devices 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.480 it on, is the person viewing that ad paying attention 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.520 to that add and spending time with it. We look 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.640 at everything that has happening in that instant and helps 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.720 clients figure out when they're advertising is landing and when 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.040 maybe it isn't landing as well as it could. So 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.240 why do you think that contextual targeting is gaining increasing 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.000 importance in today's marketplace? So I think when you say 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:22.000 contextual targeting, that means different things to different people. But 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:27.960 at the highest level, we are on a half of 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:33.760 having less data available about the people were serving ads to. Right, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:38.720 So Google is sunsetting third party cookies. Apple is already 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:43.400 blocking on Safari third party cookies. It is harder and 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:48.520 harder for marketers to connect the data about an individual 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.280 and how they move across the web. So without that 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:58.040 data that marketers have become really reliant on, it's contextual 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.320 is the alternative of how do I show up in 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:07.200 the right way without leaning too hard on individuals private data. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.000 But what Yale MO is looking at is you know, contextual. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.280 One Datto was, hey, here's an article about travel, let's 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:18.400 serve a travel ad um. We're not going that literal. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:23.160 We're looking to understand from the data. Let the let 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.880 the ad experience tell us what ads are working with 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.240 what content and what context and what time and what 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.240 device and what place so that the data that comes 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:39.600 back can be modeled by machines and tell advertisers where 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:44.200 and when and how to place their ads. Contextual advertising, 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:46.880 right and you talk about kind of at its highest level, 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.000 has lots of different kind of meanings and machinations. But 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:55.000 contextual advertising has become very in vogue in light of 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.840 the cookie conversation. So cookies going away, which we know 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.840 got pushed back right in terms, go push the time back. However, 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.520 it's a really interesting time for marketers to be thinking 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.800 differently about contextual advertising. Why and why has it come 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.359 back into such kind of a focus for for marketers. 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.320 It's a great question because I think there was a 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.280 portion of the marketing world that when Google delayed the 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.800 cookie deprecation, when people I don't have to think about 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.440 that right now, right right, but the smart money is 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.640 saying this is real. I'm already actually losing a lot 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.160 of iOS users, and most marketers if they went in 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.960 and really studied their programmatic campaigns, I think they would 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.640 be surprised to see that often their campaigns are going 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.280 to Android users. That's not because the android users are 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:52.480 necessarily their best customers. It's because the Android users are 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.520 the ones that they can match to their audience. So 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.320 they're already missing a whole lot of iOS customers and 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.480 they may not even be realized realizing that yet. But 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.800 the smart marketers are seeing that, are realizing that their 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.320 audience is going to get harder and harder to find. 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.000 So on the one hand, they're upping their loyalty strategy 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.480 to get a lot of first party data, but on 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.800 the other hand, they're starting to test and learn new 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.760 ways of expanding reach, new ways of finding efficiency, new 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.920 ways of communicating and reaching out to their audience without 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:33.160 relying on first, second, or third party data. Lisa, this 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.120 is a great start to the conversation and we look 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:43.360 forward to having you back for part two. And we 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.880 are back on the mic with our friends from Morning 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.800 Brew at Landia. Let's give a big welcome co founders, 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:55.800 Austin Reef and Alex Lieberman. Welcome to Atlantia. Welcome, thanks 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.240 so much, thank you. Yeah, we were just saying as 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.679 we were getting ready to come into the episode, this 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.080 is like total fans of m all things in the 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.080 Twitter feed, so we're excited to have you and bring 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:11.160 this conversation I r L kind of kind of it's 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.280 it's better than on Twitter, but not as good as 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.920 in person. You both are very vocal founders and business 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.360 leaders who are constantly sharing the journey that you both 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.720 have been on in building your business. One of the 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.600 things that struck Alex and I as marketers is something 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.920 that you posted Alex talking about the most underrated entrepreneurial 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.800 skill is storytelling. UM and as this is a podcast 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.400 that is largely dedicated to the power of it, would 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.920 love to hear you know what that means to you. 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:41.800 And as you started, as you said, with the product 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:45.120 in a vision, it was really storytelling that catapulted Morning Brow. 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.160 Can you take us into that. Yeah, you know, my 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.760 thought around this is Austin and I both went to 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:58.760 an undergrad business program at Michigan, and I would say 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.400 most people in the underground business program we're we're fighting 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.720 for kind of the same three categories really two categories 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.640 of jobs investment, banking, UH and management consulting. And I 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.120 think as a function of that, most people focused on 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.679 attaining the skills that made the most sense for those jobs, 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:24.160 So things like you know, financial analysis, accounting, operations UM 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.959 and you know, don't get me wrong, those are really 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.680 important things. Those are skills that you know, any business 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.800 professional should have proficiency in. But what was always interesting 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.760 to me is that the skill, whether you want to 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:42.839 call it sales or communication or storytelling, it wasn't talked 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.400 about a lot. There was one class that everyone took 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.520 that was a joke for most people in business communications. 