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Speaker 1: What is up, guys? Welcome back to Post run High.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest is Alex Lieberman. He's the co founder of

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Speaker 1: Morning Brew, the daily newsletter he started back in twenty

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Speaker 1: fourteen while he was still in college, and what started

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Speaker 1: as a way to help his classmates keep up with

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Speaker 1: the news turned into a full on media company with

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Speaker 1: millions of subscribers, and in twenty twenty, Alex sold it

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Speaker 1: for seventy five million at just twenty eight years old.

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Speaker 2: And I actually used to read Morning Brew every morning.

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Speaker 1: Before work while I was in advertising fresh out of school,

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Speaker 1: and it was one of the few emails I actually

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Speaker 1: looked forward to every single day. And since selling the company,

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Speaker 1: Alex has become a serial entrepreneur focused on storytelling, self awareness,

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Speaker 1: and building things with intention. We ran three miles through

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Speaker 1: Brooklyn and then sat down for this conversation. It's all

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Speaker 1: about the experiences that shaped Alex, how he built his business,

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Speaker 1: letting go, and what purpose looks like after a major win.

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Speaker 1: Before we get into it, I just want to say

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoy

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Speaker 1: this episode, I would love it if you shared it

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Speaker 1: with a friend, hosted it to your story and left

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Speaker 1: us a quick review. All right, let's get our post

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Speaker 1: run high going. Alex Lieberman, welcome's post run high.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me pumped to do this.

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Speaker 1: So guys, for a little bit of context, Alex and

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Speaker 1: I just ran three miles through Brooklyn.

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Speaker 2: We did little Brooklyn Trot.

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Speaker 3: And I feel bad that you have to be in

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Speaker 3: close proximity to me right now after definitely sweating a lot.

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Speaker 3: I'm a bit of a hot mess right now.

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Speaker 2: You know you look great.

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Speaker 3: I was.

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Speaker 2: Honestly, a little bit of sweat is natural.

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Speaker 3: I've realized when I go to weddings, I tend to

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Speaker 3: dance a lot, even though I'm not a good dancer,

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Speaker 3: and so I bring an extra shirt to weddings now

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Speaker 3: because I just know I'm going to sweat through the

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Speaker 3: first shirt within the first few hours. I just need

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Speaker 3: to do the same thing whenever I'm doing a run

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Speaker 3: into a podcast in the future.

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Speaker 1: Honestly, that's really smart for everybody going to weddings this summer.

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Speaker 1: Are guys out there a tux?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you go to yourself, break it down on the

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Speaker 3: dance floor, and then feel good in your clothing.

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Speaker 1: After what is an Alex Lieberman go to dance move

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Speaker 1: on the dance floor.

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Speaker 3: That's a great question. I like pulling out the shopping

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Speaker 3: cart and then I'll be walking down aisle too. Grab

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Speaker 3: some of the Paperika, then look to the left, grab

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Speaker 3: the rice cakes, put them in, and just stroll down

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Speaker 3: the aisle.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the conversation. So Alex has such

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Speaker 1: a cool story. I'm so excited for everybody to not

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Speaker 1: only enjoy watching this video but also learn so much

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Speaker 1: from you today. Tell us a little bit about young Alex.

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Speaker 1: Where you grew up and what your childhood was like.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So I grew up in Livingston, New Jersey,

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Speaker 3: a small suburb outside of New York. I grew up

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Speaker 3: in a Wall Street family, So my mom was on

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Speaker 3: Wall Street for twenty something years. My dad was a

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Speaker 3: trader on Wall Street. My grandpa worked on Wall Street.

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Speaker 3: So like Wall Street and finance was in my blood

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Speaker 3: from a very young age. I have one sister, she's

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Speaker 3: four years younger, and I would say like I had

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Speaker 3: just like vanilla childhood in the best way. Like I

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Speaker 3: you know, family was the most important value in our lives.

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Speaker 3: Spend so much time with my family, but like there's

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Speaker 3: nothing out of the ordinary about my childhood. But then

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Speaker 3: I would say, I don't know, from like fourth or

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Speaker 3: fifth grade until the end of college, there were just

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Speaker 3: a lot of key milestones in life that really were

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Speaker 3: formative for me, that had a huge impact on how

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Speaker 3: I think about the world. So it starts with around

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Speaker 3: fifth grade. I went to a small private school. I

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Speaker 3: was bullied from basically fifth grade until twelfth grade. So

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Speaker 3: imagine for a period of eight years, little Alex not

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Speaker 3: feeling a sense of confidence, not feeling belonging, you know,

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Speaker 3: at times getting to school and just walking from one

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Speaker 3: end of the school to the other other end of

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Speaker 3: the school just to kill time because he didn't feel

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Speaker 3: comfortable being in it with a group of people. I

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Speaker 3: think that for a lot of my life, up until

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Speaker 3: college or even starting my businesses, I I don't know

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Speaker 3: that I had that strong of a sense of self.

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Speaker 3: I definitely didn't have self confidence. I didn't view myself

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Speaker 3: as like kind of really special or smart or capable.

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Speaker 3: And you know, we'll talk about it in a few minutes.

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Speaker 3: That definitely changed when I ended up starting a company

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Speaker 3: and building it and kind of that momentum created confidence

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Speaker 3: for me. But then the other big milestone in my

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Speaker 3: life was a week before junior year of college, my

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Speaker 3: dad passed away completely unexpected. He was forty six years old,

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Speaker 3: totally healthy, in the same shape that I'm in, and

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Speaker 3: he died from a stroke, and you know, we'll never

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Speaker 3: know why it happened. My story that I have is

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Speaker 3: that he worked in an incredibly high stress job for

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Speaker 3: twenty something years and cortisol running through your system for

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Speaker 3: that long has an impact on you. And so I

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Speaker 3: would say, just like those two moments, I would say,

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Speaker 3: we're the biggest forms of adversity in my life, and

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Speaker 3: they really informed kind of what I chose to do

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Speaker 3: after knowledge, and kind of what created a fire in

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Speaker 3: me to build a company once I went all in

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Speaker 3: on entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 1: Those are two moments that take up such a large

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Speaker 1: chunk of your life because they're kind of years of

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Speaker 1: you know, with your dad grieving, and then you know,

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Speaker 1: when you're getting bullied. It's that's a hard mindset to

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Speaker 1: come out of. You know, tax your self worth and yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're self confidence.

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Speaker 2: So it's so true.

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Speaker 1: It's when you're faced with a little bit of adversity

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Speaker 1: is when you really do grill though.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean it's so cool to see what

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Speaker 2: you've built.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's always the interesting to think about how

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Speaker 3: much of us is informed by nature versus nurture, because

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Speaker 3: at least my I would say, I came out the

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Speaker 3: other side of all this with an immense sense of

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Speaker 3: like gratitude, which people listening may be like, why would

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Speaker 3: you have Like why do you have gratitude after being bullied?

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Speaker 3: Why do you have gratitude after you lost your dad?

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Speaker 3: But I would say there's a few reasons I feel gratitude.

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Speaker 3: Like one is, life has felt a lot easier since then, candidly,

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Speaker 3: like my adult life has felt knock on wood pretty easy.

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Speaker 3: But the other part is like when I think about bullying,

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Speaker 3: one part of it could be like me feeling bad

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Speaker 3: for myself. The other part of it is like it

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Speaker 3: created this incredible resilience that I have today as a person,

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Speaker 3: and it gives me a sense of grounding and confidence

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Speaker 3: that no matter kind of what is put in front

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Speaker 3: of me, I have the tools and kind of the

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Speaker 3: mind to be able to navigate it. And then like

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Speaker 3: losing my dad again in my grief journey, there was

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Speaker 3: for sure a part of that journey, especially early on,

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Speaker 3: where I was I went from like shock to sadness

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Speaker 3: to anger to ask myself why this didn't happen to

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Speaker 3: other people who were in way worse shape, Like I

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Speaker 3: went through all of that. But on the other side

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Speaker 3: of it, I do feel immense gratitude that I spent

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Speaker 3: so much quality time with my dad for the twenty

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Speaker 3: years that he was in my life. And I also

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Speaker 3: feel so much gratitude for the perspective that it gave

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Speaker 3: me and how I choose to lead my life today.

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Speaker 3: And obviously I would do anything to have them back,

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Speaker 3: but I don't have that choice. But I do have

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Speaker 3: the choice of you know, what lessons has it instilled

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Speaker 3: in me that can inform kind of what I do moving.

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Speaker 1: Forward going through hard moments in life, Like if you

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Speaker 1: have it so easy, I often find that those people

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Speaker 1: have a hard time even maybe connecting with people on

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Speaker 1: a deeper level, right, Like you've gone through stuff that

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Speaker 1: is really hard and really challenging to overcome, but when

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Speaker 1: you do get the other side of it, like, you

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Speaker 1: can also connect with people in a whole new way.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I had a similar experience when I was

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Speaker 1: in high school, I am through college, I had a

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Speaker 1: really hard time fitting in and finding my people and

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Speaker 1: finding my place. But it was through going through that

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Speaker 1: that I've become the person that I am today, and

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Speaker 1: I would I would not be who I was today

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Speaker 1: if I hadn't gone through those experiences.

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Speaker 3: Again, it's like it's one of those things like you

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Speaker 3: don't hope that it happens to people. But I think

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Speaker 3: this one unfortunate truth that I've realized is like there's

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Speaker 3: such valuable lessons to learn in life, and unfortunately, one

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Speaker 3: of the best ways to learn them is through experience.

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Speaker 3: Like I always say to people, like spend like spend

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Speaker 3: your time as if it is your last day, Like

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Speaker 3: would you be spending it in the same way? And

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Speaker 3: like it always comes off so cliche obviously, And I

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Speaker 3: think what I've realized is like I can tell people

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Speaker 3: a story of losing my dad and how like that

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Speaker 3: really has changed the way I think about how am

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Speaker 3: I going to spend my time with my family? How

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Speaker 3: do I want to spend my time in life? But

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Speaker 3: there's also part of me that's like is it actually

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Speaker 3: going to sink in? Like is it going to work?

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Speaker 3: Because the only reason I know to live in this

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Speaker 3: way is not because someone else told it to me,

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Speaker 3: it's the unfortunate reality that I experienced it, and experience,

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Speaker 3: unfortunately is sometimes the best teacher of the most powerful

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Speaker 3: lessons in life.

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Speaker 1: And it's wild that you were going through all of

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Speaker 1: that all while starting your company, right, I mean, when

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Speaker 1: you were a senior in college is when you started

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Speaker 1: the Morning Brew, which was originally called Market Corner. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about what was going on in your life

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Speaker 1: when you started Market Corner. I know that you grew

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Speaker 1: up in a finance family, by the way, so did

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Speaker 1: I I feel like that was a little bit of

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Speaker 1: a Jersey experience.

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Speaker 3: Totally for whatever reason in my head right now, I

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Speaker 3: like hear like in a deep Jersey accent, soon going

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Speaker 3: Wall Street. Yeah, no, one hundred percent. So I went

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Speaker 3: to Michigan, and first of all, going back to like,

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Speaker 3: I didn't feel like I fit in in middle school

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Speaker 3: or high school. I was the first person in seven

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Speaker 3: years to go to Michigan. From my high school. Most

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Speaker 3: of my grade went to either Ivy League colleges or

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Speaker 3: to like the nezccs, which are like the Middlebury's Colgates

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Speaker 3: of the world. So it was not at all like

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Speaker 3: a cool thing for me to go to Michigan. It

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Speaker 3: was kind of a mediocre thing. Now I look at

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Speaker 3: Michigan and it's such a hard school to get into.

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Speaker 3: But when my actually my first choice was Emery, I

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Speaker 3: didn't get into Emory, and that's how I ended up

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Speaker 3: deciding to go to Michigan. But anyway, I went to

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Speaker 3: Michigan with the full intent of working on Wall Street,

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Speaker 3: spending my whole career in finance. Like my parents. I

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Speaker 3: did the classic internship thing after freshman year, sophomore year

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Speaker 3: or junior year, and I get into my senior year

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Speaker 3: at Michigan and I the way it typically works like

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Speaker 3: in finance now, I was like, you do your junior

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Speaker 3: year internship, if it goes well, you get a job offer,

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Speaker 3: so you don't have to re recruit your senior year.

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Speaker 3: You just have a job lined up after graduation. So

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Speaker 3: I had that. So I got into my senior year,

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Speaker 3: had my job blind up, so I had all this

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Speaker 3: free time, and I started helping kids prep for job

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Speaker 3: interviews who are doing re recruiting, and I would always

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Speaker 3: ask them the question how do you keep up with

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Speaker 3: the business world, Like what do you read? And I

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Speaker 3: would get the same answer over and over and over

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Speaker 3: which was I read the Wall Street Journal, and I'd

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Speaker 3: be like, okay, tell me more, like why do you

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Speaker 3: read the journal? And people would be like my parents

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Speaker 3: told me, I have to read it, but it's dense,

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Speaker 3: it's dry. I don't get through the whole thing. And

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Speaker 3: at some point I was like, this is crazy, Like

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Speaker 3: every kid is about to spend their career, like their

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Speaker 3: working life, in a job and they don't have content

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Speaker 3: that they enjoy reading that gets some excited about the

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Speaker 3: work they're doing. Like why is that? And so I

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Speaker 3: started writing a daily newsletter that at the time is

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Speaker 3: called Market Corner. Mind you, I was not a writer

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Speaker 3: at all, like I was. English was one of my

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Speaker 3: worst subjects for my entire life.

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Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to ask you, because when you

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Speaker 1: think think about business school and people that work in finance,

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Speaker 1: you don't immediately think about somebody that also has that

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Speaker 1: creative background or that writing capability. And I don't want

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Speaker 1: to single out all finance people, because of course they do.

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Speaker 2: Some people do.

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Speaker 3: But I think there's a reason that, like you know,

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Speaker 3: these kind of truisms have truth to them. Is yeah,

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Speaker 3: I would say, like you think about someone who works

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Speaker 3: in finance, you consider them to be more quantitative and

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Speaker 3: analytical nature and less creative. And so I just started

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Speaker 3: writing this thing. And basically what I would do is

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Speaker 3: I would spend four hours a day reading all the

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Speaker 3: news on the internet having to do with business. I

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Speaker 3: would consolidate it into a word doc template that would

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Speaker 3: be like biggest business stories of the day that I

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Speaker 3: wrote in these like one hundred and fifty to two

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Speaker 3: hundred and fifty word blurbs. And then there would be

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Speaker 3: kind of like informational candy at the end, which would

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Speaker 3: be like trivia question of the day, business game of

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Speaker 3: the day, today in history. And I would get take

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Speaker 3: that doc, I would export it as a PDF. I

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Speaker 3: would attach it to an email, and I sent it

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Speaker 3: to a list serve. It was the market corner you

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Speaker 3: missdided you, And literally it just started with fifty people.

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Speaker 3: It was the kids I was helping prep for job interviews.

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Speaker 3: It was kids in my fraternity and that was it.

