How To Grow A $75M Newsletter Business | Morning Brew Co-Founder (#398)

1. 0:00 – 0:34

   Intro

   1. SPSam Parr0:00

      All right, so we have Austin here, Austin Rief, founder of, uh, Morning Brew. Uh, I, I, I, I know how big you guys are. I don't know what the public numbers are, so I'll let you kinda say, like how, how big is the company now?

   2. ARAustin Rief0:12

      Yeah, 70, 75 million of revenue this year. Uh, double digit profit, uh, margin, 250 people or so. [upbeat music]

   3. SPSam Parr0:25

      That's crazy.

   4. SPShaan Puri0:25

      And it's kind of a, kind of a crazy story. You guys started this, you guys were at, at college, right? You were, you were at, uh, is it Michigan where, where you guys went to school?

   5. ARAustin Rief0:33

      Yeah.

2. 0:34 – 17:46

   Morning Brew origin story

   1. ARAustin Rief0:34

      So, so we were at the University of Michigan. Uh, I applied to Duke. Didn't get in though, unfortunately.

   2. SPShaan Puri0:38

      Yeah, sorry. We-

   3. SPSam Parr0:39

      Wow.

   4. ARAustin Rief0:39

      And so went to Michigan. Yeah, I went to a small private high school.

   5. SPShaan Puri0:42

      Like our condolences.

   6. ARAustin Rief0:43

      Uh, so I, I-

   7. SPShaan Puri0:45

      [laughs]

   8. ARAustin Rief0:45

      No, Michigan worked out well. It was a little cold, a little bit colder than Duke, but I, I mean, my goal was to go to the biggest school I could get into, uh, other than, you know, an Ivy or Duke. So I got into Michigan, had no idea what I wanted to do. Uh, and everyone went into finance at Michigan, so I was like, "Oh, I gotta, I gotta follow the herd." I was a, a sheep following the herd straight into the world of corporate finance or investment banking. Uh, and then stumbled upon this guy, Alex Lieberman, who was... Like, I wouldn't even call it a newsletter. It was a PDF attached to an email. Like, he actually took a, he made a Word document. He would PDF it and put it to an email, and that was the first newsletter.

   9. SPShaan Puri1:22

      So he was al- he was already doing it. Was it called Morning Brew?

   10. ARAustin Rief1:25

       No, it was called Market Corner. It was way more markets-based, way more finance-oriented.

   11. SPSam Parr1:29

       Was he in college as well or was he, had he graduated?

   12. ARAustin Rief1:32

       Yeah, so he was two years older than I was, and that's a big part of our success, to be honest. Uh, if I was his age, we probably would've went out and raised venture capital. So, you know, 20, 2015, you have BuzzFeed raising money, Vice raising money, and the only reason we didn't follow that path was because I was in college and no one's gonna fund a, a sophomore in college. And so Alex went to work at Morgan Stanley for 14 months. I spent a summer in investment banking and was like, "Holy shit, this is miserable. Get me out of here." And so I was like, "All right, well, I got this Morning Brew thing. I might as well do it for a couple years, and what's the worst thing that happens? I come back here?" And that was the, that was the start of going full time.

   13. SPSam Parr2:09

       What did your nice Jewish parents think about you not becoming a banker and instead working on a, a newsletter?

   14. ARAustin Rief2:16

       So my parents were actually okay with it, except I told them after my junior year, I said, "I have one more year of college. What if I, I just don't go back? What if I don't finish?" And the idea of them spending $150,000 on three years of college and not finishing my senior year drove them nuts. So the deal we made is if I f- if I, uh, graduated, they were cool with me doing Morning Brew for a year or two after.

   15. SPSam Parr2:41

       And then fast-forward, you guys... So it was funny. S- uh, right when we were sell- uh, in the process of selling, you announced that you had sold like months or two months, uh, and, uh, before us, and so you guys sold a portion of the business, I think the majority of the business for at, something like a $70 million valuation. Isn't that at ballpark, right?

   16. ARAustin Rief3:01

       Yeah, right around there. I think we were actually, we were doing M&A at the same time. We were even talking to some similar partners.

   17. SPSam Parr3:07

       I, I think we were.

   18. ARAustin Rief3:08

       Yeah.

   19. SPSam Parr3:08

       And the reason why, like, w- Shaan and I wanted to have you on f- because we wanna talk about newsletters, which every, all three of us have a newsletter business, but you and I have an interesting background, where like on paper we kind of hated each other. Like, the whole time-

   20. ARAustin Rief3:22

       Not kind of. I hated you.

   21. SPShaan Puri3:23

       [laughs]

   22. ARAustin Rief3:23

       Dude, I hated you.