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.640 And you know, the reason I tweeted about that was 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.720 just in reflecting on kind of what are the biggest 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:03.160 things that I think most founders are entrepreneurs leverage in 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.640 order to propel their business forward. I think storytelling has 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.800 to be in kind of the top three of not 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:15.520 the number one. Yet it's not people aren't incentivized to 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.480 really get great at storytelling, uh in college. And when 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.000 I posted about that, I was kind of just referring 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.760 to verbal storytelling, but I think it actually is more 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.400 broad than that. It's verbal storytelling, it's written storytelling, and 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.480 it's visual storytelling. And I think we've seen examples of 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.560 great creators or experts in those different areas build massive 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.080 audiences on the Internet because people are realizing on the 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.880 Internet and not necessarily in school, how important those things are. 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.560 I look at the number of newsletter lad businesses that 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.000 have emerged over the last blood's even call it twelve 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.640 to eighteen months. There are a number of choices when 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.840 thinking about the plot of your story on paper, it 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.440 could look similar to a lot of other value props 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.840 that are out there. What would you say was the 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.960 plot twist of Morning Brew that could take it from 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.720 the product you rolled out with two really where you 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.880 hope to see this business grow? I think the plot 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:16.760 twist was, Well, there's a few. The first one was 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.880 when we identified very early on that the content was 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.960 not just for college students, but it was for everyone. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:28.240 At first was Alex who was really doing for his 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.160 friends and they were doing for other colleagues or just 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.000 people in the business school. But when we went to 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.760 our internships or our jobs and we realized that this 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.640 wasn't just for college students, those for professionals as well. 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.200 That was a big moment where the market went from 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.520 college kids, which is a nice market, but not that 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.800 big and not that valuable, to be totally honest to everyone, 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.880 and we had CEOs of big companies reading, and we 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.360 had investment banking analysts, and so that was the first thing, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.400 who was the first big CEO that you saw subscribe? 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.960 There was the year of Time Warner Cable, who ended 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.960 up investing in Morning Brew. Early on, he was I'd say, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.000 the first big person who we didn't know signed up, 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:09.840 and then we found out signed up. We used to 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:11.560 every night go through the list and see who was 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.440 signed up. I think the second thing was Alex and 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.720 I both knew the tone and voice we wanted to 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.480 hit on in every single newsletter. We know we couldn't 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:24.800 do that. We know that we knew that we had 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.480 the vision, but we couldn't execute it on every single day, 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.080 every single sentence of every single news letter. We could 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.320 do it for small chunks a sentence, a paragraph, maybe 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.320 even a single newsletter, but not six five days a year. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.760 And when we found writers who could write in the 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.120 tone we wanted it written in, that was the second 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.440 inflection point, aha moment whatever, which was okay, now we 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:51.360 can focus on the business really early on me growth, Alex, 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:56.440 sales even because we had some content people. That was 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.160 the second really big moment where we knew the audience 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.080 and then we do the content and get hit. And 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.400 the third was sales. It was can we get brands 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:09.960 to advertising Morning Brew, and can we continue to champion 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.800 this idea of creating native advertising? Right, we knew banners 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.080 weren't gonna we were going to build a big business 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.840 off of the backs of banner ads in the newsletters. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:25.520 So once those three hit the audience, the content and sales, 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:27.680 we knew we had a business. Who is your first 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:34.359 paid partner? It was Emlahart, a college memorabilia business that 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:39.320 did like branded college rings and other you know, college apparel. 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.320 It was an eight hundred dollar ad. They bought three 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.440 of them total, and the only reason we got it 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:48.480 was because one of our original investors in The Brew, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.320 he had a relationship with them and he said he 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.639 was helping us earn some beer money. So that was 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.760 that was the first advertisement partner. The first one we'd 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.919 like earned for ourselves was the University of Jena. And 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.480 the first big partner was discover Card. What was the 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.520 time frame from Memorabilia to discover Card. We'll Discover Card 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.320 we started speaking to when I was in Michigan, because 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.640 I'll never forget they came to us and they said 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.080 we're going to send you an RFP, and I immediately 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.760 said that sounds Great and Google. When RFE was I 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:28.160 had I had no idea, not a clue, I mean 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.320 just I couldn't even begin to guess what it was. 