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Speaker 3: And just every day that I sent it out, I

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Speaker 3: would get emails back from readers saying, Hey, so and

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Speaker 3: so wants to get added to your list Serve, Can

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Speaker 3: you add them? So? I then manually add people to

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Speaker 3: the list serve and so then after a month or

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Speaker 3: two of doing it, there were a couple hundred people

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Speaker 3: reading this, and I was like, Okay, there's enough momentum

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Speaker 3: here that I want to take it a little bit

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Speaker 3: more seriously. So I sent an email to my list

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Speaker 3: during winter break of senior year being like, Hey, I

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Speaker 3: want to take this more seriously. Does anyone want to

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Speaker 3: help me with this? My co founder Austin, he was

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Speaker 3: one of my readers at the time. He was a

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Speaker 3: sophomore at Michigan in we were in the same fraternity,

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Speaker 3: didn't really know each other, and I have this email

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Speaker 3: saved to my desktop or he emailed me being like, Hey,

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Speaker 3: I have ideas for how to make this better. Do

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Speaker 3: you want to meet after BPL? BPL was Beer Pong League.

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Speaker 3: We met after Beer Pong League and we just completely

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Speaker 3: hit it off. And I would say, like, other than

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Speaker 3: the choice to marry my wife, the choice of picking

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Speaker 3: Austin as my co founder from Morning Brew was the

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Speaker 3: best choice I've ever made because in so many ways,

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Speaker 3: like we're quite similar people, like we have dry sense

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Speaker 3: of humor, We're both like these I don't know, like

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Speaker 3: five ten Jewish guys from the East Coast grew up

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Speaker 3: in like traditional Jewish families, but in every other way

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Speaker 3: we're actually so different in terms of the way our

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Speaker 3: brains work. Like I am a creative, divergent thinker who

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Speaker 3: is kind of like a bucking bronco that needs to

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Speaker 3: like be like kept in their like in their zone,

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Speaker 3: otherwise it's a mess. Austin is the most focused linear

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Speaker 3: thinker I've ever met. And what I've realized as like

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Speaker 3: i've built more businesses, is like it wasn't just at

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Speaker 3: the time that I thought he was an unbelievable like

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Speaker 3: operator linear thinker. He is a better business operator and

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Speaker 3: like thinker than almost every entrepreneur that I've ever met. Wow,

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Speaker 3: people like twice my age, and so yeah, it's crazy,

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Speaker 3: Like everyone talks about like the co founder decision is

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Speaker 3: the most important decision you make in business. And because

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Speaker 3: I wasn't thinking of Morning Brew or market Corner at

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Speaker 3: the time as a business, it was just like this

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Speaker 3: side project I didn't put in necessarily all of like

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Speaker 3: the time to figure out if Austin was the right

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Speaker 3: co founder. We had a great two hour conversation. I

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Speaker 3: was like, this guy's brain compliments mine, Let's do this

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Speaker 3: and so in a lot of ways, it was good intuition,

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Speaker 3: but also so lucky that this guy was such a

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Speaker 3: good co founder for me despite not spending months together

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Speaker 3: trying to figure out if we were the right pair.

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Speaker 1: And I also feel like when it comes to bringing

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Speaker 1: somebody onto a business, especially in those early years, or

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Speaker 1: have them help you with an idea, it helps having

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Speaker 1: somebody that is a fan of what you're currently doing,

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Speaker 1: which he clearly was. I'm so curious, like and even

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Speaker 1: this is just like going back to the very beginning

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Speaker 1: when you had the idea of Wow, i'm reading the

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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. It's pretty hard to digest. These are

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Speaker 1: some complex topics that.

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Speaker 2: We're reading about here.

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Speaker 1: When did you decide to not only make those topics

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Speaker 1: more digestible for yourself, but then also share them with

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Speaker 1: other people or were you always the type of person

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Speaker 1: that was like, I don't do anything just for myself.

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Speaker 2: I want to help other people too.

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Speaker 3: No, I would say there was like there was probably

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Speaker 3: a what we call like a selfish driven thing and

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Speaker 3: a self list. Like the self list was like students

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Speaker 3: told me they did not like business news as it was,

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Speaker 3: and I was like, how can I make it better

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Speaker 3: for them. This selfish part was like I knew I

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Speaker 3: was going to work full time on Wall Street, and

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Speaker 3: I was like, if I don't stay up to date

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Speaker 3: with what's happening in the world, like I may not

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Speaker 3: be prepared for my job after school. So that was

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Speaker 3: one of the other reasons I started this newsletter was

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Speaker 3: I was like, by creating this newsletter, it's going to

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Speaker 3: force me to stay on top of what's happening in

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Speaker 3: business so that when I graduate, I'm actually like ready

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Speaker 3: to go in my job.

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Speaker 1: It's so smart in so many ways because I've interviewed

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Speaker 1: a few different people that have said, like I've interviewed

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Speaker 1: this one news anchor Dana Prino, who was the press

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Speaker 1: secretary for Bush, and she said, growing up, her dad

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Speaker 1: always said to her, the one thing that you have

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Speaker 1: to do every day is you have to read the

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Speaker 1: news headlines.

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Speaker 2: Just know what's going on in the news.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I think when it comes to business too,

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Speaker 1: like my dad always said to me growing up, like

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Speaker 1: you should be familiar with what's going on in the

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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, even if you just read the headlines,

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Speaker 1: you know. So it really is this you know thing

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Speaker 1: that I'm sure so many parents tell their kids growing up,

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Speaker 1: and then you were able to like really take those

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Speaker 1: articles and make them digestible and conversational and add humor

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Speaker 1: to them.

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Speaker 3: And look, I would say, and every entrepreneur says this

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Speaker 3: after the fact, but I would say that, like, there

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Speaker 3: is inherently so much luck that happens in entrepreneurship. But

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Speaker 3: if you, if if you were to ask me, like,

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Speaker 3: what what is the non luck? Like what are the

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Speaker 3: things that caused us to actually be successful? I would

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Speaker 3: say in the early days of the business, like deep

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Speaker 3: curiosity and defaulting to action are the things that like

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Speaker 3: created surface area for luck to happen. Like there's this

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Speaker 3: concept of creating luck surface area, Like the more seeds

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Speaker 3: you plant, the greater the chance that one of the

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Speaker 3: like one of the plants is going to bud. And

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Speaker 3: so basically, like, I think that like curiosity and defaulting

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Speaker 3: to action is such a valuable thing that anyone can do.

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Speaker 3: And this is like a totally separate thing, but I

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Speaker 3: think it just makes it actionable for people who don't

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Speaker 3: even nationally have a business today. Is something that recently

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Speaker 3: happened with one of my businesses is we brought on

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Speaker 3: an intern and One of the reasons I brought on

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Speaker 3: this intern is they did something that is now called

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Speaker 3: like permissionless apprenticeship, where one way that most people apply

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Speaker 3: for internships is they just like drop their resume or

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Speaker 3: they find like a family member who has a connection

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Speaker 3: and they have them send it in to me. Permissionless

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Speaker 3: apprenticeship what it is is someone takes an interest in

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Speaker 3: your company. They figure out what is work they can

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Speaker 3: do that's valuable for your company. Without being asked, they

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Speaker 3: do the work and then they send it to you.

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Speaker 3: And so this guy Justin who's literally interning for one

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Speaker 3: of my businesses now shout out Justin. He's a Sophtomare

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Speaker 3: at UCLA in Beijing for study broad right now. He

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Speaker 3: got interested in one of my businesses. He ended up

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Speaker 3: doing a full project like about basically how he could

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Speaker 3: help my business and ideas he had for it. He

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Speaker 3: posted on Twitter. It went viral on Twitter. That's how

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Speaker 3: I found out about him. And I'm just like, clearly,

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Speaker 3: he's deeply curious. Clearly he defaults to action, and I

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Speaker 3: will pick that ten times out of ten versus someone

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Speaker 3: who just like went to an amazing school and has

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Speaker 3: an amazing resume absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I've never read somebody's resume in my life.

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Speaker 1: When it comes to working for us, I agree like

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Speaker 1: I think, and obviously this is a much smaller scale,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, when I'm hiring somebody or looking for people

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Speaker 1: to work on our team, it's always take initiative, try

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Speaker 1: to see what it is that you want to do

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Speaker 1: for us that can make our lives better, make the

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Speaker 1: work that we're doing quality better, and anyways, it's always

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Speaker 1: work driven.

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Speaker 3: There's this concept of like slope versus intercept, and what

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Speaker 3: it basically means is like, there's two ways that people

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Speaker 3: can choose to hire people in businesses. One ways you

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Speaker 3: hire for experience, the other ways you hire for potential.

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Speaker 3: So slope means you hire someone who maybe is at

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Speaker 3: a lower point in the curve in terms of their

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Speaker 3: value today, but you think they're going to have incredible

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Speaker 3: slope because of their curiosity, their hard work, and their

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Speaker 3: default to action. Intercept refers to someone who's higher up

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Speaker 3: on the curve, like meaning they already they have more

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Speaker 3: value today, but you don't instually think like you think

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Speaker 3: their ceiling is more limited because yes, they have experience,

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Speaker 3: but they don't instually have the grit, the curiosity and

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Speaker 3: the proactivity to get a lot further. And my general

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Speaker 3: view in life is almost in every role you'll ever

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Speaker 3: hire for hiring for slope versus the intercept is the

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Speaker 3: right way to go, you know.

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Speaker 1: And I also think what's so interesting about you guys

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Speaker 1: with Morning Brew, is I like that you said you

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Speaker 1: didn't set out to start a company. Yep, you really

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Speaker 1: set out with this problem to solve and with an

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Speaker 1: inherent curiosity and to make your life better when you

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Speaker 1: graduated and started working in the business world, and through

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Speaker 1: having that curiosity and that work ethic and this drive

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Speaker 1: to do this passion project, you started a company.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I just think it is a weird thing now

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Speaker 3: because like now as I start businesses, it's like weird

439
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:05,160
Speaker 3: that for the first time, I'm like having to think

440
00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:07,160
Speaker 3: of a business idea and create a like not create

441
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:09,919
Speaker 3: a business plan, but like it just it felt so

442
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:13,080
Speaker 3: authentic at the time, where it's like with Morning Brew,

443
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:15,280
Speaker 3: it was not thought of as a business. It was

444
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:18,360
Speaker 3: just like a curious hobby. And I actually think the

445
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 3: more that a business or something can start as a

446
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,159
Speaker 3: curious hobby, the better. So I totally agree with that.

447
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:24,879
Speaker 3: And to me. One of the best ways to actually

448
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 3: make that happen is people are like I think people

449
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:31,800
Speaker 3: wonder like how can they be more curious in life?

450
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:34,000
Speaker 3: And either you're like default, very curious or you're not.

451
00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:36,680
Speaker 3: But actually think curiosity is a muscle, and I think,

452
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:39,119
Speaker 3: like anything else, if you have the right exercises to

453
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:41,199
Speaker 3: work that muscle, you can build it over time. And

454
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,960
Speaker 3: so like, there are actual exercises I do to work

455
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:47,119
Speaker 3: the muscle of curiosity. And so I'll just use a

456
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 3: random example, Like one example is I will walk, like

457
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:56,240
Speaker 3: what while I'm like walking the streets of Hoboken, I

458
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 3: will play this game called like the why game, and

459
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:02,159
Speaker 3: the why game literally be where as I'm looking around me,

460
00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:05,200
Speaker 3: I will ask the question why about things that I'm observing,

461
00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:07,960
Speaker 3: Like why is it that these cameras need to be

462
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,920
Speaker 3: on stands? Why couldn't they they be hanging from strings?

463
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 3: Like why is it that you need a sandbag to

464
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:15,240
Speaker 3: be on top of the light here? Like why is

465
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:18,359
Speaker 3: it that these cups Like why is it that the

466
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:20,640
Speaker 3: design has these ridges in it? Is there a real

467
00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 3: There must be a reason that there's a ridge design.

468
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:26,240
Speaker 3: Is it aesthetic or is it functional? And so Basically

469
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:28,520
Speaker 3: what that exercise does is it takes your brain off

470
00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 3: autopilot because like in life, like we wouldn't be able

471
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:34,920
Speaker 3: to survive if we ask questions about everything, would overload

472
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 3: our brains. So ninety nine percent of the time in life,

473
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 3: we're just going to go about life and not question

474
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,920
Speaker 3: everything we do. Like imagine if you are running. As

475
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:45,560
Speaker 3: you're running, you're going through the questioning of how is

476
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 3: my leg working right now? To lift my foot and

477
00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 3: then lift my leg like you wouldn't do it. But

478
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 3: to me, if you do these exercises where you take

479
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:56,639
Speaker 3: your brain off autopilot, it actually builds up the muscle

480
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:57,360
Speaker 3: of curiosity.

481
00:21:57,760 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: I mean, I love thinking about it like that too,

482
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: and I think that's so important, especially in my career

483
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:04,120
Speaker 1: as an interviewer, it is so important to keep your

484
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 1: curiosity up and keep wondering about different things and people

485
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 1: doing different things and how things work. What are some

486
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,120
Speaker 1: other exercises that you do when it comes to curiosity.

487
00:22:13,359 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 3: So another one like this is as I'm like, I'm

488
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:22,159
Speaker 3: thinking about specifically for business ideas, like where do I

489
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 3: get business ideas from? And I would say basically anything

490
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 3: that I go through in life where I feel emotionally provoked,

491
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 3: I ask myself why am I emotionally provoked? So if

492
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 3: I ever, like if say, our average emotional range as

493
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,600
Speaker 3: people is like five to negative five, when I get

494
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:39,800
Speaker 3: from zero to negative five, I ask myself, why am

495
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 3: I feeling this right now? And what is it about

496
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:43,920
Speaker 3: this experience that could be changed that would get me

497
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,480
Speaker 3: closer to zero to five. So like that's one thing

498
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 3: that I do. Another thing that I do is I

499
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,479
Speaker 3: will And this like sounds obvious, but like I just

500
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 3: talk to people and customers a lot, So like I

501
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 3: will literally for for my businesses, I'll get on a

502
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 3: call with a customer or a user and I will

503
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:07,640
Speaker 3: have them screen share and I will have them literally

504
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 3: take me through what are like the most mundane and

505
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 3: annoying processes they do every day in life we're at work,

506
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 3: and it will have them literally show me on their

507
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 3: screen as like a show and tell. And I learned

508
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 3: so much through that process as well. So yeah, like

509
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 3: I don't know. I try to root everything in questioning

510
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 3: and getting as close to questioning my experiences or experiences

511
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:31,360
Speaker 3: of people that I want to build things.

512
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: For even hearing about how you cowork. Sometimes when you

513
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 1: are alone with that.