   23. SPSam Parr3:24

       So I didn't entirely hate you. I just, it was-

   24. ARAustin Rief3:27

       Oh, I hated you

   25. SPSam Parr3:27

       ... it was like I, uh, it was like w- just sports, opposing sports teams, where I was like, "I have a lot of respect for this person. I don't know anything about their character, but I'm gonna make up this story in my head to like motivate me." And the reason why I wanted to do that was because we... So I launched, we technically launched, uh, The Hustle in April, April 2016. Were you before us or after us?

   26. ARAustin Rief3:49

       We were 2015 when we launched the first newsletter, but it wasn't, it was a, a very small thing then.

   27. SPSam Parr3:53

       So we were going like back and forth. It was like The Skimm was like the thing, and then it was you and I, Morning Brew and The Hustle. And you guys were this like New York kinda buttoned-up crew. I was like a little bit of a crazier person. It was tech San Francisco. But it was like e- everyone kept comparing us. And I remember like wanting to like crush you guys. And then after we both sold, y- Alex called me, and, uh, you and I became buddies, and I was like, "Oh, no, I actually love these guys." And now at this point you and I are great friends, and I have a ton of respect, but, uh, yeah, like I wanted to crush you. I didn't w- I didn't really hate you. What, what did you feel?

   28. ARAustin Rief4:28

       Yeah, I, look, I, I think there's, it's always good for a business to have an enemy. And I think in the early days our enemy was The Skimm. Very quickly, though, we were like, "You know what? They're, they're not our enemy," we realized. I think we both realized pretty quickly that you can't raise $25 million, uh, for a newsletter a- and have a good exit. And so I think it was you and us. And so I turned you into the enemy, and I was so immature at the time, right? I, this was my first thing out of college. I knew nothing. So I was like, "Here's this guy. He's so abrasive."

   29. SPShaan Puri4:53

       [laughs]

   30. ARAustin Rief4:53

       "He's so aggressive. Like, what the fuck?" And, like, I was so, I, I wasn't principled. I didn't have real values at the time, and so I just saw you who are super valued, right? You, you have strong principles, very strong principles, which some people love, tons of people I'm sure don't like. Uh, and I was like, "This guy is just so abrasive." And I, I've learned to love that about you, but at the time it just, it rubbed me the wrong way. And I was like, "We're gonna make this guy our enemy, and we're gonna crush this guy."
3. 17:46 – 22:57

   Ad sales

   1. SPSam Parr17:46

      about that real quick, ad sales. Ad sales suck, Austin. They suck. And what I learned getting into the hustle, I, I... Did you sell? I sold our first ads. I think I got us, I sold, like, the first maybe $100,000 worth of ads. And then in order to scale, we had to hire a sales team, and they would show me, like, the conversations that they are gonna have. I'm like, "There's, this conversation will never work. Like, you're using all this jargon, and you're wearing, like, these, like, buttoned-up sh- plaid shirts and, like, these brown leather shoes. Like, you guys look like dweebs. Like, this is never gonna work." And it worked Perfectly

   2. SPShaan Puri18:16

      You're like, "Nobody wants to go skateboarding with you right now." [laughs]

   3. SPSam Parr18:19

      Yeah. [laughs]

   4. SPShaan Puri18:20

      "You're not ready if they wanna skateboard." [laughs]

   5. SPSam Parr18:23

      [laughs] Dude, I was like-

   6. ARAustin Rief18:25

      Yeah, Sam

   7. SPSam Parr18:25

      ... dude, you look like a To- You look, you look like your name's Todd or Kyle, like this is not gonna work. And, uh-

   8. SPShaan Puri18:31

      It's like my name is Tom

   9. SPSam Parr18:31

      ... it fucking works. Yeah, yeah, it, it worked perfectly.

   10. ARAustin Rief18:35

       Yeah, Sam, you're, you're, you're not cut out, your personality's not cut out for the, the, the media buying world.

   11. SPSam Parr18:40

       Did you do it?

   12. ARAustin Rief18:41

       You're a... Well, no, so yeah, in the early days we bought, right? But we, we, we sold all direct response ads, right? It was Casper mattress, it was Away luggage, it was-

   13. SPSam Parr18:49

       Sam

   14. ARAustin Rief18:49

       ... you know, "Hey, buy, buy your placement here. You're gonna get 300 clicks and 3% of them convert, and you're gonna make $1,000 and we'll charge you 800." As we've grown though, I think there's another difference between us, we were in New York City and it opened up this whole world that I had no idea about, which was the world of, of b- media buying and these big ad agencies, and they have huge budgets, right? We're not talking about 100 grand from Casper, we're talking about $5 million from the biggest brands in the entire world. And it really is a black box to people who aren't in it, and I think it's one of those things where it's a black box intentionally so people can't get in, right? Finance is the same thing. Every year there's a new term within the ad industry or finance just to keep people on, on the outside.

   15. SPSam Parr19:29

       Dude, it's crazy. It's crazy.