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:35.080 But so I just remember pacing in the auditorium at 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:39.040 Michigan just talking on this call with senior marketers at 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.639 one of the agencies. I can't remember which one. It 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.560 was about Discover. So that was the beginning of seventeen 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.679 and they were tossing around numbers, like I remember, they 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.120 said they were gonna r FPS for a hundred thousand, 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.480 two hundred and fifty thousand, and five hundred thousand, and 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:57.640 basically what I had to tell them was for five 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.800 hundred thousand, they could own the company five times over. 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:06.640 And we had liked subscribers. Maybe he's not he's not joking. 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.440 It was like sending like Alex and my mom like that. 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:14.879 That was the list. The CMO of Discover card her daughter, 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.199 I believe, introduced her to Morning Brew and so she 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.240 reached out to the agency saying, Hey, what they're doing 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.920 is really cool. I would love to partner with them. 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.159 So the agency thought, oh, Morning threw, they're butted up 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.520 all of this stuff, and it was just Alex nine 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:30.400 and we had no idea what we're doing, so it 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.399 wasn't even there's not you couldn't fake it till you 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.159 make it right. At some point, it's just so ridiculous, 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.199 and so we had to come clean like, yeah, this 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:40.479 is ridiculous, you know we we can't do it there 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.119 with a half million dollars. But the big thing we 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.199 did is we said, but how many subscribers do we 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.800 need to have for you to actually care about us? 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:50.880 Because at the time we didn't know, we weren't sure 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.879 it was a ten thousand, fifty hundred thousand, a million. 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.639 We had this idea that we could get to a 0:19:57.680 --> 0:19:59.800 place where big brands would care about us, but we 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.320 did know what that point was, and they started throwing 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.960 out numbers like a hundred thousand subscribers, and so that 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:07.680 for a while is our north star. And I think 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.640 around end of seventeen, that's when we started to work 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:17.520 with them, was when we actually had thousand subscribers. So 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.360 I was listening to how I built this with Gyraz 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.919 and I think Austin, you were talking about the future 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.680 of media is definitely niche and distributed. What does that 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.359 mean in your business today? And how do you think 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:37.560 about niche and scale. I think oftentimes people confuse the 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.640 word niche and small. Niche doesn't mean small. What we're 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.560 learning is that the Internet is a very large place. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.280 There's a lot of people in the world, and these 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:53.479 niches can have tons and tons and tons of followers. 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.720 And so at first we call ourselves this niche publication, 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.600 and to some extent we still are people who want 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.520 to consume. Whom to want to opt in, to consume 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:07.840 business news in a newsletter in a conversational tone every 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:12.640 single day is fairly niche. It's not huge. But now 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.800 we start thinking about, Okay, we have this audience of 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.760 three million plus, and of course you want to scale 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:19.680 that and get that bigger. But that's not the only 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.720 way we view growth anymore. We have a goal at 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.199 Morning Brew do two things. One make people better at 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.440 their job, and we do that through our B two 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.160 B publications as we call them. So we have retail Brew, 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.479 we have marketing Brew, we have Emerging Tech Brew. So 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.119 to use one of those as an example, we for 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.160 retail Brew, we try to think about how many different 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:45.080 ways can we serve a retail professional events, podcasts, you 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:46.960 know what it, whatever may be within that vertical. And 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.000 so right now we have newsletters, web content, and events, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:51.880 and we're contan think about what else is next, could 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.880 be job boards or whatever else. But on the other 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:58.960 side of things that's not job specific or industry specific, 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.760 we think about up how can we make well rounded 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:09.040 business minds. And there's four categories were really interested there, business, money, career, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:13.800 and lifestyle. And so as you break those down, like so, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.040 taking for example, money, we're going to think about how 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.840 can we create content in the money vertical. It's mostly 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.480 personal finance and investing. So you could argue investing is niche, 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:25.080 but the number of people who would like to consume 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.639 investing content in some way, whether it's a Twitter video 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:32.439 or Instagram post or a podcast, is really really large. 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:34.720 So we're just starting to break down the content we 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.320 create and target these niches that our audience cares about. 