514
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, with focus mate, the craziest thing in the world. Yeah,

515
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 3: I just it's funny. I'm listening to the audiobook of

516
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 3: Ben Franklin right now, really interesting kat and he he's

517
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:50,639
Speaker 3: like it's like kind of amazing that he's like, you know,

518
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 3: this guy was like he had a media company, he

519
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,439
Speaker 3: invented the lightning rod, he was huge in politics. And

520
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons is is because he

521
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 3: basically was like this poly who knew a lot about

522
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 3: a lot of things. And I think the main reason

523
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 3: is because he was just an absolute sponge for like

524
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,119
Speaker 3: learning different things from different parts of the world, and

525
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 3: so that like there's just no excuse not to be

526
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 3: curious if you want to be today, because like you

527
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 3: have so many things at your fingertips, especially with chat

528
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 3: GBT now like chatch ept. To me, the reason it

529
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 3: has been the biggest game changer for me is it

530
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 3: it is just literally my personal tutor and so like

531
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 3: just to give you one example one of my businesses

532
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 3: now which like again it was the one I was

533
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 3: describing before, where we help businesses with AI transformation. Most

534
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 3: of the employees in this business are engineers. I am

535
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 3: not technical at all. I never took a compside class.

536
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 3: But I've always been curious about software and engineering because

537
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 3: as someone who like I identify more as like an

538
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 3: inventor than an entrepreneur, because I love building shit from scratch,

539
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 3: and so I've always been interested, like, how do engineer like,

540
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 3: how do engineers think? How do they build things? Now,

541
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 3: all I will do is I use an amazing called Granola.

542
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard of Granola. It's like

543
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 3: there's hundreds of these meeting note takers. I just think

544
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 3: Granola is the best one. It will take notes on

545
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 3: my call. So I will have Granola set up when

546
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,640
Speaker 3: we do one on ones with our engineers. It will

547
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 3: take notes of our whole calls. And then I'll feed

548
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,920
Speaker 3: Granola automatically into chat Gibt and have Chatchibt create micro

549
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 3: courses for me on any topics or jargon related to

550
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 3: engineering that I likely wouldn't know, which is most things.

551
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 3: It'll turn it into a course for me. So the

552
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 3: amount I've learned about software engineering in the last three weeks,

553
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 3: even though I've never taken a class in it, just

554
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 3: by literally turning meetings into transcripts. Transcripts into prompts and

555
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 3: chatgibt that create little courses. For me, it's just unbelievable

556
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 3: the speed out which you can learn today.

557
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: I mean, that's so smart and for anybody listening where

558
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: that can be relevant for them and what they do,

559
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: I mean.

560
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 2: Do exactly what else? Why that's anything exactly.

561
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: I love knowing how people use chatch gipt, and I

562
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:56,159
Speaker 1: feel like the most important thing when it comes to

563
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 1: any AI tool like it is knowing how to prompt

564
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: it correctly to give you the answers.

565
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 3: That's everything.

566
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: Sometimes chatchipt can be a little bit too of a

567
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: yes man for me, I need to retrain my model.

568
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 3: Another fun one is I was actually asking it this

569
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 3: today is ash chatchipt. What are under the radar or

570
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 3: like not unpopular or unconventional use cases for chatchybt that

571
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 3: few people are talking about. And it just unlocks all

572
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,640
Speaker 3: these things you probably haven't done with it that are amazing.

573
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 2: What were some of them? Like?

574
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 3: An obvious one is like, now what I do is

575
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,439
Speaker 3: take a picture of my fridge, take a picture of

576
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 3: my pantry, and have it tell me every recipe that

577
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 3: I can create given the food I have in my home,

578
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 3: and then tell me what I need to order to

579
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 3: complete certain recipes.

580
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 2: Alex, that is so smart.

581
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so that's the thing is actually, I think

582
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 3: the limit of chatchipt and these tools now is actually

583
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 3: our own creativity, not the technology that we're using.

584
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: Well, I saw the other day a video that this

585
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: girl did where she said she put every single article

586
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: of clothing in her closet into chatch ept and now

587
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: every morning chatchipt makes her a new outfit with the clothes.

588
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 3: That showed funny because I literally started doing this and

589
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 3: it was taking me too long because I literally was

590
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 3: like pulling all the shit out of my closet taking

591
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 3: pictures of it.

592
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 2: I have too much.

593
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's taking too long. But yeah, like for me,

594
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 3: there's I basically have four go to outfits that I

595
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 3: know are complete outfits. Other than that, I have no

596
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 3: idea what I'm doing in the closet, and so I'm

597
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 3: just like it would be amazing and it's also a

598
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 3: great business if you think about it, where it might

599
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 3: it will? I take pictures of everything. Chatchyp GPT tells

600
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 3: me what are all the outfits I can complete, and

601
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 3: then if there are outfits that I could complete by

602
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 3: buying an article of clothing, it makes those recommendations and

603
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 3: I could buy it straight from the app. And now

604
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 3: you actually can do that because Shopify and chatchypt have

605
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 3: an integration where you can buy stuff straight from the

606
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 3: actual application.

607
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: Okay, I did something really niche with chatch ept that's

608
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: kind of funny in relation to clothes where I'm getting

609
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: married in September and I wanted to buy second dress too,

610
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: and I had four different options that I was choosing between.

611
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 1: I uploaded every single outfit that I'm wearing for my

612
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: wedding weekend the first day, what I'm getting ready in

613
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 1: my actual wedding dress, and then I uploaded these four

614
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: options that I had and I said, based on the

615
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: current outfits that I'm already wearing, which one matches the

616
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: vibe the most. And it gave me a detailed response

617
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: as to why and picked out my shoes.

618
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:22,679
Speaker 3: It's so good. I mean it is to me. The

619
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 3: barrier for using chatchibt now is our own creativity and

620
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 3: our own ability to prompt it. Well. One other just

621
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 3: like crazy use case I'll share is there's a guy

622
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 3: who is like a renowned commercial director, like he used

623
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 3: to produce multimillion dollar commercials for healthcare companies, and he started.

624
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 3: He's blown up on Twitter now because what he does

625
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 3: is he creates unbelievable, like world class quality commercials using

626
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 3: just chatchybt Google's new model, which is is it vero

627
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 3: vo vo three and that's it, and then Premiere to

628
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 3: stitch everything together. You have to check his stuff out.

629
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:04,719
Speaker 3: He basically creates like and the caption of his tweets

630
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 3: are now, like I used to create five hundred thousand

631
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 3: dollars budget commercials for pharmaceutical companies. This one I created

632
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 3: with for five hundred dollars. The world is changing fast

633
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 3: and you watch it and you're like, oh yeah, like

634
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 3: this one thousand percent would have cost a million dollars

635
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 3: to produce before and it was unbelievable.

636
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if chat ept existed when you were

637
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: just starting the morning brew?

638
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it would have saved you so

639
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: much time it's.

640
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 3: Crazy to think about. Yeah. It Also, I will say

641
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 3: this is a very niche thing, but it makes me

642
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 3: think about, now, is there a world where every person

643
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 3: can have their own custom newsletter in their life? Like

644
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 3: if no newsletter is the same for each person. Like,

645
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 3: there's this concept of the presidential brief, which is every

646
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 3: day the president gets effectively their newsletter, which is everything

647
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 3: that they need to know for the day. What if

648
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 3: every human had their presidential brief?

649
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 2: Do you think there is a world where that starts happening.

650
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,239
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's also even a question like if

651
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 3: you had your own personal newsletter and you could hand

652
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 3: pick anything to be in it, what would be in it?

653
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 3: And I think that's even an interesting question, like if

654
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 3: I got every day, would it basically be like what's

655
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 3: on deck for the day, Like what's happening at work?

656
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 3: Like you know what's happening at home, Like what's a

657
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 3: meal that I can cook later? Whatever? So yeah, I

658
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 3: do think that more than ever before, with the right data,

659
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 3: people can just have more costum experiences than ever before.

660
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 2: Talk about crafting your own reality, yep, exactly.

661
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: Going back to the og days of Morning Brew, I'm

662
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: curious when you brought on Austin, how did you guys

663
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: initially split up responsibilities like what was he working on

664
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: and what were you working on?

665
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, so kind of a crazy story is we originally

666
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 3: actually had four co founders for Morning Brew, so there

667
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 3: were two other guys at Michigan who like I think,

668
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 3: also had emailed me like Austin did, they became part

669
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: of the project. And what we very quickly realized, Well,

670
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 3: there's two things we realized is like, there's too much

671
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 3: of the similar skill sets for kind of redundant people.

672
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 3: But also, you can't fake passion about entrepreneurship because it

673
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 3: is such a slog and the odds of success are

674
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 3: so low. So it's like you either are going to

675
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 3: be passionate about the work you do and if you aren't,

676
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 3: you'll just like quickly realize it. And so that's what happened.

677
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 3: These two other guys that were involved in the business,

678
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 3: they just weren't as passionate, and so they kind of

679
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 3: just like peeled off in a pretty natural way. But

680
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 3: for Austin and I, I would say like I was

681
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 3: focused on more of like the creative functions more like

682
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 3: I would say like kind of front of house. So

683
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 3: I was focused on content, on marketing, and on sales,

684
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 3: and then Austin was really focused on like tech growth

685
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 3: and like the finances of the business. And that's kind

686
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 3: of how we divided up our work for the first

687
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 3: four years, like basically the way and the way it

688
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 3: changed over time was how much of the work we

689
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 3: were doing versus how much of the work we were

690
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 3: managing versus how many people we were managing that were

691
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,719
Speaker 3: managing the work. So like, just even use the example

692
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 3: of content, it's like it started with me writing the content.

693
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 3: At some point I was like, Okay, I'm getting better

694
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 3: at this content thing, but we can find better people.

695
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 3: So then when we ended up hiring a full time writer,

696
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 3: I ended up managing the writer, and I basically acted

697
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 3: as the editor, where I was editing everything the writer wrote.

698
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 3: We ended up hiring another writer they were writing, and

699
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 3: then they were self editing each other. So now I

700
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 3: was just kind of like managing what was our content

701
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 3: strategy broadly. Then at a certain point it was like, okay,

702
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 3: what are we doing beyond just Morning Brew the newsletter?

703
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 3: And so my thinking became like, how do we grow

704
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 3: into a true multiplatform media company and just and not

705
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 3: just a daily newsletter? And so I think as time

706
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 3: went on, what I was thinking about did initially change

707
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 3: in terms of the disciplines. It was just I was

708
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 3: getting further and further from like the nitty gritty of

709
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:49,479
Speaker 3: the product and more focused on just like what is

710
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 3: like the business as a whole look like I will

711
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 3: say though, It's why after a period of time in

712
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 3: the business, my energy towards the business changed because like

713
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 3: the first four years of Morning Brew, it felt like

714
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 3: a ragtag crew of people trying to like prove that

715
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 3: you can build a media company when everyone was saying

716
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 3: we couldn't. And I was like super close to the

717
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 3: product at a certain time. A point in building a company,

718
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 3: your job goes from like your number one job is

719
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:16,719
Speaker 3: like get to product market fit and make sure your

720
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 3: product is excellent to you're a company builder and your

721
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 3: job is like build like a six month, one year,

722
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 3: three year plan, build an executive team, be a people manager.

723
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 3: And I think when things got to that, I just

724
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 3: realized enjoyed it less. And I think that was actually

725
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 3: just a really interesting learning for me, because when I

726
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,959
Speaker 3: got into entrepreneurship, I had this certain image of what

727
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 3: it meant to be a successful entrepreneur. My mount Rushmore

728
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 3: of entrepreneurs was like the classic cast of characters like

729
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk because they like had

730
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 3: this like epiphany they built stuff, and then like they

731
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 3: kept building their company until they had thousands of employees

732
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 3: went public, and so that was my definition of success,

733
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 3: and so I think it kind of messed with me

734
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 3: at some point where I was like, is this like,

735
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 3: is this bad that I'm basically not enjoying the job anymore.

736
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 3: Once I actually came to terms with the idea that like,

737
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 3: there's certain parts of entrepreneurship I love and there's certain

738
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,319
Speaker 3: parts I don't love. I think it took a lot

739
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 3: of pressure off of like what it had, what the

740
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 3: journey had.

741
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: To look like for me, because you sold it after

742
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: seven years, right, Yeah, Well I feel like that's also

743
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: because you get into the motions of doing the same

744
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: thing over and over again. And I think the beautiful

745
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 1: thing about the Morning Brew was it was this really

746
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: consistent thing exactly that was in people's inboxes every single morning.

747
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: But that can get mundane for you, even though the

748
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: stories are changing every day.

749
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 3: So what ended up happening though, is like we sold

750
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 3: the business in twenty twenty, and I think even though

751
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,800
Speaker 3: I technically stepped out of the CEO role in April

752
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty one, so we sold the business in

753
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 3: October of twenty twenty, mid pandemic. I stepped out of

754
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 3: the CEO role in April of twenty twenty one. I

755
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,479
Speaker 3: would say that like, probably middle of twenty nineteen is where,

756
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,919
Speaker 3: in an unspoken Austin and my roles were shifting, where

757
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 3: he was really moving from COO of the business to

758
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 3: CEO of the business. And I would say, like my

759
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 3: role was kind of starting to look like chief innovation officer,

760
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 3: where like I was just excited about like the new

761
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,720
Speaker 3: things we're building. So when we were launching a podcast,

762
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 3: where were launching our new like vertical newsletters, like I

763
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 3: wanted to be deeply involved in those projects. And so

764
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 3: I think that's like I just started my time started

765
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 3: gravitating towards the things that I naturally loved. But what

766
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 3: that also meant at some point was like I actually

767
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 3: wasn't the best person to be the CEO of the business.

768
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: I think the beauty about building a business, from what

769
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,720
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from you, is when you build a successful business,

770
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 1: you also get to learn things about yourself that you

771
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: can't learn just doing you know, a regular job where

772
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: you're doing the same task over and over again, because

773
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: you learned that it wasn't doing you know, writing the

774
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: newspaper that fueled you up. It was literally growing this business,

775
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,800
Speaker 1: and you're a serial entrepreneur because of that, one hundred percent.

776
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 3: And Yeah, and I think the more you can like

777
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 3: just kind of almost like trick yourself into not focusing

778
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 3: on a specific path, the better, because if you think

779
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 3: about it, like entrepreneurship by definition people the reason because

780
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 3: people become entrepreneurs is so that they don't necessarily have

781
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 3: a defined path, like they're crafting their path. And so

782
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 3: it actually sounds quite ironic when it's like if you

783
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 3: focus on like a certain path, it's like that's the

784
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 3: exact oppos reason of why people become entrepreneurs. So I

785
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 3: think when I started being okay with a different definition

786
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 3: of what success and entrepreneurship looks like. And even as

787
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 3: like my mount rushmore of entrepreneurs has changed a ton

788
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 3: over time, I think the journey felt a lot more

789
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 3: like play. And I've just realized, like the more that

790
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 3: I feel like three year old Alex, the happier that

791
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 3: I am as I'm building my companies.

792
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about this during the run, but you

793
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: have to gravitate towards what gives you energy. What do

794
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: you think was harder building a successful company or.

795
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 2: Letting it go.

796
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,879
Speaker 3: I would say letting it go for sure, because even

797
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 3: though building the Brew was hard, at no point in

798
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 3: the journey did it like I'm sure it felt hard

799
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 3: at points, but like it never felt like excruciating, Like

800
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 3: there was just like a love for the journey of

801
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 3: building throughout letting it go, which really, in my mind

802
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 3: meant letting go of a big portion of my identity.