   16. ARAustin Rief19:31

       Yeah.

   17. SPSam Parr19:31

       And it's, like, not based in logic or fact. It's based on relationships and, like, it's so weird. It's like, oh wait, I have to realize that this person, this lady I, I'm trying to get to buy ads, she just has to spend this $20 million this quarter and she just wants to find somewhere to place it where she won't get fired. That was such a weird feeling.

   18. ARAustin Rief19:49

       Yeah, I mean, the, the idea of, like, media budgets, right? Hey, they, i- if they u- if they don't use it, they lose it. And so you're incentivized to spend money. It's, it's, it's interesting and it's, uh, something that we learned, again, by hiring people in New York, which I think was a big difference between us and you. You had a, a lower cost, more, like, inside sales team, a really efficient one, right? You took that route. We didn't take that route. We went for these big brand dollars and, and I think both routes work. It depends what you're, what you're looking to sell. Um, we just took the route and say, "Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna dive right in this black box and we're gonna learn all about it, and we're gonna get a million dol-" I mean, one of our first advertisers, Discover, gave us a million bucks. [laughs] I was in college, I'm a senior in college living in my frat house, right? Like, beer cans everywhere, and I get an email from the CMO of Discover like, "Here's an RFP." I'm like, "What in the fuck is an RFP?"

   19. SPShaan Puri20:35

       [laughs]

   20. ARAustin Rief20:36

       Like, what are you talking about? No clue. I open it up and it's like, "Hey, give us media plans for, like, half a million to a million bucks," right? For a million dollars she could own the company seven times over.

   21. SPShaan Puri20:46

       [laughs]

   22. ARAustin Rief20:46

       The company was not worth 100 grand, and here's this woman asking for a million dollar RFP. And y- we just, we learned it, but it, it really is a relationship driven game.

   23. SPShaan Puri20:55

       What, what are some-

   24. SPSam Parr20:56

       But how did you, how did you justify that? Like, how do you, like, h- if a, if, if, if AMEX says, "We're gonna spend $5 million this year," be real, do you actually think that's gonna help them, like, sell more shit?

   25. ARAustin Rief21:10

       Yeah, so I, I do, right? We do a lot of brand lift studies and things like that, right? It's different, right? It's not, we're not, no one's trying to, uh, you know, like, like Lexus, for example, or a car company.

   26. SPShaan Puri21:18

       Sam-

   27. ARAustin Rief21:19

       Lexus doesn't expect you-

   28. SPShaan Puri21:19

       ... how many brand lift studies did you do?

   29. SPSam Parr21:22

       We used to do them and I'd be like-

   30. SPShaan Puri21:23

       [laughs]
4. 22:57 – 31:29

   Austin's strengths

   1. SPSam Parr22:58

      Shaan and I are really good, I think, at starting stuff. We, we've got pretty good vision. We're, we can spin things up and get them to, like, a million in revenue pretty quickly. The thing that I was always envious of you, because it's my, it's a, it's a fairly big shortcoming I think I have, is you're just so good at, I don't know exactly how to explain it. You've got this, like, almost private equity-like ability to, like, look at numbers and be like, "Oh, the margin here is shitty." And I'm like, I've never used that word margin in my life. But you'll, like, talk about, like, the margin here and like, "Well, if you just change that by, like, 10%, probably by doing this your outcome is gonna be, like, this, this, and this." Like, you just have this really good operational ability. You're also really good at saying, like, "Well, if you just improve this, this, and this and only focus on that, then in six months I think your outcome will be this." You're really good at that, and you were really good at that at a very young age. How did you figure out how to do that? How did you learn how to do that and, and have that insight and have that ability? And also have that faith in, like, well, if you just do this, this, and this, the outcome might be this, this, and this in eight months?

   2. ARAustin Rief23:57

      Yeah, I mean, so I got an undergraduate business degree, and I always used to shit on undergraduate business degrees. I'm like, "What a complete waste of time." Like, those four years were so dumb. But as I look back, it really did give me, uh, a pretty good overview of what it takes to, to run a business. Not actually the day-to-day of running a business, but, like, what is accounting? I took, like, seven accounting classes, or I don't know, maybe five. Those were actually really valuable. To be able to really dive deep into a P&L, to real- and, and my summer spent in investment banking to, to understand what's a financial model, what drives a model. Those things- That within the context of finance, like yeah, you know, they're okay. But in the context of running a business was super helpful to understand what levers you need to pull. Uh, but the other, the flip side is I looked at you three years ago and I, before we knew each other, maybe even two years ago, and I was like, both of you, I was like, "I hate these guys because they're so good at going zero to one. They're so good at coming up with ideas." Like, I'm the opposite, right? I, I'm not an ideas guy. I can't come up with ideas. But I do think-

   3. SPShaan Puri24:55

      Well, it, it is certainly-

   4. ARAustin Rief24:55

      Once the idea is there, I'm-

   5. SPShaan Puri24:56

      ... cooler and sexier to do what we do. You know, there's no, there's, there's no doubt about that. [laughs] It is definitely-

   6. SPSam Parr25:01

      Yeah, but like-

   7. ARAustin Rief25:02

      Yeah

   8. SPSam Parr25:02

      ... dude, what, what would your... I mean, you know, we all, we need to like partner because zero to one is cool, but then like one to 100 million a years is, is-

   9. SPShaan Puri25:10

      [laughs]

   10. SPSam Parr25:10

       ... pretty fucking cool too.