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:43.160 But my belief is these niches of productivity or investing 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:46.160 are really really big. Alexa and I used to meet 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.439 with media, you know, sales teams all the time. We 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.080 were coming in from you know, big legacy networks and 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:58.199 publications to niche startups and the common denominator slide Slide 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:01.040 number one was how many people you reach? Right, Like 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:02.879 Austin you said the first question he has, well, how 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.040 many how many subscribers do we have to get to 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:09.560 to actually validate the cost you're willing to pay. But 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.280 what if at the time those twenty thousand readers we're 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.840 spending on average, you know, an hour plus with Morning 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:22.920 Brew content in the community, we're deeply engaged were advocates 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.800 for the brands who were a part of the Morning 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.280 Brew community, would that be worth five thousand dollars. It's 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:32.879 a really interesting question. Yeah, I mean, I would just 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:35.360 say that it all comes down to incentives. Right when 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:37.960 you think what you guys are talking about, how it's 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:42.439 like crazy thinking about audience in mass scale and not 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.760 having focus and monetizing that. But I think when you 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:50.760 think about incentives drive people, it starts making sense why 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:54.760 brands m why publishers have valued the wrong things in 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:59.480 the past. The incentive for the marketer at the brand 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.240 in the past was to make their boss happy. What 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:07.080 their boss valued was getting in front of exactly one 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:09.440 ship ton of people. And so if you could get 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:12.679 in front of that many people and make your boss happy, 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:15.640 you were happy because your boss was happy with you 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:19.399 on the publisher side, if you had a business model 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:23.719 that forced you to get in front of tons of 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:27.080 eyeballs because your costs were high, you needed to be 0:24:27.160 --> 0:24:29.520 a big scale to create any sort of margin for 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:33.240 your business. Again, your incentive is to get a lot 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:37.000 of people reading to make the economics of your business work. 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:40.959 I think in order to think in this what feels 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:43.919 like a common sense way, your incentives need to be 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:47.920 aligned with thinking through common sense. So common sense KPI 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:51.040 s look like I mean, I would just basically say 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:53.800 the reason we've been able to think about things in 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:56.880 this way is it all started with I would say, 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:00.800 at the core, the value of curation. The value of 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.560 curation is what allowed us with one newsletter to have 0:25:04.680 --> 0:25:07.760 the same number of writers when we had ten thousand, 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.959 a hundred thousand and three million readers. And when you 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:14.280 have the same cost basis and you continue to grow 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:16.959 your audience, your margin grows, and so you don't have 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:21.720 to worry about like, obviously we want to scale Morning 0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:27.000 Brus audience, but we're just as interested in getting people 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:30.639 into our ecosystem through things that aren't just our daily newsletter, 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:35.199 and also retaining and engaging our daily newsletter readers with 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:38.200 other things that we create. We don't have the incentive 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:40.840 to have to get from three million to ten million 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:43.000 just for the sake of having enough margin as a 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:45.520 business to have a business that makes sense. Yeah, and 0:25:46.080 --> 0:25:50.320 most businesses, especially legacy I guess now their legacy. I 0:25:50.359 --> 0:25:52.439 don't mean The Times or the Journal, but some of 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:57.080 these publishers who are popular on the Internet for fifty years, 0:25:57.359 --> 0:26:00.840 they monetize their content with ads or round their content 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:05.479 banner ads, programmatic pre roll. We're not going to compete 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:09.320 with BuzzFeed and Vice on SEO in search terms. We're 0:26:09.320 --> 0:26:10.800 just not going to do it. That they've be on 0:26:10.840 --> 0:26:13.320 the Internet for two decades or however long they've been around. 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:17.120 So we have to compete by building brands that people 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:20.119 are passionate about, that they care about, and partner with 0:26:20.200 --> 0:26:23.760 brands in really clever ways to generate higher CPM ADS. 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:26.520 But the CPM the higher CPM ADS makes sense because 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:29.639 it's not this banner that's chasing around the Internet, but 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:33.520 it's actually an integration into our podcast, into our social 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:37.600 To Austin's point, this whole thing is like, if we 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:40.800 can create great niche content, what you're effectively doing is 0:26:40.840 --> 0:26:44.600 targeting a specific psychographic, a specific problem that's being solved 0:26:44.680 --> 0:26:48.480 or passion that's being filled for our audience. And so 0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:50.679 by doing that, you have the ability to not just 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:54.560 create content in one place, but create content around like 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:56.800 an actual franchise in a brand. And what that allows 0:26:56.840 --> 0:26:59.080 you to do is that when you go to market 0:26:59.400 --> 0:27:02.480 and partner with a brand, you know, they're not just 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:05.840 getting native ads in Morning Brew. They're not just getting 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:08.720 placement in a social post. They're not just getting a 0:27:08.760 --> 0:27:11.560 host reading a podcast. They're getting all of the things 0:27:11.720 --> 0:27:15.560 to exist everywhere and aligned fully with the franchise that 0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:18.720 is focused on a specific niche you know. So for 0:27:19.400 --> 0:27:23.680 Heineken Um, we're working with them on their zero point 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:27.720 zero or zero zero product, which is their non alcoholic beer, 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:31.520 and they get to align with Business Casual, which is 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:35.320 the more key podcast product at Morning Brew, but we 0:27:35.359 --> 0:27:37.760 don't even refer to it as a podcast anymore. It 0:27:37.960 --> 0:27:42.320 is a franchise that has podcast, that has newsletter that 0:27:42.400 --> 0:27:45.840 has social content that also gets extended into our daily newsletter, 0:27:46.000 --> 0:27:49.680 and Heineken zero zero get those touch points in all 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:52.840 four places that I just mentioned, so that one stands 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:54.720 out to me. The other one that stands out to 0:27:54.720 --> 0:27:58.119 me was the work that we did with Fidelity with 0:27:58.200 --> 0:28:02.040 Fresh Invest, where we created a custom, uh interview style 0:28:02.160 --> 0:28:06.000 podcast with them. It was a limited series where basically 0:28:06.000 --> 0:28:08.800 I was the host. I would introduce Fresh Invest, I 0:28:08.800 --> 0:28:11.600 would talk through the biggest things happening in the markets 0:28:11.640 --> 0:28:14.360 in the last few days, and then I would interview 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:17.919 a Fidelity employee who was an expert in one of 0:28:17.920 --> 0:28:21.159 the topics of the financial markets news that I was 0:28:21.200 --> 0:28:23.439 covering in that episode. And we did that as a 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:26.240 limited series. It ended up getting you know, two x 0:28:26.320 --> 0:28:29.120 the downloads that we were expecting on the show. Um, 0:28:29.160 --> 0:28:32.560 you know, we're we're talking about another season for that 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:34.920 coming up. But that was a really good experience of 0:28:35.240 --> 0:28:38.240 you know, if you look at the ratings for the podcast, 0:28:38.280 --> 0:28:40.800 if you look at people's experience, people felt like it 0:28:40.880 --> 0:28:43.680 was a genuine content