803
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 3: That was I think that's one of the hardest things

804
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 3: I've had to ever do. Basically, from April twenty twenty one,

805
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 3: for about a year, I just was incredibly lost. I

806
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 3: was incredibly lost. I didn't know what I wanted to

807
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 3: do after the Brew. I worried that I was only

808
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:47,760
Speaker 3: successful because I out of luck versus skill. I convinced

809
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 3: myself that my success was a function of having a

810
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 3: great co founder who kind of dragged me along the

811
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 3: whole way. I was worried that I had peaked in life,

812
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:00,760
Speaker 3: and how sad of a thing it would be if

813
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 3: I was like twenty eight years old, and like, what

814
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 3: life do I have ahead of me? If I've peaked already? Right,

815
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 3: I have so many reasons for why this story is

816
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 3: not truth. It also like I kind of have compassion

817
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:14,879
Speaker 3: for myself and my kind of the way I thought

818
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 3: then that, like, it makes so much sense why you

819
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,720
Speaker 3: get into these kind of like self conscious, self doubting

820
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 3: stories after you leave something that's such a big part

821
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 3: of your identity. My best analogy for it is like

822
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 3: when someone plays a sport for their whole life, and

823
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 3: if someone's a pro athlete, and then they end up retiring,

824
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 3: and you know, for the longest time as a pro athlete,

825
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 3: like they felt at the top of their sport, they

826
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 3: were externally validated for being great at what they did,

827
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 3: and a pro athlete, depending on the sport you're in,

828
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 3: retires at say like their mid thirties, like you still

829
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 3: have your whole life ahead of you, but it's not

830
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 3: going to be with the sport. I think the kind

831
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 3: of almost like the mind fuck of like refinding purpose

832
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 3: on identity is a very similar thing.

833
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: The purpose thing is really interesting, and I think you

834
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: learned it so young. And I had a similar experience

835
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: when I got injured, and I liked that you brought

836
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: up athletes, But when I was as sophomore in college,

837
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: I tore my acl again for the second time, and

838
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 1: I had to step away from sports. And I was

839
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:16,399
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, and for those fifteen years of my life,

840
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: except for when I was like a baby and toddler,

841
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: I was an athlete and that was my identity and

842
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to college for it, just like

843
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: my brothers did and all of that totally, and that

844
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: felt like my purpose so much. And then when that ended,

845
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 1: it was like I had to figure out, Okay, what

846
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: is my purpose without that sport? And I think the

847
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: beautiful thing about life is understanding and knowing that there's

848
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: going to be different stages of your life and you're

849
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: going to find purpose in different ways and kind of

850
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: an experience you were going through.

851
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 3: You know, there's an interesting I forgot who posted it

852
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 3: the other day, but there was like this interesting study

853
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 3: done around how one of the bit the biggest drivers

854
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 3: of positive mental health is working towards something like we

855
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 3: as people, I really think like it's like in our

856
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 3: reptile brains, we are built to work towards things, and

857
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 3: that could be professional, personal or whatever. We're not reptiles,

858
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 3: but I wrote our monkey brain, our reptil brain are reptile.

859
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 3: The reptilians are going to be like, news flash, you're

860
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 3: cold blooded. But I in our reptile brain, so in

861
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,479
Speaker 3: deep in our reptile brains, I like I do think

862
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 3: we we have a need to work towards things. And

863
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 3: so I think one of the hardest parts about stepping

864
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 3: out of the Brew is like I did not know

865
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 3: I did. I wasn't working towards anything anymore. I didn't

866
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 3: know what I wanted to work towards. And so, like

867
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 3: I think, when you feel like you are not moving forward,

868
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 3: it is especially for a certain type of mentality, a

869
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 3: certain type of brain, like it is now I'm saying

870
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 3: reptile brain in my mind, it is a really difficult thing.

871
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,399
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about life after work and

872
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: you know, stepping away from morning Brew. I find it

873
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: really interesting that you are in this network of founders.

874
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: How did you find you know, becoming friends with other

875
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: founders that were in similar positions helped you.

876
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would say, actually, probably the most valuable

877
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 3: community that I'm in is it's literally called post Exit Founders,

878
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 3: and it's a group of three thousand founders that sold

879
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 3: their businesses that was started by my buddy Barack a

880
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 3: few years ago and I would say like the telltale

881
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 3: sign of any really quality community is two things that

882
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 3: the founders of the community don't have to be engaged

883
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 3: in discussion for a week, but discussion goes off without

884
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 3: a hitch, Like the community is the driving force of

885
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:40,359
Speaker 3: engagement that happens. And the second is that a very

886
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 3: high percentage of all conversations that happen in the community

887
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 3: feel relevant to you. And that was the thing with

888
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 3: post exit founders, is like eighty percent of all topics

889
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 3: that are discussed in this community feel relevant to me.

890
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 3: And so it's like there just were so many things

891
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,280
Speaker 3: after selling a business that I had never thought about

892
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 3: before that I can't talk to most people about, but

893
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 3: that this community talks about. So it's everything like finding

894
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 3: purpose after selling your business. And also it feels like

895
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 3: a really douchey thing to talk about with other people,

896
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 3: like you sol your company, you make money, Like it

897
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 3: feels like, oh, you're going to complain about the most

898
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,840
Speaker 3: first world problem of like not having purpose. So it's like, I.

899
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 2: Don't think it's douchey at all.

900
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: I think any experience that you go through in life,

901
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: you deserve to have people around you that have experienced

902
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: that too, And was there any perspective that somebody gave

903
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: you that really shifted something in your mind that you

904
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: were like, Oh, that's a good way to think about it.

905
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 3: I think after you sell it, this is a very

906
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,280
Speaker 3: niche thing. But after you sell a company, like everyone says,

907
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 3: like get a great tax person, you have to like

908
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 3: make sure you optimize every part of your taxes. And

909
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 3: I've seen like founders go to the most extreme lengths

910
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 3: to optimize their taxes, like moving to Dubai where there's

911
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 3: zero taxes. And I just think, like some perspective that

912
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 3: a founder give me at some point is like, look,

913
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, sure you can optimize

914
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 3: your taxes, but like your money is supposed to work

915
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 3: for you to like live your happiest and most fulfilling life.

916
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 3: And if, like you, optimizing your taxes takes you away

917
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 3: halfway around the world to a place where you're not

918
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 3: around your people, then what was the point of it

919
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 3: in the first place. Completely agree, So I would say

920
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 3: I'm like very tax aware, but like not trying to

921
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 3: optimize to the last dollar because to me, like the

922
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 3: marginal benefit of that in my happiness is actually it

923
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 3: creates less happiness. And then I would say the second

924
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 3: thing that I haven't done yet but I've thought a

925
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:32,839
Speaker 3: lot about, is a lot of founders have in this

926
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 3: group have taken sabbaticals where they very explicitly for a

927
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 3: period of time, don't work on companies where they just

928
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 3: take time off there's no end goal in mind. They

929
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 3: live in California, they go surfing every day, they take

930
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 3: their kids to school, they sit at coffee shops that

931
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 3: listen to podcasts, and every founder I've talked to you

932
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 3: got something of value out of their sabbaticals. I can't

933
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 3: bring myself to do it yet, because at least the

934
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 3: story in my head is I'd go crazy, restless. But

935
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 3: it is an interesting thing that I've thought about, Like

936
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 3: at some point I think I'm going to try it out.

937
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 3: Like I'm actually close with the the uh founder of

938
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 3: a butcher box, and he's like taking a three month

939
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 3: sabbatical while he's the CEO of the business right now,

940
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,240
Speaker 3: so you like literally handed over the business to his exacts.

941
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 3: Taking a three month doing I think, like a silent

942
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 3: meditation retreat. And so I do think there is something

943
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 3: really valuable in boredom, Like I think I'm really bad

944
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 3: at boredom. A lot of people are. But I think

945
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 3: in boredom and in kind of like getting rid of

946
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 3: the chatter that's in your head, it creates space for

947
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 3: like really interesting thoughts you'll never have while you're in

948
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 3: kind of like the constant motion of needing to do

949
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 3: things in life, right, I.

950
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: Mean, yeah, there's beauty in silence, and you need to

951
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: have those outlets to turn your brain off.

952
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think in a lot of ways we distract

953
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 3: ourselves from like the harder, deeper, more provoking thoughts in life.

954
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 3: And so I think a sabbatical or anything that resemble

955
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 3: that removes the distraction of reconciling these harder conversations in

956
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 3: your head.

957
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: Speaking of silence, let's talk about working in silence with

958
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: strangers on the internet.

959
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 3: Great transition. So focus mate is probably my favorite productivity hack.

960
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 3: It's basically a website where you get paired with some

961
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 3: stranger around the world to co work with them. And

962
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 3: so like literally what I do is I go to

963
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 3: focus Mate, I start a session. It can be thirty minutes,

964
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 3: fifty minutes, or an hour or ninety minutes. We get

965
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:37,320
Speaker 3: on the camera and I will go on our mics

966
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,720
Speaker 3: and basically share what is our goal for our session,

967
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 3: set our intention. Then we mute ourselves and we work

968
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 3: in silence for the entire day of the session. At

969
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 3: the end of the session, we go back on Mike

970
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 3: and we say how the session went and if we

971
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 3: accomplished our goals. And sometimes I and people on Focus

972
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 3: may will actually share screen share so that the other

973
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 3: person can see whether you're actually doing the work you

974
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 3: said you would do, And it just is all this.

975
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,600
Speaker 3: It follows this concept of body doubling, which is you're

976
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 3: more likely to be productive and do work if the

977
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 3: person across from you that you see is also doing

978
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,359
Speaker 3: work and is being productive. A lot of people call

979
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 3: me crazy for it, but I love doing it, whether

980
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 3: it's for staying productive and focused, or just if you

981
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 3: work from home and you love the feeling of working

982
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 3: in an office but you don't have that feeling anymore,

983
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 3: so for anyone as crazy as me, I highly recommend

984
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 3: Focus Mate, And it's like twenty something bucks a month.

985
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 3: I'm not affiliated at all, but I love it.

986
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I feel like you know so

987
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: many niche businesses I do.

988
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 3: Speaking of niche businesses, this morning, I'm walking in Hoboken

989
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 3: and I see one of our friends in Hoboken and

990
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 3: this is a true story. So this dog, Simba, great

991
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 3: name for a dog, So yeah, Simba's a great dog.

992
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 3: And he was recently attacked by a dog at a

993
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:51,800
Speaker 3: dog park. And it's so sad, like there are pictures

994
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:53,399
Speaker 3: of him with stitches in his head, all these things.

995
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 3: Simba's great though, He's a resilient little guy. And we're

996
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 3: talking to the owner of Simba and and the person

997
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 3: was like, wait, we didn't tell you about this, this

998
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 3: thing we recently did, and we're like no, They're like,

999
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 3: we brought Simba to a psychic. And so Simba went

1000
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 3: and saw a psychic to see if there was any

1001
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 3: unresolved trauma from his attack that he needed to work

1002
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 3: through as he came out on the other side of

1003
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 3: this attack. And I just thought to myself, one that

1004
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 3: is absurd too. But put aside the absurdity, it is

1005
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 3: unbelievable how many niches and ways there are to make

1006
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 3: money on the Internet. And if someone can convince people

1007
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 3: that they will do tarot readings and psychic work on dogs,

1008
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 3: there really are endless ways that you can make a

1009
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:43,919
Speaker 3: living I.

1010
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,760
Speaker 2: Mean that is wild. I love that though. Yeah, little Simba.

1011
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 3: People will do anything for their pets.

1012
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 1: Yeah they really will. Yeah, they really really will. I

1013
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: would do anything for a little Jeanie exactly. What's your

1014
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 1: dog name, Rambo? Oh that's a good dog name.

1015
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1016
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 1: So how long did it take for you post leaving

1017
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,280
Speaker 1: the Morning Brew? How much time did you take between

1018
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 1: starting something new?

1019
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 3: About a year?

1020
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 2: Okay, what did you.

1021
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:19,320
Speaker 1: Do during that year besides like having all these thoughts

1022
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:20,479
Speaker 1: and stuff, which is very normal?

1023
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 3: So what I started a plunger game?

1024
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 2: Okay, what is that?

1025
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 3: So this is crazy? Honestly, I'm so glad that I

1026
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 3: started it. But basically we were talking about creator led

1027
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 3: businesses before there was a period of time where I

1028
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 3: wanted to build like a holding company of creator co

1029
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 3: founded businesses where I would I would basically help big

1030
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 3: YouTubers launch a business. I'd be their co founder, and

1031
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 3: we'd use obviously their their channel as distribution to drive

1032
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 3: sales for the business. And so what ended up happening

1033
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 3: was I was watching a Dude Perfect video.

1034
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:56,399
Speaker 2: I love dude Perfect, and.

1035
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 3: Their second or third most watch video ever is Plunged

1036
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:03,479
Speaker 3: trick Shots. That's like one of the most watched videos

1037
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 3: ever and basically it's them in their old space taking

1038
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 3: toilet plungers and throwing them at plexiglass and getting them

1039
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 3: to stick. And so I saw this video and I

1040
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 3: was like, holy shit, like that looks like ax throwing.

1041
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 3: Is this like a safe way way to build ax throwing?

1042
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 3: Like a backdoor a backyard ax throwing game. So I

1043
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 3: literally saw this video. I immediately because I had way

1044
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 3: too much free time, I immediately drove to home Depot

1045
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 3: and I went to the plunger aisle and I started

1046
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 3: throwing plungers in Home Depot and that took me on

1047
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:35,879
Speaker 3: a this is what, this is.

1048
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: What twenty eight year old people that have sold their

1049
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: companies too for everybody listening.

1050
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 3: And so so I literally spent the next four months

1051
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 3: manufacturing a backyard game with a manufacturer in China, and

1052
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,359
Speaker 3: I built the Plunge like it was ready to go.

1053
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:54,840
Speaker 3: We had a Kickstarter campaign set up. I still have

1054
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 3: a set in my garage.

1055
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 2: I love this.

1056
00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 3: I ended up. The long story short is, I ended

1057
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 3: up hanging up the Plunger. But it was incredibly fun

1058
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:06,239
Speaker 3: to do something that honestly was never really going to

1059
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 3: be a viable business to build something with like my

1060
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 3: bare hands. Like I think there's just something really satisfying

1061
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 3: about building something physical. And I think part of the

1062
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 3: reason I needed to do it is I had this

1063
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 3: fear after selling the Brew and thinking about what was next,

1064
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 3: I had this fear that I was going to be

1065
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 3: kind of like the cliche serial entrepreneur that just keeps

1066
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 3: building businesses forever, trying to chase the high of making

1067
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 3: more money or building a bigger business. They get to

1068
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:34,839
Speaker 3: be seventy five years old, they have a shit ton

1069
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 3: of money, but they're unhappy and unfulfilled in life. Like

1070
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 3: that was my biggest fear, because I did not want

1071
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 3: that to happen. And so I think like the Plunge

1072
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 3: was like me basically moving the exact opposite direction, building

1073
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 3: something that felt so silly and so absurd that of

1074
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 3: course it wasn't gonna be a big business, which meant

1075
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 3: the only reason I was doing it was out of

1076
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:54,720
Speaker 3: pure like love for the game and love for building.

