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My First Million

Brainstorming +$1M Weird Business Ideas With Morning Brew’s CEO Austin Rief (#543)

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Shaan PurihostSam ParrhostAustin Riefguest

Jan 24, 202459mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Bingo Loco: the “bingo rave” pop-up nightlife business
The conversation opens with Austin describing a deck he received about Bingo Loco, an event that mixes bingo with club-style entertainment. The group breaks down why it works as a nightlife hook and how it appears to monetize venues on off nights with high-margin add-ons like drinks.
- •Austin describes Bingo Loco as “club-meets-bingo,” with performers, confetti, and a rave-like atmosphere
- •They discuss how the model likely uses existing venues and targets slower nights to maximize turnout
- •Austin cites a competitor doing significant pre-COVID revenue, surprising the hosts
- •Shaan reframes it as an alcohol business using bingo as the hook to keep people buying drinks
- •Sam reacts to ticket pricing and how the websites and marketing look nearly identical across competitors
Why physical experiences are still interesting (even for a digital-media CEO)
After a sponsor break, Sam asks why Austin is drawn to physical, in-person business models given his success in digital media. Austin explains he’s fascinated by how experiences create repeat engagement in a very different way than newsletters do.
- •Sam questions why Austin cares about physical businesses when digital seems easier
- •Austin says he’s intrigued by how these experiences hook people and keep them coming back
- •He emphasizes how counterintuitive successes (like bingo parties) are the most educational
- •Austin contrasts the ease of retaining an email audience with the challenge of getting people to return to events
- •The group frames these as fun “post-COVID, get out of the house” concepts beyond typical bars
Pizza-and-binge “contest night” as a bar-filling concept (plus gambling)
Shaan pitches a new event concept inspired by eating challenges: turn binge-eating contests into a rowdy, spectator-driven bar night. Austin builds on it by proposing gambling or betting mechanics to increase engagement.
- •Shaan proposes a night built around pizza/hot dog eating challenges with cheering sections
- •He frames it as “sports meets binge-eating,” designed to pack a bar with high-energy crowds
- •Austin suggests adding gambling/betting to make it more like “Vegas meets a party”
- •They discuss how the food is relatively cheap compared to the revenue potential from drinks
- •The idea is positioned as a reusable event format similar to the bingo-rave hook
Food challenge creators and extreme “raw meat” influencers as built-in promotion
Sam brings up a popular food-challenge YouTuber as proof that binge-eating content has massive demand. Shaan adds examples of extreme food influencers and suggests using these creators as guest hosts to promote and scale pop-up events.
- •Sam cites a food-challenge YouTuber he watches and highlights the scale of that audience
- •Shaan describes an extreme raw-meat influencer and the shock-value appeal of the content
- •They connect mukbang/food-challenge creator formats to in-person event promotion
- •Shaan suggests using creators as guest hosts to drive turnout and make the event itself content
- •The group treats influencer distribution as a practical growth lever for physical experiences
Scavenger hunts and renegade museum tours: the economics of in-person events
Sam shares his experience working on citywide scavenger hunts and what he learned about how profitable in-person events can be despite the effort. The group also discusses Museum Hack and why the B2B version (corporate events) can be far more lucrative than consumer tickets.
- •Sam recounts working on citywide scavenger hunts and seeing strong economics firsthand
- •He describes Museum Hack’s early “renegade museum tours” approach and how it scaled
- •Shaan comments on the power of the “renegade” framing as a pitch
- •Austin notes recognition that helped the museum-tour concept blow up
- •Austin argues B2B is where the money is, contrasting consumer ticket revenue with corporate budgets
Why “Milk Road for X” newsletters feel tapped out (and what changed)
Sam asks Austin whether his views on the creator economy and newsletters have changed. Austin argues that the newsletter space is crowded, content quality is inconsistent, and tools have made it too easy—reducing any edge and making outcomes less likely to be breakout successes.
- •Sam revisits their earlier “Milk Road for X” discussion and asks what Austin thinks now
- •Austin says many new newsletters rely on growth hacks but don’t deliver strong content
- •He claims there’s “no more alpha” in newsletters because everyone covers everything
- •Austin compares newsletter tooling to Shopify’s effect on e-commerce: easier creation, more competition
- •He suggests many builders expect big exits without delivering real differentiated value
Austin’s next obsession: building a meat-smoking brand with influencer distribution
Shaan asks what Austin would do if media were off the table, and Austin shares his interest in passion-audience businesses. He dives into meat smoking—why the hobby has strong recurring spend—and outlines a plan to build a premium hardware-and-consumables brand via creator partnerships.
- •Austin says he likes enterprise/B2B businesses and also passion-audience businesses
- •He shares his obsession with meat smoking and explains how it works (long, low-temperature cooks)
- •Austin describes how smokers and pellets create a built-in recurring spend model
- •He points to meat-smoking influencers with massive views and sees a distribution opportunity
- •Austin outlines a vision to build a Traeger/Green Egg competitor using influencer partnerships