franchise where they learned about the 0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:46.760 financial markets from experts, and it just so happened to 0:28:46.840 --> 0:28:51.440 be created in partnership with Fidelity. That's awesome. I love, 0:28:51.920 --> 0:28:55.240 love love that you guys are talking about ecosystems and 0:28:55.320 --> 0:28:59.960 franchises actually like ecosystems because when you start to think 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:03.800 about who's created I P and content ecosystems. You start 0:29:03.840 --> 0:29:06.720 thinking about Disney, Marvel, blah blah blah blah ba. There 0:29:06.760 --> 0:29:12.000 haven't been a lot of publishers who have created these 0:29:12.040 --> 0:29:15.080 types of They've tried, Laura and I have like sat 0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:17.440 with some of them. They've tried, but unsuccessfully. I think 0:29:17.480 --> 0:29:21.480 in the past um who have really created these sustainable 0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:26.760 ecosystems all based on specific audiences. As you guys started 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:32.080 thinking about this, was this an intentional build There's a 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:34.959 little rhetorical question, but like it was this an intentional 0:29:35.080 --> 0:29:39.120 build into ecosystems and franchises? Was it? Were you looking 0:29:39.280 --> 0:29:42.920 at the entertainment world and starting to see what was 0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:46.840 happening in the last you know, seven eight years in 0:29:46.960 --> 0:29:50.880 terms of like really building out that i P. What 0:29:51.080 --> 0:29:53.760 led you to the infrastructure here and the kind of 0:29:53.760 --> 0:29:57.120 framework that you're going after. I think there are a 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:00.960 few great examples of the people are companies that are 0:30:01.000 --> 0:30:06.960 doing this that really inspired us. And so to your point, yeah, 0:30:07.000 --> 0:30:11.480 I mean the scale players aren't doing this. They don't 0:30:11.520 --> 0:30:14.320 need to. And in fact, it's probably to be honest, 0:30:14.320 --> 0:30:17.640 those scale players that's probably disrupting themselves. They probably can't 0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:20.440 do it. Just it's not in their DNA to build this. 0:30:21.000 --> 0:30:23.400 But you look at if you're familiar with the Churning 0:30:23.400 --> 0:30:27.000 group in their portfolio, whether it's Food fifty two or 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:31.600 Meat Eater or bar Stool or Crunchy Role, any of 0:30:31.640 --> 0:30:35.360 these franchise, they've taken these niche audiences. Now they're doing 0:30:35.360 --> 0:30:39.320 it with Golden Auctions, which is an auctioneer house there 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:41.960 that that's actually more commerce, and now they're going to 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:45.160 build out content. I assume they've done a really interesting 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:47.560 job there. Same with if you look at the Ringer, 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:50.719 they've done a really interesting job with some of this 0:30:51.480 --> 0:30:54.840 and e sports teams you look at hundred Thieves or 0:30:54.880 --> 0:30:57.640 these other sports teams, they've done a better job than 0:30:57.680 --> 0:31:02.680 most media companies of building franchises and building passion audiences 0:31:02.760 --> 0:31:06.000 and selling them commerce and selling them tickets to gain 0:31:06.360 --> 0:31:10.360 to you in person, the sports competitions and events. Those 0:31:10.400 --> 0:31:12.280 are some of the people we looked at. His inspiration 0:31:12.400 --> 0:31:15.920 for what we're doing. Was it premeditated? Though? Like that 0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:17.880 I want to get because what I love when you 0:31:17.920 --> 0:31:20.240 were talking about in the how I built this, and 0:31:20.280 --> 0:31:21.920 I think it was really honest And I have to 0:31:21.920 --> 0:31:25.160 commend you guys on your um on your kind of 0:31:25.280 --> 0:31:30.840 level of transparency UM, building in public and and doing 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:34.560 it what feels really earnestly UM, which is super refreshing 0:31:34.600 --> 0:31:36.920 and absolutely a part of your brand, which you've already 0:31:36.960 --> 0:31:39.280 kind of talked about. I started listening in the Founders 0:31:39.360 --> 0:31:42.239 Journal and one of the things that you said was 0:31:42.680 --> 0:31:45.959 we really kind of didn't know we used our naiveness 0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:50.320 about the media business to actually succeed here when you're 0:31:50.360 --> 0:31:53.720 talking about franchising this stuff out in these ecosystems is 0:31:53.720 --> 0:31:57.760 actually a pretty big deal in terms of a business 0:31:57.840 --> 0:32:01.440 infrastructure and thinking through this. So was that premeditated? What 0:32:01.520 --> 0:32:04.560 I would say is to the point of us building 0:32:04.600 --> 0:32:07.000 in a in a naive fashion, I would say for 0:32:07.080 --> 0:32:10.120 the majority of the life of the business, that is 0:32:10.160 --> 0:32:13.840 how things went down. And um. You know, Paul Graham 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:16.120 has a great essay about independent thinking and one of 0:32:16.160 --> 0:32:20.320 the you know, when when he tries to to guide 0:32:20.360 --> 0:32:22.959 people through how can you be a more independent thinker, 0:32:23.360 --> 0:32:25.600 one of the things he always refers to is having 0:32:25.600 --> 0:32:28.160 a beginner's mindset. What is one of the best ways 0:32:28.200 --> 0:32:30.040 to have the beginner's mindset is literally to have a 0:32:30.080 --> 0:32:32.760 beginner's mind is like not even know this. The way 0:32:32.800 --> 0:32:34.800 that things have been done. That is how we started 0:32:34.800 --> 0:32:38.200 building our business because we had no exposure to media. 0:32:38.760 --> 0:32:42.600 And when you asked about how have we gone into ecosystems, 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:45.400 I think it was more just like us thinking linearly 0:32:45.440 --> 0:32:49.440 about serving our audience and also what brands were asking for. 0:32:49.680 --> 0:32:53.680 So it's like we started with newsletters and then we said, well, one, 0:32:54.080 --> 0:32:57.880 we wanted to diversify away from just creating newsletter content, 0:32:57.960 --> 0:33:01.360 and our audience doesn't just read newsletters when they read 0:33:01.400 --> 0:33:05.280 about business. That's what guided us to podcasting because we said, 0:33:05.840 --> 0:33:09.160 what Morning Brows built is a really intimate relationship with 0:33:09.200 --> 0:33:12.400 a really obsessive audience. There's nothing more intimate than hearing 0:33:12.840 --> 0:33:15.959 a personality or a brand speaking to in your ears. 0:33:16.520 --> 0:33:19.120 And then as we've gone into other things, whether it 0:33:19.160 --> 0:33:22.800 be social content, going more into video content, going into events, 0:33:23.240 --> 0:33:26.560 that has been furthering that narrative of what are all 0:33:26.600 --> 0:33:28.640 the ways that we can serve the modern business leader 0:33:28.800 --> 0:33:32.760 in the two big needs that Austin talked about, um, 0:33:32.960 --> 0:33:34.760 how can we do all of those things? And at 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:38.920 the same time, we've heard from brands how what they 0:33:39.000 --> 0:33:41.120 hope to do is get in front of our audience 0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:44.600 in a way where they are hitting multiple touchpoints of 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:47.800 that ecosystem where truly feels like in an ecosystem and 0:33:47.880 --> 0:33:50.080 not just a single product placement here, in a single 0:33:50.080 --> 0:33:53.920 product placement there. I would say, Now, you know, especially 0:33:53.920 --> 0:33:57.000 with Austin at the HELM, we are way more meditated 0:33:57.360 --> 0:33:59.800 in how we are building out these ecosystems. But I 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:01.480 say for the vast majority of the business, it was 0:34:01.520 --> 0:34:03.840 really linearly thinking about what does our audience want and 0:34:03.880 --> 0:34:06.080 also what are brands asking for? Well, I think it's 0:34:06.120 --> 0:34:09.759 a difference between franchises versus form factors when you think 0:34:09.800 --> 0:34:13.719 about what leads right, especially from a consumer standpoint, to 0:34:13.800 --> 0:34:17.600 stop leading with the form factor first, but is the 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:22.000 perspective and community that we are building as creators that 0:34:22.040 --> 0:34:24.560 we should be putting the premium against. It's funny you 0:34:24.640 --> 0:34:26.360 bring this up. We've been talking about this a lot 0:34:26.239 --> 0:34:28.799 of the Brew. We spoke the last year about this 0:34:28.880 --> 0:34:33.520 transition from newsletter company the media company, and all that 0:34:33.600 --> 0:34:39.600 means is we transition from a medium which is newsletter 0:34:40.160 --> 0:34:46.480 to multi platform and we now lead with whatever platform 0:34:46.719 --> 0:34:52.080 best serves the audience in that niche, with the talent, personalities, 0:34:52.920 --> 0:34:57.000 whatever we have, and