1077
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 3: So that's part of what I.

1078
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: Did, which is so cool. You're exploring another side of you.

1079
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: You know, what I think is so inches saying is

1080
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 1: so many things, But I feel like you grew up

1081
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: in this household that was pushing finance, and you probably

1082
00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 1: always thought that, like finance was going to be the

1083
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: thing that you went into and you were going to

1084
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: be like, you know, you are super analytical, but you

1085
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: were going to be a numbers guy and you were

1086
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 1: going to finance, working on Wall Street doing like the

1087
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: daily grind of that, and then building the successful company.

1088
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 2: You found out how creative you are.

1089
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 3: And I do think it's like I also think based

1090
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 3: on the job you do, it like pulls it either

1091
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 3: pulls creativity out of you or it like puts it

1092
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 3: into hibernation for a period of time. So basically I

1093
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 3: was working, I did the plunge for four or five months.

1094
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 3: Then I ended up getting married, and then I got

1095
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 3: to some level of clarity of like what I wanted

1096
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 3: to do. Like basically I got to kind of my

1097
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 3: my north star that had like two key pillars that

1098
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 3: I knew I wanted to like build towards for the

1099
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 3: next many years. One pillar was I realized in kind

1100
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: of examining my whole journey in Morning Brew and what

1101
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 3: I loved about it that I loved like the negative

1102
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 3: one to one. So going from not having an idea

1103
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 3: to what that idea is, creating that idea, putting it

1104
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 3: into the world, seeing success with it, and turning it

1105
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 3: into a business. Like the negative one to one of

1106
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 3: business is where I get the most joy. And the

1107
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 3: way I came to that conclusion was there is this

1108
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 3: really cool exercise called the Best Stuff Exercise. It's by

1109
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 3: the Conscious Leadership Group, which if you're an entrepreneur honestly

1110
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 3: just like a person who wants to think more deeply

1111
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 3: about yourself, Like the probably the best book I've read

1112
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 3: in kind of growth leadership business is Fifteen Commitments of

1113
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:41,320
Speaker 3: Conscious Leadership. It's by the Conscious Leadership Group. But anyway,

1114
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 3: there's an exercise in the book called the Best Stuff Exercise,

1115
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 3: and it helps you understand what your zone of genius is.

1116
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 3: And the way it does it is it has you

1117
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 3: list out eight experiences from your life that you felt

1118
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 3: successful at, that you got a lot of energy from,

1119
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 3: and that you like time felt like it melted away

1120
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,360
Speaker 3: while you were doing it. You list those eight experiences

1121
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:05,920
Speaker 3: and then you find in those experiences common themes of

1122
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 3: like what are similar types of things you were doing

1123
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 3: in all eight that maybe start to hone in on

1124
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 3: what is your zone of genius and basically my zone

1125
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 3: of genius was like basically invention, storytelling, and relationship building,

1126
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:20,799
Speaker 3: Like those are my three things. And by the way,

1127
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 3: this is a great way that I use chat GPT.

1128
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 3: Also is I basically uploaded the exercise into chat GPT

1129
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,560
Speaker 3: and I said, prompt me to like prompt me through

1130
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,360
Speaker 3: the exercise, so I give my experiences. It asked me

1131
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 3: for the next one, and then at the end it

1132
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 3: outputs what it thinks my zone of geniuses by feeding

1133
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 3: it these exercises. But anyway, going through this, going through

1134
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 3: this exercise, I came to the realization that I love

1135
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 3: the early stage of business, and I asked myself, how

1136
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 3: can I set up my life in a way that

1137
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 3: I focus most of my time on the early stages

1138
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 3: of companies. The second thing that became really important to

1139
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:57,440
Speaker 3: me was I wanted to prove to myself that I

1140
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 3: could be an A plus entrepreneur and also an A

1141
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 3: plus family person. And the reason that became really important

1142
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 3: is one like, family has always been my number one value.

1143
00:54:06,719 --> 00:54:09,759
Speaker 3: But also I think there's so many entrepreneurs that I

1144
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 3: look up to, Like several of the entrepreneurs that I

1145
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 3: shared with you earlier that are unbelievable business people, but

1146
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 3: I am not necessarily trying to emulate them in life.

1147
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 3: And so kind of my thing became there need to

1148
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:25,120
Speaker 3: be more role models of super successful entrepreneurs who also

1149
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:29,080
Speaker 3: are as successful with their families. And so that's like

1150
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 3: my whole mount rushmore of entrepreneurs has completely changed from

1151
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 3: what I shared before to be people who more emulate

1152
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 3: that style of person that I'm describing, who's like killer

1153
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:43,280
Speaker 3: family person and killer entrepreneur. So those became my two pillars,

1154
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:47,280
Speaker 3: and so like I started orienting my whole life of like, Okay,

1155
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 3: in order to do this, I'm going to incubate businesses.

1156
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 3: I'm going to bring on a co founder and CEO

1157
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:54,400
Speaker 3: as early as possible, and I'm going to set the

1158
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 3: expectation with them that I'm going to be really involved

1159
00:54:56,920 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 3: in the business for probably the first twelve to twenty

1160
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 3: four months. My goal is to use my distribution, my network,

1161
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 3: and my knowledge from morning Brew to increase the odds

1162
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 3: of success and getting in a product market fit by

1163
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:11,319
Speaker 3: a ton. And then my goal is once we have

1164
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 3: product market fit, once we have revenue coming in the door,

1165
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:15,840
Speaker 3: and once we have a core team I'm going to

1166
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 3: roll off to incubate my next business, and I set

1167
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 3: that expectation from day one, and basically I started building,

1168
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 3: like building towards that. And this was probably twenty twenty four.

1169
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:33,040
Speaker 3: And then, because life hits you in the face, my

1170
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:35,799
Speaker 3: wife was actually pregnant and we had to end a pregnancy,

1171
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 3: and I went from being like finally getting to a

1172
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 3: place where I was really like professionally clear again to

1173
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 3: having no professional clarity because when all of that happened,

1174
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 3: I couldn't care less about my work, and so there

1175
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:55,399
Speaker 3: was probably like a six to eight month period of

1176
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,600
Speaker 3: work could not have mattered less. We came out of

1177
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 3: that whole experience, which I'm I'm happy to talk about,

1178
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 3: and I would say a few things became clear to me.

1179
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 3: One is like, it's an obvious thing, but the person

1180
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:12,319
Speaker 3: you choose to be your partner in life is the

1181
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 3: most important decision, and it's not even close to any

1182
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 3: other decision. It's also like how hard moments really reveal

1183
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 3: people's character, and it just re solidified for me, like

1184
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:27,400
Speaker 3: my north star of being really like having more professional

1185
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 3: ambition than ever before, but never doing it at the

1186
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 3: expense of being the family person I want to be

1187
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 3: is going to be core to me for the rest

1188
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 3: of my life.

1189
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:37,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so important.

1190
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: And for everybody listening, Alex is going to be a

1191
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:42,720
Speaker 1: new dad in about a month, which is so exciting.

1192
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:46,759
Speaker 1: So congratulations because it's so hard going through a loss

1193
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 1: of a pregnancy, but it's such a miracle.

1194
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:50,360
Speaker 2: Now, this is like your miracle, bab tw percent.

1195
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, we're so excited and yeah, like I always say, like,

1196
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 3: we didn't need this to happen for me to feel

1197
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 3: so rock solid with my wife. But moments like that

1198
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:05,000
Speaker 3: just make you realize, like how having kind of like

1199
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:08,400
Speaker 3: your ride or die, who is like your center of

1200
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 3: gravity in life is It's such a gift when you

1201
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 3: have it.

1202
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: It's the hard moments that make you realize how important

1203
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 1: it is to have that person in your life. Whether

1204
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:19,959
Speaker 1: it's a partner or a friend or mom, dad, brother, sister,

1205
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: whatever it is for you, it is so important to

1206
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 1: have that person.

1207
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 3: And one other interesting learning I had from it is like,

1208
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 3: again we're talking about it on the run, but like

1209
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,720
Speaker 3: I've always viewed myself as like a very distracted person.

1210
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 3: But what is interesting is when we were going through

1211
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 3: everything and we were getting this all this like scary

1212
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 3: information from doctors. It's very interesting how quickly because it

1213
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 3: was such a priority, I became incredibly focused and for

1214
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 3: forty eight hours straight, I did nothing but basically become

1215
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 3: world class in understanding genetic abnormalities in babies. And it

1216
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 3: just made me realize, like, maybe one of the reasons

1217
00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 3: that I get distracted with a lot of things is

1218
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:01,880
Speaker 3: like maybe one and maybe that's like a feature of

1219
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 3: me in my life and not a bug. And maybe

1220
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:06,760
Speaker 3: it's just the fact that, like most things are not

1221
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 3: that important in life, but when the really important things happen,

1222
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:12,960
Speaker 3: if you can get laser focused on those things and

1223
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 3: you absolutely grind towards them, that's actually the true measure

1224
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 3: of your abilities. And so yeah, it just made it

1225
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,000
Speaker 3: gave me more grace in realizing that, like I don't

1226
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 3: know my distractability. I think I wouldn't be kind of

1227
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:29,240
Speaker 3: creative and like this idea machine that I am without it.

1228
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 3: And it showed me that like when push comes to

1229
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 3: shove and the really important shit presents itself, I can

1230
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 3: get laser focused. And so it was just an interesting

1231
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:39,520
Speaker 3: learning for myself.

1232
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:53,120
Speaker 1: When you say you became an expert in genetic abterormalities

1233
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: with birth. I mean, I'm somebody that wants to have

1234
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,640
Speaker 1: kids soon, so I am just curious, like what did

1235
00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: you learn?

1236
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 2: And if you don't mind us asking what happened?

1237
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, So basically there's like two major scans in a pregnancy.

1238
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:09,880
Speaker 3: There's the twelve week scan and then there's the twenty

1239
00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 3: week scan. The twenty week scan is the the anatomy scan,

1240
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 3: so that's where you like actually get the first three

1241
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 3: D picture, and so at the twenty week scan, basically

1242
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 3: there were abnormalities where you know, the doctor who looked

1243
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:27,920
Speaker 3: at everything was like, I don't know what this is,

1244
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 3: but you need to talk to someone effectively, like a specialist.

1245
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 3: So I would say like probably like the most painful

1246
00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:42,760
Speaker 3: period for us was like the two weeks of not

1247
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:44,880
Speaker 3: knowing what was going to happen, because it's not like

1248
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 3: you have any answers. You just have doubts, which is

1249
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 3: like there's something wrong, we don't know what it is.

1250
00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:52,919
Speaker 3: You need to get more answers. So for basically two

1251
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 3: weeks we didn't know what was going to happen with

1252
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:58,560
Speaker 3: my wife's pregnancy, so awful, and so we went to

1253
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:02,120
Speaker 3: like chop which is Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It's like

1254
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 3: the best children's hospital in the world and it's where

1255
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:08,600
Speaker 3: basically every kind of crazy case is sent to. And

1256
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:14,880
Speaker 3: basically the abnormality that was found in our baby. When

1257
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 3: we were talking to the doctor, they'd only seen that

1258
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 3: combination of abnormalities once in their career. But you know,

1259
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 3: just as a specific example, like the abnormality that was found,

1260
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 3: which was basically just like a deformity in the chest

1261
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 3: of the baby, I ended up going down a rabbit

1262
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:35,720
Speaker 3: hole of reading every piece of scientific research that had

1263
01:00:35,720 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 3: been done in history on this abnormality, so much so

1264
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 3: that like I was reciting studies better than the chop

1265
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 3: children's doctor was because well, which makes sense, like they're

1266
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,240
Speaker 3: focusing on so many babies. I went down the rabbit hole,

1267
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 3: but I basically learned everything humanly possible about this abnormality

1268
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:55,760
Speaker 3: as well as like, because I was just trying to

1269
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 3: understand what are the odds that things are okay versus

1270
01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:02,439
Speaker 3: not okay? And answer is the unfortunate thing is as

1271
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 3: you get into things related to like health and science

1272
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 3: is there is so much unknown and so we ended

1273
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,360
Speaker 3: up having to make like the heartbreaking decision to end

1274
01:01:12,360 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 3: the pregnancy because the odds that things were going to

1275
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 3: be bad was very high.

1276
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 1: Oh and five months and it is so heartbreaking because

1277
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 1: that's at the point where you're getting excited.

1278
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:22,560
Speaker 2: Your bump is totally showing.

1279
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:26,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, my wife's body was changing. You know, we already

1280
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:29,640
Speaker 3: had a name in our head. We had done and

1281
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:31,720
Speaker 3: this the hardest part is like we had done a

1282
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 3: gender reveal. It was on Instagram.

1283
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:34,920
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you had you done?

1284
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 3: So yeah, and so like you know, people still saying

1285
01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:42,280
Speaker 3: congratulations to my wife, and and then for me, like

1286
01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 3: I I've always I've always wanted to be a dad

1287
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 3: and so like I already in my head was like

1288
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 3: taking on this like my this role of like I

1289
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:55,160
Speaker 3: can't wait to be a dad and like like planning

1290
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 3: my head what it's going to look like to be

1291
01:01:56,400 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 3: a great dad. And so yeah, it's like it is

1292
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 3: ver much. It's it's a death quite literally, but also

1293
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:06,040
Speaker 3: like the death of a dream for a period of time.

1294
01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:09,280
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, pregnancies are so scary and anything can happen.

1295
01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:11,240
Speaker 1: It really, it really is so freaking. It's like one

1296
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 1: of I feel like it's every couple's like biggest fear.

1297
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 3: It is and I think what I will say is

1298
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:17,800
Speaker 3: and this has talked about a lot, but like there's

1299
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 3: unfortunately so much stuff that goes wrong with pregnancies and

1300
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 3: they don't get talked about a lot. And so it's like,

1301
01:02:24,320 --> 01:02:27,600
Speaker 3: after this all happened, we found out about more and

1302
01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:31,160
Speaker 3: more people who experienced things at the twenty week scan

1303
01:02:31,880 --> 01:02:34,720
Speaker 3: and but like never knew about it before. And I'd say,

1304
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 3: on one side, it was like consoling because you know

1305
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:38,720
Speaker 3: you're not the only one going through it. But on

1306
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:42,560
Speaker 3: the other side, it's like, for this pregnancy of my wife,

1307
01:02:42,560 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 3: we were absolutely like anxiety ridden until getting through the

1308
01:02:47,640 --> 01:02:50,600
Speaker 3: twenty week scan this time because we had no clarity

1309
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 3: on if things were going to be any better.

1310
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:53,400
Speaker 2: It's so true.

1311
01:02:53,440 --> 01:02:56,880
Speaker 1: I feel like everything you see online with pregnancies is like, yeah,

1312
01:02:56,920 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 1: people excited about their pregnancy one month, two month, three month, whatever.