   11. ARAustin Rief25:11

       Yeah. How, how about you guys take things, you get them off the ground, you take them to three employees and a million dollars of revenue, and I'll take them from one to 100. And we can just pair up and just every couple years.

   12. SPShaan Puri25:20

       I asked him about his margin and he, he thought I said margarine. He brought me some butter.

   13. SPSam Parr25:23

       [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Dude, like we, like I didn't understand-

   14. SPShaan Puri25:29

       So, so for a lot of that stuff-

   15. ARAustin Rief25:30

       For all we know, for all we know, the, the, the Hustle was either a billion-dollar company or worthless.

   16. SPShaan Puri25:34

       [laughs]

   17. ARAustin Rief25:35

       Um, Sam just has no idea. [laughs]

   18. SPSam Parr25:37

       Yeah. Well, I like, I remember, um, when we were negotiating to sell and like there was just all these things that people were giving me advice on and I'm like, "Man, I just didn't even think about that." Like, it's just... And I actually know a lot of people that are really successful, like we're talking billion-dollar successful, and they know so little about operations. And there's a lot of people like that, like who are just, they're good at hiring. Like Richard Branson, I think he famously said, he's like, "Dude, I didn't know what a P&L was until we hit like hundreds of millions of revenue. Like, I didn't know how to read it." Um, and I think that's actually quite common.

   19. SPShaan Puri26:07

       Sam Bankman-Fried said the same thing, which is super cool.

   20. SPSam Parr26:09

       [laughs]

   21. SPShaan Puri26:10

       So Austin, you, what I like, uh, that you said on the operations side, like with Sam saying, is um, like you, when you were talking earlier, you were like, you know, write, grow, sell. We, you know, we wrote that on the wall. We woke up every day and said, "Write, grow, sell." We had the great wall of opens.

   22. ARAustin Rief26:25

       That's what I'm saying. He's so good at that.

   23. SPShaan Puri26:26

       Those are the things that like, uh, w- w- we, I used to do this, so- such s- like similar, like we literally, we had the wall, but not with Milk Road actually, but this is like kind of my earlier startups. And at, at Monkey Freedom, I remember, Sam, you probably remember this, when people used to come in, like we would always have like all this shit on the walls-

   24. SPSam Parr26:42

       Yeah

   25. SPShaan Puri26:42

       ... and like these sayings and these posters and the s-

   26. SPSam Parr26:45

       Like indoctrination things

   27. SPShaan Puri26:46

       ... the indoctrination into... And I al- I always felt like whenever I would meet founders, one of the highest predictors of success was, do they even know what the main thing is? And it sounds like a stupid question, but for a lot of founders, they didn't really understand what the main thing was for their business. They didn't know their business's version of write, grow, sell. Okay, and even if they understood like that, that's kind of generic. Okay, what are you gonna do with that? They didn't understand to translate that into the great wall of opens is the number we're gonna write down every day, we're gonna look at it, and if it's bad, we're gonna do something about it, and if it's good, we're gonna like double down on that. And that's what daily work is, is around this one number. And so it was like, uh, I remember we had these founders in, in, in the office, and they would be like... I'd be like, "All right, what's the, you know, how many new customers did you guys get today? Or like, what's the revenue?" And they'd have to like, "Oh, yeah, let me check." And they would like, at first they didn't have a dashboard. They were like going into the database. I'm like, "Bro, you haven't ev- built an easy way to know this number?" And then they, then finally they built that. And then they always had to check. And I was like, "How do you not know? Why am I asking this question? Like, it's 3:00 PM. One of y'all two should have asked this question by 3:00 PM like every day. This is crazy." And they just didn't do it. And I was like, "These guys are gonna fail 'cause they don't know how to keep the main thing the main thing." Is that something that you see or like did consciously? Like where, where'd you get that? 'Cause that wasn't, uh, obvious to me right out of college, but it sounds like you got it right right away.

   28. SPSam Parr28:09

       [upbeat music] I can't find this client info.

   29. SPSpeaker28:13

       Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.