so as we go into personal planants, 0:34:57.360 --> 0:34:59.160 if it makes sense to be newsletter heavy, well be 0:34:59.200 --> 0:35:01.120 news letter heavy. If makes sense to be video heavy, 0:35:01.120 --> 0:35:04.839 will be video heavy. And so initially we people did 0:35:04.840 --> 0:35:06.719 call us a newsletter, and most people still think of 0:35:06.800 --> 0:35:09.160 us as a newsletter of business. I did to think 0:35:09.200 --> 0:35:12.319 a while. I think my goal is where a lot 0:35:12.360 --> 0:35:15.399 of people actually discover us, not through Morning Crew, right, 0:35:15.440 --> 0:35:17.160 they listen to Business Casual and they're like, oh, I 0:35:17.160 --> 0:35:20.520 didn't either one what is Morning Brew? Or I didn't 0:35:20.600 --> 0:35:23.640 Morning Brew has this podcast? That'd be awesome. And if 0:35:23.680 --> 0:35:25.400 we can do that in all these verticals. And this 0:35:25.440 --> 0:35:29.000 is not a one or three even three or five 0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:31.680 year vision, this is this takes years. You look at 0:35:31.680 --> 0:35:34.759 the companies have successfully done this. Food fifty two is 0:35:34.800 --> 0:35:38.920 a great example. It's taken a long time. A really 0:35:38.960 --> 0:35:41.359 meat Eaters another one. If you're not famili to media, 0:35:41.400 --> 0:35:43.439 they're a really interesting brand and no one really talks 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:46.640 about it's at least not in the New York City 0:35:46.760 --> 0:35:51.520 media circuit because they cover hunting and fishing. But that 0:35:51.600 --> 0:35:55.440 company has scale tremendously and now they have all their 0:35:55.440 --> 0:35:58.240 oy have a ton of brands, they bought a commerce brands. 0:35:58.320 --> 0:36:01.840 They're selling hunting gear and you can only sell product 0:36:02.080 --> 0:36:05.640 product to your audience, they actually care a value. You 0:36:05.680 --> 0:36:07.719 can't sell things to your audience and they don't care 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:10.520 a value, And so that that's the goal. Are there 0:36:10.560 --> 0:36:14.040 other bets as you think about this modern business leader 0:36:14.080 --> 0:36:18.960 you're serving that push media beyond form fact there, but 0:36:19.080 --> 0:36:22.239 push media as we know it into new territories that 0:36:22.320 --> 0:36:26.680 perhaps some of the legacy competitors in your category aren't 0:36:26.719 --> 0:36:30.080 thinking about. But you know that the customer is interested in. 0:36:31.800 --> 0:36:34.759 So we have a ways to go till we're really there. 0:36:34.880 --> 0:36:37.880 Right So right now we're testing out this this cohort 0:36:37.920 --> 0:36:41.759 based course called MBA, which our first test into non 0:36:41.840 --> 0:36:46.279 ad based revenue, and it's really exciting. But I see 0:36:46.280 --> 0:36:49.040 a world in which we're not just the media brammit. 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:53.720 We're a consumer brand where people don't. Yes, we create content, 0:36:54.000 --> 0:36:56.640 but just like every commerce brand out there trying to 0:36:56.680 --> 0:36:59.279 create content, I think we can beat all of them 0:36:59.440 --> 0:37:02.960 to create commerce. And so that core based course is 0:37:03.000 --> 0:37:04.759 one thing we're doing. But I see a world in 0:37:04.800 --> 0:37:08.120 which we have content and investing in content and business 0:37:08.120 --> 0:37:11.720 news and content and productivity and maybe in the productivity vertical. 0:37:12.280 --> 0:37:16.480 We have a morning Row journal that helps you journal 0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:18.799 every day, and that's a I don't know, you buy 0:37:18.800 --> 0:37:21.640 that every three months or so, and that's a product 0:37:21.680 --> 0:37:25.160 that franchise sells. And maybe we have financial products in 0:37:25.200 --> 0:37:29.480 the investing vertical, and maybe in the news vertical we 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:31.680 have a community that talks about certain types of news. 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:34.080 And in retail, which is the B two B side 0:37:34.080 --> 0:37:38.520 of things, we have a once a year annual event. So, 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:41.680 just like the other companies I mentioned, have evolved over 0:37:41.760 --> 0:37:44.480 time and started to build out different types of content, 0:37:45.640 --> 0:37:48.560 blur the lines between what's a content company what's just 0:37:48.600 --> 0:37:51.600 a consumer brand. That is where we're in up play. 0:37:51.640 --> 0:37:53.520 But we have a lot of work to be done 0:37:53.920 --> 0:37:57.919 in terms of just we just started to build on 0:37:57.960 --> 0:38:00.680 social and build video and the five we have one 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:03.759 we have two two podcasts Always Only and then one 0:38:03.800 --> 0:38:07.040 podcast Alex mentioned we did as a one off, and 0:38:07.120 --> 0:38:09.880 so we just scratched the surface in terms of what 0:38:09.920 --> 0:38:13.440 we're capable of doing. And so we have a lot 0:38:13.840 --> 0:38:16.200 of runway in terms of what we can get done 0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:19.640 and we're really excited about being able to do all 0:38:19.680 --> 0:38:22.480 of that. This takes really specific talent. How are you 0:38:22.520 --> 0:38:26.799 guys thinking about creative talent and hiring creative talent? Is 0:38:26.800 --> 0:38:31.880 there a different kind of requirement or person you're looking for. 0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:37.239 We have been incredibly talented team we have. It's you know, 0:38:37.320 --> 0:38:39.920 it's not specific, Alex. It's more creative than I am, 0:38:40.000 --> 0:38:42.040 so she can talk more about the people we have 0:38:42.120 --> 0:38:45.919 on the team. But we just hire really talented creative people. Yeah, 0:38:46.000 --> 0:38:48.560 I mean, I would just say that people always ask 0:38:48.680 --> 0:38:52.879 us how is our writing so good? And there really 0:38:52.920 --> 0:38:56.360 is no secret we hire incredible writers. We like to 0:38:56.360 --> 0:39:00.200 say we go unicorn hunting every time we hire eiter, 0:39:00.480 --> 0:39:03.360 because you need to find someone who is obsessed with 0:39:03.400 --> 0:39:07.480 the news, someone who is really well informed, someone who 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:10.719 has great writing chops who writes with flow, who just 0:39:10.800 --> 0:39:15.319 like writes extremely well, and someone who's funny but isn't 0:39:15.360 --> 0:39:18.920 trying to write laugh out loud jokes, is able to 0:39:19.320 --> 0:39:24.560 intertwine humor with um and punch nous with the stuff 0:39:24.600 --> 0:39:28.440 that they're writing. I think talent will work the same way, 0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:32.080 just in in a different type of context, with social 0:39:32.200 --> 0:39:34.279 or with multimedia. I mean, we're already seeing this right 0:39:34.320 --> 0:39:37.000 with Morning Bruce TikTok, which has gone from zero to 0:39:37.160 --> 0:39:42.200 twenty almost seven thou followers in a few months. Daniel 0:39:42.239 --> 0:39:45.759 Toomey who's been our talent on there um he was 0:39:45.800 --> 0:39:49.360 an inbound person who applied to the business. We're just 0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:53.120 gonna have to change the lens through which we assess 0:39:53.160 --> 0:39:56.680 social audio or video talent, but we're gonna look for 0:39:56.680 --> 0:39:59.800 the same mix, which is who who are the p 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.480 bold that are able to marry entertainment and information in 0:40:03.520 --> 0:40:07.080 a way that creates the morning grout voice that has become, 0:40:07.120 --> 0:40:09.120 you know, a special part of our I P. I 0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:11.560 want to go to like a quick speed round of questions. 0:40:11.960 --> 0:40:15.480 What is a topic that you think in the business 0:40:15.560 --> 0:40:17.759 world that gets you so excited that you want to 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:20.279 go deep on and no one's really covered it the 0:40:20.400 --> 0:40:22.200 right way or the way you want to cover it. 0:40:22.920 --> 0:40:27.080 I would say DEFY and recently reading up on DEFY, 0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:31.759 what is defy decentralized finance? And I'm sure people have 0:40:31.880 --> 0:40:34.000 covered the right way. It's one of those things where 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:37.320 I feel like such an outsider even trying to consume 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:40.520 some of the content where I'll read a tweetstorm on 0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:44.000 DEFY and I'll see a term or a phrase or 0:40:44.040 --> 0:40:46.960 something that is a matter of fact in that conversation 0:40:47.000 --> 0:40:49.520 I don't know, and I'll look that up and I'll 0:40:49.520 --> 0:40:51.440 have no idea what that means. And then I'll read 0:40:51.520 --> 0:40:53.200 that and you have to keep on pulling back layers 0:40:53.239 --> 0:40:56.640 the onion and then they just a really complex topic. Yeah, well, 0:40:56.880 --> 0:40:59.080 maybe a listener on the podcast can sponsor it, and 0:40:59.120 --> 0:41:02.279 then we'll do it. Alex, what about you topic? You know? 0:41:02.360 --> 0:41:04.400 Normally I say the creator economy, but I'm going to 0:41:04.480 --> 0:41:06.239 