1313
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: You never hear about the things that go wrong. It's

1314
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 1: like you just hear about the perfect pregnancies, but they're

1315
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:05,720
Speaker 1: always and.

1316
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, this is why you understand when

1317
01:03:08,520 --> 01:03:10,560
Speaker 3: people are asked like do you want you know, do

1318
01:03:10,600 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 3: you want a boy or a girl? And people say,

1319
01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:15,000
Speaker 3: I just want a healthy baby, Like this this is why.

1320
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:17,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's something that you don't

1321
01:03:18,240 --> 01:03:21,360
Speaker 1: understand until you're at that point. And I think about

1322
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 1: that all the time. It's literally in one month, so

1323
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:24,480
Speaker 1: we're getting you at the perfect.

1324
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 3: Time because it's insane.

1325
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:27,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, Alex is about to go full dad mode.

1326
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 3: It is wild, and to be honest, like that's.

1327
01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:33,000
Speaker 2: Why perfect timing too. Summer it is, it's going to

1328
01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:33,440
Speaker 2: be so nice.

1329
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 3: Summer babies are the best. I'm a July birthday. My

1330
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 3: grandpa is, my mom is like, but yeah, I'm super excited.

1331
01:03:38,880 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 3: But that's like why I've set up my life now

1332
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 3: with like I have these four businesses, but I have

1333
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 3: co founders for all of them. They are the CEOs

1334
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:48,960
Speaker 3: of these businesses. And why I set the expectation up

1335
01:03:49,080 --> 01:03:53,560
Speaker 3: of like I, you are going to my co founders,

1336
01:03:53,600 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 3: you are going to be the operational leader of this business.

1337
01:03:56,440 --> 01:03:59,840
Speaker 3: Because I can't predict what my life is going to

1338
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 3: like after having a child, and I can't predict how

1339
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:05,919
Speaker 3: long I'm going to want to not focus on work

1340
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:08,400
Speaker 3: for and so I just knew I needed to set

1341
01:04:08,400 --> 01:04:09,800
Speaker 3: my life up in a way where I had the

1342
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:13,040
Speaker 3: flexibility to make that choice because I just knew I

1343
01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 3: would have the biggest regret if I was completely sunk

1344
01:04:16,640 --> 01:04:18,920
Speaker 3: into my work and then I wasn't able to be

1345
01:04:18,960 --> 01:04:21,280
Speaker 3: present to the moments that only you only get once

1346
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 3: in life.

1347
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,920
Speaker 1: Even outside of that, you're doing what makes you happy,

1348
01:04:25,040 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 1: which is being somebody that starts a business and helps

1349
01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:31,000
Speaker 1: it grow, and then once it's at a certain point,

1350
01:04:31,080 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 1: you can say, Okay, go do your thing, you know.

1351
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 1: So it's like learning how to build a successful business

1352
01:04:35,240 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: and then let it go percent And I think that's

1353
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:38,840
Speaker 1: so cool. One of the things that I think is

1354
01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:42,240
Speaker 1: so impressive about you is all while building these incredible

1355
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:45,760
Speaker 1: brands and businesses, you've also been a content creator yourself.

1356
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:47,000
Speaker 2: So I'm curious, was.

1357
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:49,600
Speaker 1: That something that you always did when you were working

1358
01:04:49,640 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 1: at the Morning Brew, or did becoming a content creator

1359
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:54,320
Speaker 1: kind of start afterwards because you are such a thought

1360
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 1: leader online.

1361
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it started in the back half of

1362
01:04:57,800 --> 01:04:59,919
Speaker 3: the Brew, because honestly, in the early days of The Brew,

1363
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:02,920
Speaker 3: I just I couldn't find the time to create content.

1364
01:05:03,280 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 3: And so I think that's just like an important thing

1365
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 3: to point out because I'm sure like a lot of

1366
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:09,720
Speaker 3: early stage founders are like I see, like Alex or

1367
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:11,840
Speaker 3: other people creating content, it feels like they have so

1368
01:05:11,960 --> 01:05:14,040
Speaker 3: much time to do this. I can't find it time

1369
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 3: to create a single post. And I would just say, like,

1370
01:05:17,600 --> 01:05:20,520
Speaker 3: for the first three or four years of building the Brew,

1371
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 3: I did not have a presence online, and then I

1372
01:05:23,160 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 3: started building presence once I had any semblance of time.

1373
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 3: I mean, for me, the reason it became important for

1374
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 3: two reasons. One is because actually three reasons. One is,

1375
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 3: it's the best way for me to refine my ideas.

1376
01:05:36,160 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 3: Like I think there are people who are internal thinkers

1377
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:42,880
Speaker 3: and external thinkers, so people who process their ideas by

1378
01:05:42,880 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 3: thinking to themselves other people who process ideas by talking

1379
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:49,600
Speaker 3: things out. I am an external thinker, and so it's

1380
01:05:49,600 --> 01:05:51,520
Speaker 3: also why I love chatchivt so much, because I just

1381
01:05:51,560 --> 01:05:55,480
Speaker 3: have conversations with it now. But like posting on social

1382
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:59,920
Speaker 3: became my external processing tool for refining ideas that I've

1383
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:01,840
Speaker 3: been thinking about, and I just knew I would get

1384
01:06:01,880 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 3: better at refining them by sharing them with the world.

1385
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:06,920
Speaker 3: The second is is like I just view the Internet

1386
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:11,960
Speaker 3: is a magnet for attracting like minded people who are

1387
01:06:12,000 --> 01:06:14,120
Speaker 3: interested in what you have to say, and so like

1388
01:06:14,480 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 3: the network that I started having access to through posting

1389
01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:21,280
Speaker 3: on Twitter and posting on LinkedIn or posting on Instagram.

1390
01:06:21,440 --> 01:06:23,360
Speaker 3: It kind of became addictive because I was like, this

1391
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 3: is like a CEO or like an artist or someone

1392
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,600
Speaker 3: I should have no access to, yet I somehow have

1393
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 3: access to, Like this is the coolest thing. And the

1394
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:35,040
Speaker 3: third is is like I think, as I thought about

1395
01:06:35,040 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 3: where the world is going and where business is going,

1396
01:06:38,400 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 3: having unfair distribution is such an important thing. Like I

1397
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:45,200
Speaker 3: think as software becomes more commoditized, as I think, like

1398
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 3: there's more businesses than ever before, people have more choice

1399
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:51,120
Speaker 3: than ever before. One of the biggest advantages you can

1400
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 3: have as a business is having trusted distribution with an audience,

1401
01:06:55,480 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 3: because otherwise, if you don't have that, you're gonna have

1402
01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:00,000
Speaker 3: to spend so much money on marketing. As marketing channels

1403
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:02,840
Speaker 3: become less effective and so over time, the way I

1404
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 3: started viewing myself as like, Okay, I'm a media company.

1405
01:07:06,560 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 3: How do I create content that attracts the right end customer?

1406
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 3: And then how do I launch businesses that sell really

1407
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 3: valuable products to that end customer? And so the way

1408
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,520
Speaker 3: I view myself as like I have basically two end

1409
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:24,400
Speaker 3: customers right now, it's entrepreneurs like founders and cmos or

1410
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 3: heads of marketing, and so every business like in my

1411
01:07:27,280 --> 01:07:31,880
Speaker 3: portfolio basically is built to solve a problem for either

1412
01:07:31,960 --> 01:07:34,600
Speaker 3: founders or for heads of marketing, And so then my

1413
01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:37,920
Speaker 3: whole content strategy is just in service of helping these people.

1414
01:07:38,120 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 3: And I just also generally have a role where eighty

1415
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 3: percent of the time I'm adding value twenty percent of

1416
01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:45,919
Speaker 3: the time is when I'm natively working in the things

1417
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 3: I'm doing with my businesses. And the best analogy I

1418
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:51,640
Speaker 3: could use for that, as other creators think about how

1419
01:07:51,720 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 3: much content should be about like not about my businesses

1420
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:56,880
Speaker 3: or about like things I'm being paid for versus not

1421
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:01,080
Speaker 3: is my analogy is like imagine and you're driving down

1422
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:06,960
Speaker 3: the pch in California and you're looking at the ocean.

1423
01:08:08,120 --> 01:08:11,000
Speaker 3: The way I would describe it is like your content

1424
01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:13,120
Speaker 3: as a creator, you're really good content is the ocean.

1425
01:08:13,560 --> 01:08:15,560
Speaker 3: Every time you promote one of your businesses, you're putting

1426
01:08:15,600 --> 01:08:17,559
Speaker 3: a billboard on the highway and it blocks the view

1427
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 3: of the ocean. If you do it once every few miles,

1428
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:22,360
Speaker 3: it's totally fine. It's still worth it for the driver

1429
01:08:22,439 --> 01:08:24,360
Speaker 3: to drive down the highway to see the beautiful view,

1430
01:08:24,640 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 3: but all all of a sudden, every ten seconds you're

1431
01:08:27,120 --> 01:08:29,879
Speaker 3: seeing a billboard and it's impeding your view of the ocean.

1432
01:08:30,520 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 3: You may start to think, like, am I going to

1433
01:08:32,360 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 3: still drive down the highway? To me, that's ultimately how

1434
01:08:35,479 --> 01:08:39,000
Speaker 3: a creator should think about the balance of truly value

1435
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:41,839
Speaker 3: add content with asking for nothing in return versus promoting

1436
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 3: the things that actually drive revenue or equity value for

1437
01:08:44,920 --> 01:08:45,760
Speaker 3: the businesses you have.

1438
01:08:46,120 --> 01:08:47,760
Speaker 1: And I think one of the things too that I

1439
01:08:47,800 --> 01:08:50,240
Speaker 1: loved what you said is like you know your audience

1440
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:52,240
Speaker 1: so well, and I think that's one of the things

1441
01:08:52,280 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 1: that a lot of content creators, you know, have a

1442
01:08:54,600 --> 01:08:56,960
Speaker 1: hard time figuring out. I think that's the hardest thing

1443
01:08:56,960 --> 01:08:59,920
Speaker 1: about being an early stage content creator is finding those people,

1444
01:09:00,160 --> 01:09:02,840
Speaker 1: especially with algorithms now sending your videos out to such

1445
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:06,919
Speaker 1: like mass ranges of people. What would be your tips

1446
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:10,240
Speaker 1: for creators now that are trying to find their audience.

1447
01:09:10,439 --> 01:09:13,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's small things and big things you

1448
01:09:13,320 --> 01:09:15,559
Speaker 3: can do. The small things are like any creator, no

1449
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 3: matter what platform you're on, you can have conversations with

1450
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:23,200
Speaker 3: your audience, like even say Instagram, where like the analytics

1451
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,439
Speaker 3: on your audience are relatively broad strokes, like it gives

1452
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 3: you age buckets, it gives you gender buckets, it gives

1453
01:09:27,479 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 3: you geo buckets. You could very easily just like post

1454
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 3: a story saying you want to get to know your community,

1455
01:09:33,320 --> 01:09:37,120
Speaker 3: and then you hop on fifteen minute calls with ten people,

1456
01:09:37,479 --> 01:09:40,240
Speaker 3: and like, you will learn a lot in those conversations

1457
01:09:40,240 --> 01:09:42,280
Speaker 3: who your people are, why they consume your content, and

1458
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:43,920
Speaker 3: what they want more of from you. So like, to me,

1459
01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:47,599
Speaker 3: that's a very actionable things, and as simple as it sounds,

1460
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:50,280
Speaker 3: I would argue most creators don't do that.

1461
01:09:50,400 --> 01:09:51,600
Speaker 2: I love that idea.

1462
01:09:51,680 --> 01:09:53,559
Speaker 1: I mean, it is so true because the people that

1463
01:09:53,640 --> 01:09:55,880
Speaker 1: respond to that career are the ones that want to

1464
01:09:55,880 --> 01:09:58,240
Speaker 1: get to know you and are the most passionate about

1465
01:09:58,280 --> 01:09:59,000
Speaker 1: you exactly.

1466
01:09:59,040 --> 01:10:02,160
Speaker 3: And at the end of the you know, I forgot

1467
01:10:02,160 --> 01:10:05,960
Speaker 3: who wrote this essay. I think it's Kevin Kelly, but

1468
01:10:06,080 --> 01:10:08,920
Speaker 3: it's it's basically a thousand true fans, which is this

1469
01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 3: idea of like, don't worry about building an audience of

1470
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:15,280
Speaker 3: a million people, worry about building an audience of a

1471
01:10:15,400 --> 01:10:18,519
Speaker 3: thousand die hards, and then learn everything you can about

1472
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 3: those diehards by posting a story that asks people to

1473
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:25,880
Speaker 3: like opt into a conversation with you. You are just

1474
01:10:25,920 --> 01:10:30,320
Speaker 3: like getting the like the biggest diehard of diehards to

1475
01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:33,000
Speaker 3: opt in because it's someone who saw a story, saw

1476
01:10:33,080 --> 01:10:36,080
Speaker 3: that they have to take time out of their day

1477
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:38,679
Speaker 3: to talk with you. They opted into that. Like you're

1478
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:40,920
Speaker 3: talking to your not even one thousand true fans, you're

1479
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:43,040
Speaker 3: talking to your like one hundred true fans. So that's

1480
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:45,880
Speaker 3: the first. The second is there's certain platforms that just

1481
01:10:45,960 --> 01:10:49,080
Speaker 3: give you more information about the people that you're creating for.

1482
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:52,479
Speaker 3: So like in my mind, the two that can give

1483
01:10:52,479 --> 01:10:58,000
Speaker 3: you the most are either newsletter or LinkedIn. LinkedIn is

1484
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:00,559
Speaker 3: one of my and I have a lot of thoughts

1485
01:11:00,560 --> 01:11:03,719
Speaker 3: on LinkedIn as a platform, But one of the beautiful

1486
01:11:03,720 --> 01:11:06,479
Speaker 3: things about LinkedIn is that I can see who views

1487
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:09,160
Speaker 3: my profile every single day, so I know, like I

1488
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:11,479
Speaker 3: know the exact people who are viewing my profile. It

1489
01:11:11,520 --> 01:11:15,320
Speaker 3: also makes marketing my companies a lot easier because as

1490
01:11:15,320 --> 01:11:17,479
Speaker 3: an example, let's just see, say I see a head

1491
01:11:17,479 --> 01:11:20,080
Speaker 3: of marketing from like a B to B software company

1492
01:11:20,800 --> 01:11:23,280
Speaker 3: viewed my profile, and I know that my business story

1493
01:11:23,400 --> 01:11:25,600
Speaker 3: ARB is a perfect offer for them. I can do

1494
01:11:25,640 --> 01:11:29,040
Speaker 3: an incredibly targeted and custom DM to them, knowing they

1495
01:11:29,040 --> 01:11:32,000
Speaker 3: already have some level of interest in what I'm involved in.