   30. ARAustin Rief28:27

       Yeah, that, I mean, for us, I, I mean, it's almost an insult, right? We were, we... People are like, "Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? Why didn't you go into video?" We were too dumb to do that. Like we had no- We're like, "Video? How the hell do you make a video? We can barely get our newsletter out." I mean, there were days where we'd, we'd finish the newsletter at like 2:00 AM, we'd be coding the thing ourselves. And so I think it was partially, you know, a little bit of foresight, but also partially a forcing function. Uh, you know, w- we just looked at it, we're like, "If we do these things, we will get here." And we looked at the math and we're like, everyone's telling us we're crazy, but if we grow subs $50,000 every, or 50,000 subscribers every single month, and our costs don't change, we're gonna go from 50,000 monthly revenue to 75 to 100 to 125, and by end of this year we're gonna be at a million subs doing a million dollars of revenue a month. And I tell that to investors and people. They'd be like, "That doesn't make any sense." I'm like, "I, I don't know what to tell you."
5. 31:29 – 33:28

   Austin's upbringing

   1. ARAustin Rief31:29

      I'd say middle class, upper middle class. But what's interesting, so I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, and like, I didn't know... I thought I knew wealth, and then I moved to, I went to Michigan and I, I, I met people from LA and New York, and I moved to New York and I saw people from New York, and I never saw that kind of wealth. And to me, that was inspiring. That was exciting, uh, 'cause I came from, again, it was like a very well off, I had everything I needed. But, you know, I know people, I met people at school who were flying private planes. I knew what a private plane was.

   2. SPShaan Puri31:58

      You got rich pretty young, right? Like, when did you guys sell? You're, you, you're pretty young right now. I think you guys sold at what, 26 or something?

   3. ARAustin Rief32:05

      Yeah, I think 25.

   4. SPSam Parr32:06

      Well, the reason... But hold on real quick. The reason I asked was because, like, you've got this, like, this immigrant hustle, and before I knew you, I stereotyped you as this, like, "Oh, everything's been given to this rich kid." Like, and, and, and hearing this story, I'm like, "Oh, no, these guys were, like, just as gritty as I was, for sure. Sometimes more." Um-

   5. ARAustin Rief32:25

      Yeah, I mean, Alex has his own story about, you know, his family and, and his dad passed away, and so he was... I mean, I learned so much from Alex about hunger. Like, Alex, again, he broke things down the same way I did. Alex would be like, "Hey, you know, we..." I'd be like, "Alex, we need 100 advertisers this year." I'd be like, "I don't know how we're gonna do it. We have zero." He goes, "I know exactly how we'll do it. I'm gonna go on LinkedIn and I'm not gonna sleep until I message-

   6. SPShaan Puri32:48

      [laughs]

   7. ARAustin Rief32:48

      ... 1,000 companies, and we'll get a 10% reply rate." I'd be like, "You're gonna message 1,000 companies?" He's like, "Well, isn't that what you need to do to get to 100 s- uh, 100 advertisers?" I'd be like, "Yeah, but that sounds crazy." He goes, "Well, let's start working."

   8. SPShaan Puri33:00

      Hmm.

   9. ARAustin Rief33:00

      And we'd just like, you know, sit there, drink beer in WeWork, and just, you know, crank out cold DMs. The head of... I mean, I must know the head of growth at every [laughs] New York City direct-to-consumer company, 'cause Alex incessantly emailed them. And we would, like, we would laugh at the response. Like, we would get excited when someone respond to be like, "Hey, Alex, this is your ninth email. Like, you gotta stop following up." [laughs] Like, "Number eight was good, but nine, you, you passed it." And so yeah, I think we both had that hustle.

   10. SPSam Parr33:25

       What did it feel like to back, to back to sh- what Shaan was saying,

6. 33:28 – 45:35

   What did you do with your new found wealth?

   1. SPSam Parr33:28

      you're 25 and you, I don't know how much money you made, but let's just say eight figures. What's that feel like when you're 25?

   2. ARAustin Rief33:35

      Um-

   3. SPSam Parr33:37

      Fucking dope? [laughs]

   4. SPShaan Puri33:38

      [laughs]

   5. ARAustin Rief33:38

      Yeah, I mean, so first off, it was s- it was, it was very cool.

   6. SPShaan Puri33:41

      Hell.

   7. ARAustin Rief33:41

      It's great. [laughs]

   8. SPSam Parr33:43

      [laughs]

   9. ARAustin Rief33:44

      So, so it's, it's, so it, it's interesting, right? Um, I, I got the wire. So what, the, the sum of money. I was, it was during COVID, so I get this, the, the... L- like, listen to this juxtaposition. On one hand, I just made a boatload of money, more money than, you know, I thought I'd ever make, right? On the other hand, I'm living in my childhood bedroom, sitting next to my parents as the wire hits my account. And everyone's like, "What are you gonna do now?" I was like, "I don't know. My mom's cooking, like, meatloaf." [laughs]

   10. SPSam Parr34:13

       Yeah, yeah.