switch it up this time, and what I'm gonna say 0:41:06.400 --> 0:41:10.880 is studying totally different businesses in other countries. That's a 0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:14.040 relevant thing for me just because, like recently, companies that 0:41:14.080 --> 0:41:18.040 I've been looking at are China based or India based, 0:41:18.560 --> 0:41:24.520 and you find entirely different models that haven't been tested 0:41:24.640 --> 0:41:28.520 or haven't reached um mass market in the US, and 0:41:28.560 --> 0:41:30.880 I think that's such an amazing arbitrage in general, like 0:41:30.920 --> 0:41:34.200 they're different, arbitrage is for business opportunities. One is creating 0:41:34.200 --> 0:41:37.759 a business for a younger generation. That's been done for 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:39.400 an older generation, but it hasn't been done for a 0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:42.360 younger generation. That's quite literally morning brew. I think another 0:41:42.400 --> 0:41:45.920 example of that arbitrage is studying businesses in other countries 0:41:46.120 --> 0:41:48.080 and then bringing them stateside. I think you're even starting 0:41:48.080 --> 0:41:51.839 to see that, like with the recent news around podcasts 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:58.600 um and like Apple, Spotify, MPR introducing obviously paid podcasts 0:41:58.600 --> 0:42:02.640 like that that has existed in China for many years. Okay, 0:42:02.719 --> 0:42:07.239 dream brand partner? Who is it? Lulu Lemon? Oh, tell 0:42:07.239 --> 0:42:09.960 me you wear men's Lulu Lemon. Yeah I'm wearing I'm 0:42:09.960 --> 0:42:12.520 wearing a lu Lemon right now. Yeah, I'm big, big 0:42:12.600 --> 0:42:15.440 Lulu guy. And now they own Mirror. You can really 0:42:15.440 --> 0:42:18.919 get a cool campaign with Mirror and Lulu Lemon. Morning Brew, 0:42:19.239 --> 0:42:23.480 Alex Lieberman, Model executive chairman, bring it all together? Well, Alex, 0:42:23.480 --> 0:42:27.160 who's your dream partner? So I'm gonna say this, because 0:42:27.360 --> 0:42:30.480 Austin did a realistic one, I'm gonna do an unrealistic one. 0:42:30.480 --> 0:42:34.080 But it ever happened. I just go into retirement right then. 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:37.120 And there is uh Tesla, not only because they don't 0:42:37.120 --> 0:42:40.080 spend on marketing, but I just envision a world in which, 0:42:40.400 --> 0:42:43.200 when it's fully autonomous, you have a whole campaign around 0:42:43.200 --> 0:42:46.080 what work looks like in an autonomous vehicle, and I 0:42:46.080 --> 0:42:48.880 think it would be sick. What is your legacy headline 0:42:49.400 --> 0:42:51.760 if you look back, when all is said and done, 0:42:52.160 --> 0:42:54.920 what would you like to sum up in a headline 0:42:55.000 --> 0:42:58.879 about Morning Brew? That's a question you should have asked 0:42:58.920 --> 0:43:03.600 us to prepare for That's that's a that's a big one. Ah, 0:43:04.239 --> 0:43:09.120 this is cliche or it's a bad answer, But I 0:43:09.239 --> 0:43:12.040 want I mean we and we said this from day one. 0:43:12.160 --> 0:43:14.600 This was this analogy. We use the way that our 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:18.360 parents generation, the way boomers look at the Wall Street Journal, 0:43:19.160 --> 0:43:22.640 especially the most passionate boomers, where they read it every day, 0:43:22.680 --> 0:43:26.480 but also they get the Wall Street Journal Wines magazine 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:29.640 and they go to the wine tastings and all of 0:43:29.640 --> 0:43:34.479 that stuff, that type interaction and that type of uh 0:43:35.040 --> 0:43:39.680 daily you know, thinking about that brand. Yeah, I want 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:42.480 that to be the way people think about Morning Brew. 0:43:43.040 --> 0:43:45.640 But compelling that with the fact that we now the 0:43:45.719 --> 0:43:48.160 Internet and we have digital and does not a once 0:43:48.440 --> 0:43:50.640 You don't consue a paper once day, but you consume 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:54.440 digital products all day long. And so that's the analogy 0:43:54.480 --> 0:43:57.200 I want people to make. Is Morning Brew did for 0:43:57.239 --> 0:44:01.000 for millennials or gen Z or whatever the Ultra Journal 0:44:01.040 --> 0:44:04.919 did for boomers? What about you, Alex, Yeah, I would 0:44:04.920 --> 0:44:08.520 say it's uh just a different angle on the same 0:44:08.560 --> 0:44:11.480 type of take. Right, we're talking basically at the end 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:14.440 of the day, our goal is ubiquity for our generation. 0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:18.359 UM I want rap songs to be written about us. 0:44:19.880 --> 0:44:24.160 I want people to reference the Brew on big TV 0:44:24.239 --> 0:44:27.480 shows that come out on Netflix, because when things like 0:44:27.520 --> 0:44:30.800 happened happen like that, you reach a level of cultural 0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:34.800 ubiquity that only happens when you've truly served an obsessive 0:44:34.800 --> 0:44:37.200 audience for a long period of time. Before we go, 0:44:37.280 --> 0:44:40.080 we play a game with all of our guests. Bye 0:44:40.080 --> 0:44:43.120 bye bye. What would you get rid of? What would 0:44:43.160 --> 0:44:46.640 you buy or acquire? And what would you do yourself? 0:44:47.680 --> 0:44:51.400 I would buy on behalf of Morning grew a financial 0:44:51.440 --> 0:44:53.759 service company. I don't know what, but I do think 0:44:53.800 --> 0:44:57.760 eventually Morning Bruising get into financial products. So that's again, 0:44:57.800 --> 0:45:02.360 that's the ten year vision. I think I would create 0:45:02.800 --> 0:45:06.440 a tequila brand. Oh, now we're talking. Now we're talking 0:45:06.480 --> 0:45:09.880 a partnership. Yeah, that's collaboration all the way. Spicy Margarita's 0:45:09.920 --> 0:45:12.640 or the official drink of Atlantia Tequila shots for the 0:45:12.680 --> 0:45:16.680 official drink of Austin Reefs. So, and what are what 0:45:16.719 --> 0:45:20.520 are you getting rid of? I would get rid of 0:45:21.000 --> 0:45:24.399 the sentiment that AD based businesses are bad. I think 0:45:24.400 --> 0:45:28.040 it is ludicrous and I think bad at they add 0:45:28.120 --> 0:45:30.880 based businesses are bad. So I think all bad businesses 0:45:30.880 --> 0:45:33.320 are bad, But I don't think all AD based business 0:45:33.360 --> 0:45:37.080 are bad just because a few people ran or poorly 0:45:37.160 --> 0:45:41.880 ran AD based businesses. So you just landed yourself a 0:45:41.960 --> 0:45:46.400 keynote at the next I A B conference. What about you, Alex? 0:45:46.640 --> 0:45:49.279 This is a tough one. Um okay, So let's just 0:45:49.320 --> 0:45:55.160 start uh bye? What what would I bye? Well? I 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:58.720 was going to say a find financial services company, because 0:45:58.760 --> 0:46:01.400 I think there's just a lot of technology we wouldn't 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:03.160 want to figure out and we want from a partner. 0:46:03.239 --> 0:46:06.160 But Austin said that, so I'm gonna go with I 0:46:06.200 --> 0:46:13.280 would buy a failed uh direct a consumer apparel brand, 0:46:13.760 --> 0:46:18.719 something like a Combatant Gentleman, a brand that did not 0:46:18.800 --> 0:46:22.040 work out well but is for the modern business leader 0:46:22.440 --> 0:46:24.719 and is what we think of quality products. But the 0:46:24.719 --> 0:46:27.200 economics and the business they just didn't run it prudently. 0:46:27.560 --> 0:46:31.399 I would buy that business. Who would I say by two? 0:46:31.520 --> 0:46:38.200 Or what would I say? By two? Um? I I 0:46:38.239 --> 0:46:43.279 would say by that I'm now I'm just cheating because 0:46:43.280 --> 0:46:45.080 I said this on Twitter. I would say bye to 0:46:45.120 --> 0:46:48.200 the word orthogonal. I think it's such a usually start 0:46:48.280 --> 0:46:51.080 up word. It's a good word, but I just there 0:46:51.080 --> 0:46:53.400 has to be a better way to say what orthogonal means. 0:46:53.520 --> 0:46:56.319 And the only person who I give permission to use 0:46:56.320 --> 0:46:58.239 it as Ben Thompson because he uses it a lot, 0:46:58.280 --> 0:47:01.879 but he's also leagues UH smarter than all of us, 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:05.480 so he can use it. And then by b y 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:09.600 um a journal brand like I just think, especially the 0:47:09.680 --> 0:47:13.839 Founders journals, the audience UH continues to grow. Literally can 0:47:13.920 --> 0:47:16.440 have a journal called Founders Journal or journal brand by 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:19.319 Founders Journal that gets featured in all social content, with 0:47:19.360 --> 0:47:22.600 all recordings of episodes. And I think given we're we 0:47:22.600 --> 0:47:26.200 could actually literally create niche journal brands for decision journaling, 0:47:26.280 --> 0:47:31.279 for different job functions, for UH, for mental wellness, for 0:47:31.480 --> 0:47:34.520 professionals focused on like specific prompts for your mental health. 