1496
01:11:32,400 --> 01:11:35,160
Speaker 3: The other one is newsletter. Like the way we always

1497
01:11:35,200 --> 01:11:37,479
Speaker 3: learned about people at the Brew through newsletter is we

1498
01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:42,160
Speaker 3: just put out a survey once a quarter. We'd give

1499
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:45,920
Speaker 3: away like five hundred bucks that you like earn a

1500
01:11:46,040 --> 01:11:49,800
Speaker 3: chance to win if you complete the survey, and the

1501
01:11:49,840 --> 01:11:53,240
Speaker 3: survey would get to know people like you know, age Goo,

1502
01:11:54,640 --> 01:11:57,559
Speaker 3: Why do you read the Brew? What's one idea you

1503
01:11:57,640 --> 01:12:00,600
Speaker 3: have for us to add? What's your seniority professionally? What

1504
01:12:00,720 --> 01:12:03,080
Speaker 3: industry are you in? And it's like you also don't

1505
01:12:03,120 --> 01:12:05,880
Speaker 3: need infinite information, like you can learn a lot about

1506
01:12:05,880 --> 01:12:09,439
Speaker 3: your audience through ten conversations or from one hundred people

1507
01:12:09,439 --> 01:12:11,880
Speaker 3: filling out a survey. So I actually think this stuff

1508
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:14,880
Speaker 3: like is way simpler than it seems. I just think

1509
01:12:14,920 --> 01:12:17,519
Speaker 3: most people don't end up pulling the trigger and undoing it,

1510
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:19,599
Speaker 3: and then once they do it, I think people aren't

1511
01:12:19,920 --> 01:12:22,000
Speaker 3: don't instually know what to do with the information, Like

1512
01:12:22,320 --> 01:12:26,080
Speaker 3: once I know that my audience is XYZ, what do

1513
01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:27,760
Speaker 3: I do with that information? I think a lot of

1514
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:28,639
Speaker 3: creators stopped there.

1515
01:12:28,760 --> 01:12:31,160
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, I've been thinking about it a

1516
01:12:31,200 --> 01:12:33,439
Speaker 1: lot recently. We were talking about this kind of before

1517
01:12:33,439 --> 01:12:35,360
Speaker 1: I started, but just to give everybody listening a little

1518
01:12:35,360 --> 01:12:37,400
Speaker 1: bit a context into my brain and how I'm thinking

1519
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:39,599
Speaker 1: about my audience is I did a video the other

1520
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:41,240
Speaker 1: week with John Gray, and it was one of my

1521
01:12:41,320 --> 01:12:45,000
Speaker 1: most viewed videos and most engaged videos in a while.

1522
01:12:45,240 --> 01:12:47,599
Speaker 3: What I'm even curious about with the John Gray episode

1523
01:12:47,680 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 3: is like for people, for people who enjoyed it and

1524
01:12:52,400 --> 01:12:54,800
Speaker 3: engaged with it, Like what I'd probably do is like

1525
01:12:54,840 --> 01:12:56,840
Speaker 3: for people who commented on the video and it's something

1526
01:12:56,880 --> 01:12:59,320
Speaker 3: of an interesting comment, is like replying to them asking

1527
01:12:59,320 --> 01:13:01,240
Speaker 3: them if they'd be to chat for a second about

1528
01:13:01,280 --> 01:13:02,880
Speaker 3: the interview and why it was so valuable to them.

1529
01:13:03,200 --> 01:13:05,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's such a good idea and I definitely

1530
01:13:05,600 --> 01:13:06,040
Speaker 2: will do that.

1531
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:08,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you're going to get so many people interested

1532
01:13:08,439 --> 01:13:10,960
Speaker 3: because again, like it may not feel this, but like

1533
01:13:11,080 --> 01:13:13,959
Speaker 3: from people's perspective who watch your show like your celebrity

1534
01:13:14,000 --> 01:13:15,479
Speaker 3: to them, and people are like, wow, I have the

1535
01:13:15,520 --> 01:13:17,840
Speaker 3: opportunity to talk with someone I idolized, like you will

1536
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:20,360
Speaker 3: just you have as many conversations as you want to have, and.

1537
01:13:20,360 --> 01:13:22,519
Speaker 1: It's fun showing people that you're just a human exactly one,

1538
01:13:23,160 --> 01:13:36,240
Speaker 1: and that you're always down to chat. There's this article

1539
01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:39,479
Speaker 1: that just came out in Forbes and it's called the

1540
01:13:39,600 --> 01:13:42,280
Speaker 1: Rise of the Creator CEO Movement, and it's about how

1541
01:13:42,400 --> 01:13:45,600
Speaker 1: a lot of creators are launching businesses. Where do you

1542
01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:49,920
Speaker 1: think the creator industry is going? Yeah, and what do

1543
01:13:49,960 --> 01:13:50,679
Speaker 1: you think about.

1544
01:13:50,520 --> 01:13:52,720
Speaker 3: I have a lot of thoughts. I think that so

1545
01:13:52,920 --> 01:13:56,719
Speaker 3: I think the creator economy UH as a like as

1546
01:13:56,760 --> 01:13:59,519
Speaker 3: a business, it has gone through a rough patch over

1547
01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:03,000
Speaker 3: the last like year to two years because for a

1548
01:14:03,000 --> 01:14:05,080
Speaker 3: few reasons. One is there a lot of creator co

1549
01:14:05,200 --> 01:14:09,960
Speaker 3: founded businesses that have not necessarily done as well as

1550
01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:14,640
Speaker 3: people would have assumed there's all. The other reason is

1551
01:14:14,640 --> 01:14:16,720
Speaker 3: there's a number of businesses that raised a lot of

1552
01:14:16,760 --> 01:14:19,040
Speaker 3: money to serve creators and they haven't done as well.

1553
01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:23,479
Speaker 3: And I think these hit on two different reasons. One is,

1554
01:14:25,240 --> 01:14:27,960
Speaker 3: if you are raising venture capital money and trying to

1555
01:14:27,960 --> 01:14:30,439
Speaker 3: be a massive startup, you have to build like a

1556
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:33,560
Speaker 3: multi billion dollar company. And even though the creator economy

1557
01:14:33,960 --> 01:14:36,679
Speaker 3: is big and getting bigger, I would argue that most

1558
01:14:36,760 --> 01:14:39,640
Speaker 3: money in the creator economy is being sucked up by

1559
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:44,240
Speaker 3: the platforms. Like the biggest creator economy businesses are TikTok Meta,

1560
01:14:45,040 --> 01:14:48,639
Speaker 3: you know, ig acts, et cetera. And so I think

1561
01:14:48,640 --> 01:14:51,840
Speaker 3: the pie is actually way smaller for businesses outside of

1562
01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:54,960
Speaker 3: these platforms to build really big businesses. On the side

1563
01:14:54,960 --> 01:14:58,840
Speaker 3: of like creators who have launched businesses, I think at

1564
01:14:58,880 --> 01:15:02,280
Speaker 3: the end of the day, it is just really really

1565
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:05,040
Speaker 3: hard to build a great creator economy business. And I

1566
01:15:05,080 --> 01:15:08,000
Speaker 3: think there's a few common pitfalls that I see. One

1567
01:15:08,120 --> 01:15:12,400
Speaker 3: is creators who launch launch products that are just not

1568
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:15,760
Speaker 3: truly great products. It's like creators who just like want

1569
01:15:15,880 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 3: kind of quick wins financially. They launch something that's like

1570
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,920
Speaker 3: kind of a commodity, and they wonder why there's an

1571
01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:25,160
Speaker 3: initial spike in the beginning because they market the product,

1572
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:28,280
Speaker 3: but then retention is horrible because people aren't buying the

1573
01:15:28,280 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 3: product over and over. And so I think that's the

1574
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:32,560
Speaker 3: first thing that happens with a lot of creator businesses

1575
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:35,280
Speaker 3: is a creator wants to launch a company, but they're

1576
01:15:35,320 --> 01:15:38,720
Speaker 3: more excited by the idea of building like launching a

1577
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 3: company announcing it to their audience than the actual work

1578
01:15:42,000 --> 01:15:44,360
Speaker 3: that has to go into building a company for a

1579
01:15:44,400 --> 01:15:47,040
Speaker 3: long time. So that's the first and so like what's

1580
01:15:47,040 --> 01:15:49,519
Speaker 3: the learning there. The learning is is like a creator

1581
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:54,000
Speaker 3: should only launch a business if one, they have an

1582
01:15:54,040 --> 01:15:57,320
Speaker 3: appreciation for the fact that building a business is just

1583
01:15:57,479 --> 01:16:00,600
Speaker 3: like building your creator career, like it it's going to

1584
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:04,599
Speaker 3: take seven to ten years. The second is the humility

1585
01:16:04,640 --> 01:16:06,640
Speaker 3: to know that being a creator is very different from

1586
01:16:06,680 --> 01:16:09,320
Speaker 3: being an entrepreneur, and either you as the creator, need

1587
01:16:09,400 --> 01:16:12,479
Speaker 3: to evolve into entrepreneur or you need to surround yourself

1588
01:16:12,520 --> 01:16:15,200
Speaker 3: with the right people who are the operators of the business.

1589
01:16:15,439 --> 01:16:18,960
Speaker 3: And the third is you have to build a product

1590
01:16:19,080 --> 01:16:23,439
Speaker 3: that's truly differentiated that solves a very real need for

1591
01:16:23,600 --> 01:16:25,840
Speaker 3: your audience. And I think, by the way, the reason

1592
01:16:25,840 --> 01:16:28,200
Speaker 3: that a lot of creators have launched kind of shitty

1593
01:16:28,360 --> 01:16:31,160
Speaker 3: products is because they saw what happened in alcohol and

1594
01:16:31,280 --> 01:16:33,840
Speaker 3: assumed you could do that everywhere else. Like the first

1595
01:16:33,880 --> 01:16:38,040
Speaker 3: big space that creator businesses were launched was in like

1596
01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 3: tequila and vodka. And so you look at like, you

1597
01:16:41,960 --> 01:16:47,200
Speaker 3: know Avion, which is what's his name, the actor I

1598
01:16:47,200 --> 01:16:51,280
Speaker 3: can't remember from otions eleven, or you look at you know,

1599
01:16:52,840 --> 01:16:56,599
Speaker 3: like the rock has Terremna tequila, like it became the classic,

1600
01:16:56,680 --> 01:17:01,040
Speaker 3: a less celebrity thing to launch an alcohol brand, and

1601
01:17:01,080 --> 01:17:04,760
Speaker 3: by definition, most alcohol is commodity, Like the product isn't

1602
01:17:04,760 --> 01:17:07,439
Speaker 3: actually different all that matters is brand and distribution, And

1603
01:17:07,439 --> 01:17:09,600
Speaker 3: so I think a lot of creators assumed, hey, I

1604
01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:12,599
Speaker 3: can just do the same model in like other forms

1605
01:17:12,600 --> 01:17:15,599
Speaker 3: of beverage or snacks. But it doesn't work the same way.

1606
01:17:16,640 --> 01:17:18,479
Speaker 3: So that's the first thing I'll share. I think the

1607
01:17:18,600 --> 01:17:23,479
Speaker 3: second thing is what's interesting is like creator businesses started

1608
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:26,400
Speaker 3: with like the most obvious categories. So they started again

1609
01:17:26,600 --> 01:17:29,600
Speaker 3: with like alcohol. Then it went to like, you know,

1610
01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:32,320
Speaker 3: let's look at like mister Beast businesses with like food

1611
01:17:32,680 --> 01:17:35,880
Speaker 3: or like candy CpG. The other next obvious place was

1612
01:17:35,920 --> 01:17:39,040
Speaker 3: like apparel. Like tons of creators launched apparel brands.

1613
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:41,120
Speaker 2: I tried that and I fail.

1614
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:44,240
Speaker 3: It's incredible. I mean I invested in one that like

1615
01:17:44,280 --> 01:17:47,439
Speaker 3: I invested in something Navy's apparel brands. Oh yeah, it

1616
01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:51,000
Speaker 3: just it's really hard. I think there's gonna be I

1617
01:17:51,000 --> 01:17:54,719
Speaker 3: actually think the most valuable creator businesses to launch, depending

1618
01:17:54,760 --> 01:17:56,639
Speaker 3: on the type of creator you are, are like way

1619
01:17:56,680 --> 01:17:58,719
Speaker 3: more niche. So I'll even just give you an example.

1620
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:02,519
Speaker 3: One of my favorite creator is Epic Gardening. Epic Gardening

1621
01:18:02,680 --> 01:18:05,040
Speaker 3: is this guy, Kevin Espery too. He has the largest

1622
01:18:05,040 --> 01:18:09,240
Speaker 3: gardening channel on YouTube, three million subscribers, and they're so

1623
01:18:09,320 --> 01:18:11,479
Speaker 3: their business I think it does like sixty or seventy

1624
01:18:11,479 --> 01:18:14,320
Speaker 3: million dollars a year. Half of that is in brand deals,

1625
01:18:14,479 --> 01:18:17,719
Speaker 3: half of it is they bought a seed company, wow,

1626
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:20,719
Speaker 3: and now they sell seeds direct to consumer and through

1627
01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:22,920
Speaker 3: nurseries like they sell wholesale to nurseries.

1628
01:18:23,120 --> 01:18:24,960
Speaker 2: I do love that. I love a niche thing.

1629
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:27,160
Speaker 1: It makes me think of Ballerina Farms, who also is

1630
01:18:27,479 --> 01:18:30,160
Speaker 1: making niche products that makes so much sense for her

1631
01:18:30,160 --> 01:18:31,080
Speaker 1: audience exactly.

1632
01:18:31,080 --> 01:18:33,600
Speaker 3: And so I actually think like people just I think creators.

1633
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:36,920
Speaker 3: And it's possibly because they want a shortcut it or

1634
01:18:36,920 --> 01:18:38,800
Speaker 3: they don't know the right steps. But to me, like,

1635
01:18:39,040 --> 01:18:40,879
Speaker 3: if I'm a creator who wants to launch a business,

1636
01:18:41,040 --> 01:18:44,360
Speaker 3: like my order of operations would be step one, understand

1637
01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:48,040
Speaker 3: my audience. Step two. Talk to my own audience. Understand

1638
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:50,640
Speaker 3: what are the products they're using constantly, what are the

1639
01:18:50,640 --> 01:18:53,960
Speaker 3: pain points they're experiencing with those products? Where is there

1640
01:18:54,080 --> 01:18:56,600
Speaker 3: what is a product they're wishing would be better that

1641
01:18:56,800 --> 01:19:00,080
Speaker 3: isn't better. Start to form an opinion on a pro

1642
01:19:00,680 --> 01:19:02,479
Speaker 3: or a need that you've heard over and over from

1643
01:19:02,479 --> 01:19:06,040
Speaker 3: your audience, and start to think through, whether by yourself

1644
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:08,920
Speaker 3: or with a team, what does a really novel solution

1645
01:19:09,040 --> 01:19:11,759
Speaker 3: look like for that audience, come up with like an MVP,

1646
01:19:12,120 --> 01:19:15,320
Speaker 3: whether it's a physical product or a digital product, an

1647
01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:19,040
Speaker 3: MVP to solve that problem in a novel and elegant way.