   11. ARAustin Rief34:13

       I was like, "What do you mean?"

   12. SPSam Parr34:13

       Tell your mom, "Mom, make me breakfast." [laughs]

   13. ARAustin Rief34:17

       Yeah. It was the most anti-climactic thing ever. It was unbelievably anticlimactic. Um, but-

   14. SPShaan Puri34:23

       You should have just moved into the master bedroom.

   15. ARAustin Rief34:25

       [laughs]

   16. SPSam Parr34:27

       [laughs]

   17. ARAustin Rief34:28

       Yeah. Like-

   18. SPSam Parr34:29

       Move over mom and dad. This shit's mine. [laughs]

   19. ARAustin Rief34:34

       No, but I, I, I think, look, I, I, I think, uh, getting a quick win early in l- or a win early in life is so important, right? Just having that swagger, that confidence, that brand allows me to do so much that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

   20. SPShaan Puri34:47

       Like what?

   21. ARAustin Rief34:47

       But get into any room. I can get in touch with anyone, right?

   22. SPSam Parr34:52

       What other opportunities do you think you get?

   23. ARAustin Rief34:54

       I mean, again, like, get into any room, right? So meetings, uh, investing.

   24. SPShaan Puri35:01

       What, what are s- what are some cool rooms you got into?

   25. ARAustin Rief35:03

       I, I mean, again, like, it's the same things that I think you guys are, you, you guys also have witnessed, right? I don't think anything is, is that-

   26. SPShaan Puri35:09

       Well, I don't like to leave my house, and then Sam's only interested in, like, people that are like, "This guy's the best ax thrower in, you know, the country," and he's, like, super pumped about it. I'm like, I don't think you needed to like, you know, pull your, your, you know, rich guy card to get in touch with him. But I feel like you, I don't know, I... Like, have you met Leo DiCaprio? I feel like you might have just bumped into Leo DiCaprio somewhere. That, I feel like that's more your vibe in New York.

   27. ARAustin Rief35:32

       No, I, I, well, so, so I, I, I bumped into Justin Bieber in the Bahamas-

   28. SPShaan Puri35:36

       Right

   29. ARAustin Rief35:36

       ... um, which was pretty cool. Um, but no, I mean, like, the, the weekend we had with, with, uh, uh, what's his name, Mr. Beast, and, and, uh, Hasan was cool. I spent a weekend with Kid Rock on his ranch.

   30. SPSam Parr35:48

       Yeah, tell me about that.
7. 45:35 – 57:45

   Ideas brainstorm

   1. ARAustin Rief45:35

      shit.

   2. SPShaan Puri45:35

      Nice. Let's talk about some non-newsletter stuff. So you got a bunch of ideas, uh, when we were hanging out at, at Camp F- MFM. Uh, you were telling me about, like, this thing you're doing and this thing you're doing, and I was like, "Oh, this guy's, like, way more dynamic, uh, and interested in a whole bunch of different things." What are some ideas that you think would be cool to share?

   3. ARAustin Rief45:56

      Yeah. Um, so I'll throw out a bunch of ideas I have, but one general framework I think people should think about is when you're in shitty economic times like we're going into now, I think the, the framework you should use is you should look to save companies money or earn individuals side income, right? Before, companies, money didn't matter, right? Capital was abundant. And so companies, they were all about just grow, grow, grow, right? How can you help me grow? It's a 180 now. You know, people were trading their money for others people's, other people's time. Right now, they're trading time for money. And so al- you know, if you can help companies preserve money, you can, I think, build really, really great side hustles. So a few ideas, right? I think it's like what's old is new, and then there's a bunch of agencies I think it'd be really interesting to start right now. One is outsourced talent. I knew nothing about the outsourced talent game. I recently became a co-owner in a business. Uh, it's a really interesting business called Oceans. They found talent in Sri Lanka, right? Really cool talent in Sri Lanka where they've... US graduates, uh, come to tech startups, work there. Uh, really interesting. And I think there are ways, right? They have a unique advantage going to Sri Lanka, which we don't really have to talk about, but I think there are companies who were hiring a full-time copywriter, let's call it, or a full-time, uh, you know, marketer, and they probably only need them for 25, 30 hours a week. 2021, screw it, right? We'll need them at some point. I think now companies are really questioning FTEs, right? Do you need a full-time hire? And so you can create these niche marketplaces, and I'm getting investment opportunities for them all the time, and they're just not venture scaled. But you bootstrap a marketplace. Let's call it, like, a content marketing, uh, agency or content marketing marketplace for B2B companies, right? These stocks are down 90, 95%. They're trying to drop FTEs, but they still want content, right? We all know how valuable owning audience and content is. And building that marketplace, helping them find people, I think simple services like that are gonna come back into vogue and be very, very profitable.