0:47:34.960 --> 0:47:36.799 And the best thing about a journal business is not 0:47:36.840 --> 0:47:39.719 only the margin um, but also you can make it 0:47:39.920 --> 0:47:43.520 into almost a recurring revenue product where people use up 0:47:43.520 --> 0:47:45.120 all their pages and then they need to get the 0:47:45.200 --> 0:47:48.960 next journal. So, Alex Austin, if people want to get 0:47:49.000 --> 0:47:52.560 in touch with you to journal, make tequila or do 0:47:52.600 --> 0:47:54.759 business with the Brew, how can they get in touch 0:47:54.800 --> 0:47:57.440 with you? You can sign up for Morning Brew newsletters 0:47:57.520 --> 0:47:59.600 at morning brew dot com and you can follow me 0:47:59.640 --> 0:48:04.440 on Twitter at Austin underscore reef r E. First you'll 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:06.560 go and sign up for all the Bruise products where 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:09.760 Austin just said morning brew dot com. Then you'll listen 0:48:10.239 --> 0:48:12.560 one of those products is Founders Journal. Would love for 0:48:12.560 --> 0:48:16.400 you to listen. And then on Twitter on business Barista. Awesome, 0:48:16.480 --> 0:48:19.000 you guys, Thank you so much, Thank you so much, 0:48:19.280 --> 0:48:21.680 and please come back and visit. We will. Thank you. 0:48:21.760 --> 0:48:27.560 Thanks so much for having us guys. Thank you again 0:48:27.600 --> 0:48:31.880 to Alex and Austin for coming by. Great conversation. Going 0:48:32.000 --> 0:48:34.759 back to what we were talking about at the kind 0:48:34.760 --> 0:48:38.560 of beginning of the show, it really codified my thinking 0:48:38.719 --> 0:48:40.040 and some of the things that we used to do 0:48:40.120 --> 0:48:44.279 together where we would have conversations with c r o 0:48:44.480 --> 0:48:47.400 s at big media companies, but we would be asking 0:48:47.480 --> 0:48:50.560 and pushing on what I P do you have? This 0:48:50.640 --> 0:48:54.840 was what what's your I P? What's your most valuable 0:48:54.840 --> 0:49:00.279 I P? Talent, etcetera, technology, etcetera. And what happened because 0:49:00.320 --> 0:49:05.000 we were asking those questions, we stopped having conversations just 0:49:05.080 --> 0:49:09.719 with the sales teams. We started having conversations with the founders, 0:49:10.160 --> 0:49:14.480 CEOs and the chief product officers and maybe more importantly, 0:49:15.440 --> 0:49:18.080 the chief product officers, so really the people who were 0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:22.360 driving the technology, thinking about audiences and developing products in 0:49:22.600 --> 0:49:28.920 media for audiences. And that completely changes the conversation that 0:49:29.040 --> 0:49:32.640 you have on the brand partner side if you're actually 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:37.799 starting to develop with developed products, think about audiences with 0:49:38.480 --> 0:49:41.080 a chief product officer at a media company. And I 0:49:41.120 --> 0:49:44.360 think that there are actually still few chief product officers 0:49:44.400 --> 0:49:48.239 titled kind of quote unquote properly, but I believe we're 0:49:48.239 --> 0:49:50.760 going to see a lot more, a lot more chief 0:49:50.760 --> 0:49:54.759 product officers entering entering into the world of media. You know, 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:57.279 it's interesting if you go back in the episode the 0:49:57.360 --> 0:50:01.160 transition from newsletter to podcast, because there was an intimate 0:50:01.239 --> 0:50:06.560 relationship that existed with an obsessive audience. That pairing of 0:50:06.600 --> 0:50:09.200 the commercial side coupled with the content side when you're 0:50:09.200 --> 0:50:13.560 picking up the signals, insights, inputs from audience pits on 0:50:14.080 --> 0:50:18.480 um what what you're noting around bringing product officers forward 0:50:18.760 --> 0:50:23.200 with revenue officers and having those conversations with marketers. How 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:26.799 can advertisers be a part of it and build not 0:50:26.920 --> 0:50:31.759 just media product, but add product around it and and 0:50:31.840 --> 0:50:35.959 in that intimate relationship with obsessive audience. Note it does 0:50:36.040 --> 0:50:41.680 not look like impressions. It does not look like clicks. 0:50:42.719 --> 0:50:45.719 It looks like conversations. It looks like how many sweatshirts 0:50:45.760 --> 0:50:48.719 I sold last quarter to people who are engaged with 0:50:48.760 --> 0:50:52.200 my community? And so could you imagine lex and we've 0:50:52.239 --> 0:50:55.160 sat down in many of these conversations with publishers, c 0:50:55.320 --> 0:50:58.480 ros and sales teams. If that pitch deck started with 0:50:59.480 --> 0:51:03.560 X media company we sold ex sweatshirts with our logo 0:51:03.680 --> 0:51:09.319 on it last quarter, versus we reached X audience, could 0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:13.040 you imagine the conversation that that would have started for us? 0:51:13.120 --> 0:51:17.279 And just what's happening there? Tell us about that? Yeah? 0:51:17.480 --> 0:51:19.680 I think it just signals something different, which is the 0:51:19.719 --> 0:51:26.320 participation factor. And in that participation factor, new ad products 0:51:26.360 --> 0:51:31.840 and monetization models should emerge. Two things. They're one, I 0:51:31.880 --> 0:51:39.200 think that we too easily equate scale with volume like that, 0:51:39.520 --> 0:51:45.080 so on the nose direct impressions, giant audiences, you can scale, 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:48.680 and in fact, brands are doing it all the time, 0:51:49.320 --> 0:51:54.799 scaling with niche audiences and Austin. Austin talked about that. 0:51:54.880 --> 0:51:56.719 He was like, and I kind of pushed him, so 0:51:56.760 --> 0:52:01.439 he hit home the point that niche and scale are 0:52:01.520 --> 0:52:05.759 not mutually exclusive in fact they work together. And so 0:52:05.800 --> 0:52:09.160 when you start to think about that, are we even 0:52:09.200 --> 0:52:11.680 defining scale the right way? Do we have the right 0:52:12.080 --> 0:52:17.600 tools to really think about and design for scale visa 0:52:17.680 --> 0:52:22.200 V niche? And then too that participation factor, how do 0:52:22.280 --> 0:52:28.759 we allow and invite the audience to own part of 0:52:28.800 --> 0:52:33.319 the experience because that is where the fire happens. That 0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:40.120 point is really interesting when you think about how much time, attention, engagement, 0:52:40.760 --> 0:52:45.000 money is left on the table when you go vertical 0:52:45.480 --> 0:52:49.600 versus building horizontally, and so you can scale that niche 0:52:49.680 --> 0:52:54.360 by moving into and diversifying your product portfolio, as we 0:52:54.440 --> 0:52:57.000 heard the Brew intends to do. I think it's a 0:52:57.040 --> 0:53:00.760 really interesting inflection point for media company. He's in thinking 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:05.759 about ted Lasso included how I moved from form and 0:53:05.800 --> 0:53:10.319 function to franchise and thinking about the newsletter or a 0:53:10.360 --> 0:53:13.680 streaming show which now has the ability to move into 0:53:13.800 --> 0:53:17.640 and engage with community in new ways that widely opens 0:53:17.719 --> 0:53:23.120 up the aperture for business totally. And with that, Atlantia, 0:53:23.320 --> 0:53:26.560 we'll be back in two weeks. Laura hit it with 0:53:26.600 --> 0:53:28.319 a list of all of our friends and family at 0:53:28.320 --> 0:53:30.359 my Heart who have been so good to us and 0:53:30.400 --> 0:53:33.000 helped us get back on air. Big thank you to 0:53:33.120 --> 0:53:37.480 Bob Connal, Carter, Andy, Eric Gayle Val, Michael jen We 0:53:37.560 --> 0:53:40.680 appreciate you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. We'll 0:53:40.719 --> 0:53:47.480 see you in two weeks. So, Ryan, what Ted Lasso 0:53:47.600 --> 0:53:51.000 character are you? I really wish I was Roy Kent, 0:53:51.680 --> 0:53:54.919 but I am, in fact a Nate through and through, 0:53:55.320 --> 0:54:00.600 and I hope that is uh his oar goes where 0:54:00.600 --> 0:54:02.960 I think it's going, where he'll have a bit of 0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:05.160 redemption from being a little bit of a jerk this 0:54:05.239 --> 0:54:08.160 season totally. But he's not a jerk, and you're not 0:54:08.200 --> 0:54:11.920 a jerk. He's like a secret killer. He's a secret killer. Yeah, 0:54:12.040 --> 0:54:13.879 you don't see you don't see him coming, and then 0:54:13.920 --> 0:54:16.719 he'll just drop some some knowledge bombs. Ryan, if you 0:54:16.760 --> 0:54:21.759 have to cast Alexa and I, who oh my gosh, Well, 0:54:21.880 --> 0:54:24.439 well Laura has to be. It's it's a tough toss 0:54:24.480 --> 0:54:26.400 up because I know you probably both want to be 0:54:26.440 --> 0:54:28.400 the key Ley. But I feel like I feel like 0:54:28.480 --> 0:54:31.200 Laura's kind of the KEI ly in in this vibe 0:54:31.600 --> 0:54:34.440 as an occasional mix of Roy, a little bit of Roy. 0:54:34.600 --> 0:54:38.919 I think there's a little Roy Kent, a little Roy Kent. Yeah, 0:54:39.040 --> 0:54:41.120 I think Laura will be are Roy. That's a good call, 0:54:41.640 --> 0:54:43.840 all right, Ryan, who am I? Who am I? I 0:54:44.320 --> 0:54:46.480 have to go with with the boss lady, with the 0:54:46.480 --> 0:54:52.520 team owner. I feel like just honest and like doing 0:54:52.600 --> 0:55:00.399 weird investigative. I think that you're you're definitely the leader 0:55:00.520 --> 0:55:03.880 that surprises, that's very much in touch with the team 0:55:04.040 --> 0:55:07.040 and uh and knows the way to go. Nate, you 0:55:07.120 --> 0:55:11.640 just got promoted. Nate, you just got promoted assistant coach. 0:55:12.719 --> 0:55:14.600 You definitely our assistant coach.