The woodworking playbook: creator collectives, custom products, and affiliate cross-selling
Austin references a woodworking creator who built tools for his audience and then expanded by partnering with other creators to create a collective store. The group discusses how affiliate incentives and creator-to-creator distribution can scale physical products beyond a single personality brand.
- •Austin describes a woodworking creator who monetized by selling tools to an audience
- •He explains a strategy of partnering with other creators to make custom products for each niche
- •Austin highlights building a collective storefront across multiple creators’ products
- •He describes affiliate-style cross-selling among creators as a scaling mechanism
- •Sam reacts to the scale implied by the business and its traffic/commerce potential
Creator brands that work: product-market fit matters more than fame
The discussion shifts to creator-led consumer brands and why most attempts will fail. Austin and Shaan argue that having a real product need and strong execution beats pure audience size, and they contrast consumer products with B2B monetization through high-ticket offers.
- •Austin predicts more retail brands will have faces attached, with the biggest opportunity in niches
- •Sam wonders what they could even sell as a creator brand and asks how famous you must be
- •Austin argues fame alone is no longer enough; you need a great product with real demand
- •Shaan breaks down why certain creator brands succeeded due to distribution plus strong operators
- •They contrast consumer creator brands with B2B models where smaller audiences can sell higher-priced products
Tony Robbins interview prep: “peak state,” intensity, and managing a monologuer
Austin jokes about a missed call because Shaan was preparing for Tony Robbins, prompting Shaan to share behind-the-scenes details of the interview. Shaan describes intense preparation, trying to get into a peak state, and the challenge of interviewing someone who can avalanche into long answers.
- •Austin recounts being stood up for a call because Shaan was prepping for a big guest
- •Shaan explains he prepared unusually hard and describes trying to get into a “peak state”
- •He tells a story of Tony arriving while he was doing pre-interview stretches off-camera
- •Shaan says the interview was intense and hints at an emotional moment during it
- •He describes the challenge of time limits when interviewing a stage-performer-style talker
Dinner with SBF: the weird luxury, the compound vibe, and narrow obsession
Shaan asks Austin to revisit a past dinner with Sam Bankman-Fried. Austin describes arriving at an ultra-wealth enclave, seeing odd living arrangements and messiness inside a luxury apartment, and observing SBF’s intense dominance and hyper-focus on crypto-related knowledge.
- •Austin describes traveling to the Bahamas and seeing extreme wealth at the destination
- •He recounts the exec team living together in a messy, cable-filled luxury apartment
- •Austin describes SBF cooking a sparse vegan meal while barely making eye contact
- •He observes a social hierarchy where others looked to SBF for approval
- •Austin says SBF was brilliant on crypto-adjacent topics but seemed unaware outside that domain
Red flags in hindsight, “throwing weight around,” and conviction vs caution
The group reflects on whether fraud vibes were detectable and discusses the broader trait of highly successful people: extreme focus and willingness to deploy resources aggressively. They debate what parts of that mindset are worth adopting without copying the destructive extremes.
- •Sam asks if Austin sensed fraud, and Austin says he was enamored at the time
- •Austin points out contradictions in the “low-key lifestyle” narrative around SBF’s living situation
- •They compare extreme focus patterns to other top performers and discuss what gets sacrificed
- •Shaan talks about “throwing weight around” and being willing to make big moves when convicted
- •Austin says he’s inspired by conviction plays but also feels fear around acting that boldly
Elon stories and the “Goggins for one hour a day” framework
Shaan shares a story about a party at Elon Musk’s house, leading into Austin’s takeaways from reading a book about Elon. They land on a framework: selectively channel intensity and vision, but avoid adopting the full extreme lifestyle—summed up as being “David Goggins for one hour a day.”
- •Shaan tells a story about an Elon party house and an awkward moment encountered while leaving
- •Austin shares his impression of Elon as “hardcore” and extreme across every area of life
- •Sam describes the internal conflict of feeling “soft” compared to Elon while also not wanting that life
- •Shaan introduces the idea that you only want to channel Goggins-level intensity briefly each day
- •They identify “vision and storytelling” as the parts of extreme archetypes worth borrowing, not the treatment of people
Money dials: spending on what you love and the Aman hotel standard
The episode closes with a discussion of spending intentionally on personal “money dials,” prompted by Sam referencing Ramit Sethi’s challenge to spend more on what matters. Austin says his dial is travel and luxury hotels, and he explains why Aman represents a pinnacle of customer service and detail.
- •Sam recounts a framework about spending more on what genuinely makes you happy
- •Shaan asks Austin how money from Morning Brew improved his life in a meaningful way
- •Austin says travel and staying at great hotels is his main spending priority
- •They discuss Aman as a benchmark for customer service and meticulous detail
- •Austin explains that if luxury isn’t your dial it may feel wasteful, but if it is, it’s deeply satisfying

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