   4. SPSam Parr47:58

      What's that company, um, where the founder got in trouble for not converting the, the stock, uh, converting the convertible notes, but it was a marketplace for d- uh, developers, and it, like, bootstrapped its way up-

   5. SPShaan Puri48:09

      Toptal?

   6. SPSam Parr48:09

      ... practically witho- Toptal. So Toptal, um, they got in trouble because they only raised, like, 800,000 or a million dollars, but they didn't convert the, the fou- the, the, the, the note or whatever, so it was controversial. But they basically have bootstrapped it to this point, to, like, north of 100 million in net revenue. Um, and so these marketplaces are, like, can be, they can be pretty freaking powerful. It seemed, they seemed hard to get off the ground, but n- they don't seem that hard if you're already working in the, in, in the industry, and it's a super niche- A niche topic. 'Cause people ask me all the time, they go, "Hey, I wanna hire writers. Who should I hire?" And I'm like, "I don't know, man. It's hard."

   7. ARAustin Rief48:44

      [laughs]

   8. SPSam Parr48:45

      "I don't know who you should hire."

   9. ARAustin Rief48:46

      Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the one I, the one I'm now a co-owner in has gone from zero to seven figures of ARR in, like, eight months, right? You pick a very specific target customer-

   10. SPSam Parr48:56

       That's in gross?

   11. ARAustin Rief48:56

       You have access to unique talent.

   12. SPSam Parr48:57

       Gross or is that just what it takes?

   13. ARAustin Rief48:58

       Gross, yeah. But mar- margins are... No, no. Well, now both, right?

   14. SPSam Parr49:02

       Wow.

   15. ARAustin Rief49:02

       Both are seven figures of ARR.

   16. SPSam Parr49:04

       That's crazy.

   17. ARAustin Rief49:05

       Yeah, no. Yeah.

   18. SPSam Parr49:06

       And then, uh-

   19. ARAustin Rief49:06

       Um-

   20. SPSam Parr49:06

       What's his name? Marshall from, uh, Marshall Haas, he did Shepherd. What's the URL?

   21. ARAustin Rief49:10

       It's the same thing, right?

   22. SPSam Parr49:11

       It's shepherd dot-

   23. ARAustin Rief49:12

       Same, same business.

   24. SPSam Parr49:13

       And I, I... It seems like he's scaled that to high seven figures in, like, less than a year it seems from the outside.

   25. ARAustin Rief49:20

       Yeah, yeah. I think they're a bit different, right? Ours is... I, I think theirs is more, like, strictly EAs. The one we have is more you, you know, you have people in finance, people in operations. What's interesting about Sri Lanka is they have big four accounting firms, right? And so you can poach people, not just from local businesses, but from people who've been trained by Ernst & Young and, and Deloitte. And so it's an interesting, an interesting demographic to go into.

   26. SPShaan Puri49:42

       Yeah, I love that one. Uh, I think that's a great one. What are, uh, what are some other, like, you know, help businesses save money, help... Uh, you... The other one you said is help individuals earn side money. What's a, what's an example of that?

   27. ARAustin Rief49:54

       Yeah, so here, here's one I think is interesting, right? So you built Morning Brew for crypto, right? I know a lot of people have spoken about this, but I don't think anyone's really built the brand yet. I think Morning Brew or The Hustle for AI is gonna be huge.

   28. SPSam Parr50:06

       Dude, how's that feel, by the way?

   29. ARAustin Rief50:08

       And I think-

   30. SPSam Parr50:08

       For a thing... You, you're just, like, calling Shaan the Morning Brew of blank.
8. 57:45 – 1:16:05

   Future plans

   1. ARAustin Rief57:45

      Yeah, I, I, I think for me, uh, it's all about time, right? S- like, to me, wealth is all about having time and spending that time how you want to, right? Right now I wanna spend that time building this company, 'cause I constantly see more growth and more opportunity, and not just, like, 2X, but 10X. Uh, but ultimately what I wanna be able to do at 35 is spend my time how I wanna spend it on any given day, right? And, and that means a lot of travel. I love traveling. Like, I, I, I wanna go at some point, uh, in the not too distant future, hopefully, go on a six-month trip. Three months to Europe, three months to Southeast Asia. I never got to do that. A lot of my friends in college, when they graduated, they went to Thailand and, and wherever else. I drove from Michigan to New York and started working the next day. And so for me, it's a lot of traveling. You know, nothing crazy. Spend time with family, doing fun stuff, right? Like being able just to say, "Hey," like today I'm gonna, you know, drop 500 bucks and go, you know, do something, you know, $1,000 and go do some fun activity, right? Adventurous activities. But it all comes back to just waking up and say, "Hey, here's how I wanna spend my day," and then doing that thing.

   2. SPSam Parr58:45

      Are you able to do that now?