1648
01:19:19,439 --> 01:19:22,639
Speaker 3: Take kind of like your fifty die hards, Get them

1649
01:19:22,640 --> 01:19:25,479
Speaker 3: in a WhatsApp group, send them the product, get their

1650
01:19:25,520 --> 01:19:27,960
Speaker 3: feedback on it, iterate on it. Once you feel really

1651
01:19:28,000 --> 01:19:31,040
Speaker 3: good about it, launch it to your audience, and like

1652
01:19:31,160 --> 01:19:33,880
Speaker 3: That's how I'd approach things. But I think oftentimes, like

1653
01:19:34,640 --> 01:19:37,360
Speaker 3: creators end up landing on product before they go through

1654
01:19:37,360 --> 01:19:40,719
Speaker 3: this entire thing. And like, to me, oftentimes people find

1655
01:19:40,720 --> 01:19:42,720
Speaker 3: solutions in search of problems and the best way to

1656
01:19:42,720 --> 01:19:44,400
Speaker 3: build a great business is to find a problem and

1657
01:19:44,400 --> 01:19:47,519
Speaker 3: then find a solution that elegantly solves the problem. And

1658
01:19:47,600 --> 01:19:49,200
Speaker 3: So what I guess all this to say is like

1659
01:19:49,280 --> 01:19:52,680
Speaker 3: I think they're going to be huge creator co founded businesses.

1660
01:19:53,160 --> 01:19:55,320
Speaker 3: I just think like, well, and the other thing I'll

1661
01:19:55,320 --> 01:19:56,800
Speaker 3: say is like they just have to be the right one.

1662
01:19:56,880 --> 01:19:58,360
Speaker 3: They have to be the right ones, and there's gonna

1663
01:19:58,360 --> 01:20:00,679
Speaker 3: be a lot that won't work. But that doesn't mean

1664
01:20:00,720 --> 01:20:02,760
Speaker 3: that there isn't a lot of opportunity. Just like if

1665
01:20:02,760 --> 01:20:05,519
Speaker 3: you look at the stats on what percentage of startups fail.

1666
01:20:05,920 --> 01:20:09,000
Speaker 3: The answer is eighty percent of startups fail. So even

1667
01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:11,120
Speaker 3: if the stats are similar for the creator economy, that

1668
01:20:11,160 --> 01:20:13,519
Speaker 3: means eight out of every ten creator businesses is going

1669
01:20:13,560 --> 01:20:17,559
Speaker 3: to fail because like that's building successful companies is just hard,

1670
01:20:18,120 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 3: but you are going to have huge successes. I also think,

1671
01:20:21,080 --> 01:20:24,240
Speaker 3: just more than ever before, it just like the other

1672
01:20:24,280 --> 01:20:27,200
Speaker 3: thing that's most important about creator businesses is like, do

1673
01:20:27,280 --> 01:20:29,840
Speaker 3: you actually have an audience that really gives a shit

1674
01:20:29,880 --> 01:20:31,760
Speaker 3: and trusts you deeply and is willing to pull out

1675
01:20:31,760 --> 01:20:35,760
Speaker 3: their wallet it kind of in support of you and

1676
01:20:35,800 --> 01:20:39,200
Speaker 3: the solution you have. Because again it's like you could

1677
01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 3: have the greatest product in the world, but if you

1678
01:20:41,479 --> 01:20:44,960
Speaker 3: don't have a deeply trusting audience, then you don't actually

1679
01:20:44,960 --> 01:20:45,640
Speaker 3: have influence.

1680
01:20:45,880 --> 01:20:49,639
Speaker 1: I think sometimes there's also benefits into it not being

1681
01:20:49,680 --> 01:20:52,599
Speaker 1: the public face of the brand and just having the product.

1682
01:20:52,840 --> 01:20:56,400
Speaker 1: I interviewed a founder recently who just now is and

1683
01:20:56,439 --> 01:20:59,400
Speaker 1: she has a very successful brand that's like a consumer

1684
01:20:59,439 --> 01:21:01,960
Speaker 1: good for women, goods for women. Yeah, she was saying

1685
01:21:02,000 --> 01:21:04,640
Speaker 1: that it wasn't until she reached a certain level of

1686
01:21:04,640 --> 01:21:07,600
Speaker 1: success that she was comfortable being like the face of

1687
01:21:07,640 --> 01:21:09,559
Speaker 1: the brand totally and that's not to say she went

1688
01:21:09,640 --> 01:21:11,800
Speaker 1: into hiding with the brand like I mean, her face

1689
01:21:11,880 --> 01:21:13,360
Speaker 1: is on the about page and all of that, but

1690
01:21:13,439 --> 01:21:16,280
Speaker 1: she wasn't really outwardsly doing content.

1691
01:21:16,479 --> 01:21:17,599
Speaker 2: And it's kind of interesting.

1692
01:21:17,680 --> 01:21:20,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, And what I would say, it's interesting like in

1693
01:21:20,840 --> 01:21:24,040
Speaker 3: some ways, having a heart loyal audience is a huge

1694
01:21:24,040 --> 01:21:26,080
Speaker 3: advantage because you have built in marketing you don't have

1695
01:21:26,120 --> 01:21:28,080
Speaker 3: to pay for marketing. In other ways, it's a crutch

1696
01:21:28,479 --> 01:21:31,640
Speaker 3: because if you truly have a deeply trusting audience, you

1697
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:33,880
Speaker 3: can promote anything and it'll probably sell for a period

1698
01:21:33,880 --> 01:21:36,040
Speaker 3: of time. So it takes you longer to learn is

1699
01:21:36,080 --> 01:21:38,479
Speaker 3: the product. Are you getting revenue because people love the

1700
01:21:38,520 --> 01:21:40,479
Speaker 3: product or because they're just going to say yes to

1701
01:21:40,520 --> 01:21:43,840
Speaker 3: anything that you promote in the world. So I would

1702
01:21:43,840 --> 01:21:45,880
Speaker 3: say that's actually one of the tricky parts of being

1703
01:21:45,880 --> 01:21:48,800
Speaker 3: a creator who has trusting audience is it may take

1704
01:21:48,880 --> 01:21:51,200
Speaker 3: longer than someone who doesn't have audience to figure out

1705
01:21:51,400 --> 01:21:53,280
Speaker 3: is the thing actually working for the right reasons.

1706
01:21:53,360 --> 01:21:54,800
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that you do that

1707
01:21:55,080 --> 01:21:58,040
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite content series where on LinkedIn

1708
01:21:58,200 --> 01:22:01,000
Speaker 1: and across platforms, where you have people pitch you their

1709
01:22:01,040 --> 01:22:02,400
Speaker 1: business in sixty seconds.

1710
01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:05,439
Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you how often do you film that?

1711
01:22:05,680 --> 01:22:08,080
Speaker 3: So I took it a little bit of a hiatus

1712
01:22:08,080 --> 01:22:09,760
Speaker 3: for Okay, I'm going to bring it back.

1713
01:22:09,840 --> 01:22:10,840
Speaker 2: You have to bring it back.

1714
01:22:10,880 --> 01:22:12,720
Speaker 3: I'm also you guys will be able to help me

1715
01:22:12,760 --> 01:22:14,880
Speaker 3: with this, but I'd like, I'm trying to test other

1716
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:19,519
Speaker 3: formats of founder type style interviews and like competitions. So

1717
01:22:19,560 --> 01:22:20,680
Speaker 3: if you guys have ideas.

1718
01:22:20,640 --> 01:22:23,600
Speaker 1: I mean, Alex, I feel like everybody listening has this

1719
01:22:23,640 --> 01:22:25,200
Speaker 1: thought in their head too. But you would be the

1720
01:22:25,200 --> 01:22:26,880
Speaker 1: perfect person for like a shark tank.

1721
01:22:27,000 --> 01:22:29,920
Speaker 3: And that was the original idea for sixty second Startup

1722
01:22:30,280 --> 01:22:33,280
Speaker 3: was I was like, I love Shark Tank. People love

1723
01:22:33,320 --> 01:22:35,719
Speaker 3: Shark Tank, but there has not been a shark Tank

1724
01:22:35,760 --> 01:22:38,519
Speaker 3: created for the platforms of today because Shark Tank was

1725
01:22:38,520 --> 01:22:41,479
Speaker 3: never brought to like social platforms. That's why I created

1726
01:22:41,520 --> 01:22:44,960
Speaker 3: sixty second Startup. But I always thought there was a

1727
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:46,880
Speaker 3: way to take it a step further and I couldn't

1728
01:22:46,880 --> 01:22:49,640
Speaker 3: figure out how to do it. But I love doing it.

1729
01:22:49,920 --> 01:22:51,880
Speaker 2: You will, You're going to figure it out. Yeah, I'm

1730
01:22:51,920 --> 01:22:52,519
Speaker 2: so excited.

1731
01:22:52,680 --> 01:22:56,360
Speaker 1: I do love when people bring nostalgic shows, and obviously

1732
01:22:56,360 --> 01:22:57,760
Speaker 1: Shark Tank is still going on, but I love when

1733
01:22:57,760 --> 01:22:59,479
Speaker 1: people bring those shows that have been around for a

1734
01:22:59,479 --> 01:23:01,600
Speaker 1: while on to social media in some way, Like my

1735
01:23:01,680 --> 01:23:03,799
Speaker 1: show was very in a lot of ways was inspired

1736
01:23:03,840 --> 01:23:06,160
Speaker 1: by carpool Karaoke, totally doing it on the run, and

1737
01:23:06,200 --> 01:23:08,120
Speaker 1: I love Caleb Simpson's apartment tours.

1738
01:23:08,280 --> 01:23:11,120
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I've always thought like, if you bring back

1739
01:23:11,280 --> 01:23:13,840
Speaker 3: MTV Cribs and you reboot it, it would be sick or

1740
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:17,559
Speaker 3: like I just think of like dirty jobs. Like if

1741
01:23:17,560 --> 01:23:19,679
Speaker 3: you look at what Cody Sanchez does with her content

1742
01:23:19,720 --> 01:23:23,080
Speaker 3: on YouTube, she basically recreated dirty jobs, and so yeah,

1743
01:23:23,120 --> 01:23:24,559
Speaker 3: I think one of the best ways to actually think

1744
01:23:24,600 --> 01:23:27,720
Speaker 3: of content series is to just go literally, if you

1745
01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:30,040
Speaker 3: don't have a cable TV box, go to someone who does,

1746
01:23:30,520 --> 01:23:34,320
Speaker 3: go and look at the programming for like CNBC, CBS, whatever,

1747
01:23:34,560 --> 01:23:37,320
Speaker 3: and just ask if there was a rebooted version of

1748
01:23:37,360 --> 01:23:39,960
Speaker 3: this on social platforms, what would that look like.

1749
01:23:40,080 --> 01:23:41,880
Speaker 1: I totally agree, Honestly, I think that's a really good

1750
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:43,599
Speaker 1: idea and we might have to do that. Well, you've

1751
01:23:43,640 --> 01:23:45,720
Speaker 1: got so much going on, You're running four companies, you've

1752
01:23:45,720 --> 01:23:47,960
Speaker 1: got a baby girl on the way doing a month,

1753
01:23:48,280 --> 01:23:51,160
Speaker 1: So what are you currently excited about, what are you

1754
01:23:51,200 --> 01:23:52,599
Speaker 1: focused on and what's next?

1755
01:23:52,680 --> 01:23:55,639
Speaker 3: Well, I'm very excited about starting a family probably the thing,

1756
01:23:55,920 --> 01:23:59,720
Speaker 3: not probably definitely the thing I'm most excited about. And

1757
01:24:00,360 --> 01:24:02,720
Speaker 3: it's been very fun to design a nursery and use

1758
01:24:02,760 --> 01:24:05,960
Speaker 3: chatgibt to create a nursery. Unbelievable to it.

1759
01:24:06,080 --> 01:24:08,120
Speaker 1: For that, Also, my favorite thing is uploading a picture

1760
01:24:08,120 --> 01:24:09,400
Speaker 1: of the room and saying design.

1761
01:24:09,160 --> 01:24:12,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, so good at it. And honestly, it's like

1762
01:24:12,800 --> 01:24:15,599
Speaker 3: just been really cool to figure out to finally get

1763
01:24:15,600 --> 01:24:18,719
Speaker 3: into a rhythm where I feel like I can spend

1764
01:24:19,120 --> 01:24:22,720
Speaker 3: enough time to add a ton of value to each

1765
01:24:22,760 --> 01:24:25,320
Speaker 3: one of these businesses and just feel like I'm working

1766
01:24:25,360 --> 01:24:28,400
Speaker 3: with amazing like co founders. And for me, the most

1767
01:24:28,400 --> 01:24:30,679
Speaker 3: important thing is like I'm just learning a ton right now.

1768
01:24:31,120 --> 01:24:34,479
Speaker 3: I feel like like building business feels like a game

1769
01:24:34,560 --> 01:24:37,160
Speaker 3: right now, and when building business feels like I'm playing

1770
01:24:37,160 --> 01:24:41,120
Speaker 3: this like fun internet game, life just feels like easy

1771
01:24:41,160 --> 01:24:43,600
Speaker 3: and in flow. And so yeah, I'm just excited to

1772
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:46,120
Speaker 3: see what's ahead for the four businesses, and I'm excited

1773
01:24:46,160 --> 01:24:49,000
Speaker 3: to kind of prove to myself and also the world

1774
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:51,840
Speaker 3: that you know, you can be really successful entrepreneur but

1775
01:24:51,920 --> 01:24:55,439
Speaker 3: also be as successful not more successful, of a dad,

1776
01:24:55,640 --> 01:24:57,240
Speaker 3: a parent, and a family person.

1777
01:24:57,680 --> 01:25:00,280
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for you. This conversation was amazing, saying

1778
01:25:00,320 --> 01:25:02,320
Speaker 1: you are amazing. I just can't wait to see what

1779
01:25:02,320 --> 01:25:02,840
Speaker 1: you continue to.

1780
01:25:02,840 --> 01:25:03,800
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.

1781
01:25:03,920 --> 01:25:06,080
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode

1782
01:25:06,080 --> 01:25:09,000
Speaker 1: with Alex. I learned so much from our conversation and

1783
01:25:09,080 --> 01:25:11,479
Speaker 1: I hope you guys did too. As a reminder, if

1784
01:25:11,479 --> 01:25:14,040
Speaker 1: you're enjoying post run high, it really helps if you

1785
01:25:14,120 --> 01:25:16,840
Speaker 1: share this episode, leave us a quick review and send

1786
01:25:16,840 --> 01:25:18,920
Speaker 1: it to a friend. And if you haven't already, make

1787
01:25:18,960 --> 01:25:21,439
Speaker 1: sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel at kate max,

1788
01:25:21,439 --> 01:25:23,400
Speaker 1: where you can watch all of the video versions of

1789
01:25:23,400 --> 01:25:26,719
Speaker 1: this podcast. We've got so many more great conversations coming

1790
01:25:26,760 --> 01:25:28,559
Speaker 1: your way, so I will see you next time.