   3. ARAustin Rief58:47

      I can, right? But I, I choose to spend that time on Morning Brew. Like, I am maniacally focused on growing Morning Brew. I think there's a ton of opportunity. But as soon as I don't think that, like, I'll change. I'll say, "Hey, you know, today I wanna do something else."

   4. SPSam Parr59:00

      Do you like having 200-plus employees? It sounds like fucking hell, particularly New York, Manhattan, like woke employees that, like, in the New York media scene, like everyone's talking about unionizing. Like, when I think about that, I'm like, "This sounds miserable."

   5. SPShaan Puri59:14

      Blink if, blink if it's miserable, 'cause I know you can't say anything. [laughs]

   6. SPSam Parr59:17

      Yeah. [laughs]

   7. SPShaan Puri59:18

      What were you gonna say?

   8. ARAustin Rief59:19

      [laughs] Um, no, no, I, I mean, look, I, and there's a couple things. One, uh, we have a lot of remote employees.

   9. SPShaan Puri59:25

      [laughs]

   10. ARAustin Rief59:25

       So we do have a really good distribution of employees across the country, which I think does help, right? I think having employees everywhere gives different perspectives, right? Our engineering team lives, uh, you know, in the Midwest than, and we have people all across the country, which I think is cool. Uh, but to be honest, as, as the CEO of a 250-person company, I'm not interacting with that many people on daily basis. But what I love is, like, the one of the reasons I stay is 'cause we built this team of people who are reporting to me who are just A-plus all-stars, like absolute rock stars. And that's what makes me so happy is when I can just come to work and say, "Hey, you know, chief content officer, hey, you know, person X," like, "What are you doing?" Like, "Tell me more about it. How can I help you?" But also, I'm like a vacuum, right? I'll hire someone new, a chief content officer, a, a COO, and I'll be like, "I'm gonna learn as much as humanly possible, and my goal is to catch up to you in knowledge as fast as possible. So if you're 38, you're 40, you know, you're, you're 10 years older than me, I wanna just vacuum up those 10 years of knowledge you've gained working in these four or five places in the next, like, two months. And I'm just gonna pester you and sit with you and just learn as much as humanly possible so I can, you know, be better than you and know more than you." And it's like this competitive nature.

   11. SPSam Parr1:00:41

       That's exactly what I'm saying about being, like, someone that, that you're, you're, be a r- you'd be really hard to compete with. You were hard to compete with. Uh, that's a really fascinating mindset. It's very intriguing. I, I saw Shaan smirk. That's always a good sign.

   12. SPShaan Puri1:00:55

       [laughs] You were like, "Yeah, I wouldn't wanna compete with you." It's like, "Oh, you did [laughs] for like five years straight."

   13. SPSam Parr1:00:59

       I did. Yeah, and like, uh, I mean, it was fun. I, I think that, I think maybe I'm the same way where someone's like, "I don't know if I wanna compete against you." But, but like, you know, I think it's, um, it's, it's, it's, it... You're, you're intriguing, you're interesting. I think you have got a really good mindset. I think you got that good inner game.

   14. ARAustin Rief1:01:17

       Yeah, and I, I think, I think... I, I can't remember if I said this before, but I think the thing that really I, I've changed my thinking about you so much is I used to think you were, like, rude, and now yeah, we've been working together on, like, a few side projects, and what I've learned is that your style's not for everyone. But you are what I would call, like, admirably abrasive, right? And we were on a call, I don't know if, if I'm supposed to tell this story.

   15. SPSam Parr1:01:42

       It's okay.

   16. ARAustin Rief1:01:42

       But we're on a call. I won't say names. We're on a call, and this guy gives like a three-minute pitch, and I just see the look on Sam's face. And I go, "Oh no, this guy's spiel is not good." And the guy goes, "Sam, what do you think?" And Sam, no smile, straight face, goes, "I don't know why I'm even on this call. What are you talking about?" [laughs]

   17. SPSam Parr1:02:02

       [laughs] Well-

   18. ARAustin Rief1:02:04

       And I just start dying. But, but he's, I mean, Sam-

   19. SPSam Parr1:02:07

       I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be rude.

   20. ARAustin Rief1:02:09

       Exactly. Exactly. A- a- and it's not for everyone, right? That style is not for everyone. But I can see how you so quickly grow things with the right people because that type of radical candor, that like, "Hey, I'm just gonna tell you what I think, and we're not gonna have an ego, and we're just gonna work together to solve problems," is so much better than sitting in the corporate meeting and being like, "Oh, yeah, no, that was, that was great," and then sending an email later. You just look this guy straight in the eyes and you're like-

   21. SPSam Parr1:02:34

       Yeah

   22. ARAustin Rief1:02:34

       ... "I don't know why I'm here."

   23. SPSam Parr1:02:37

       Yeah, I mean, and the person who we were speaking with, I think they're great. And I was just like, "You're, you're great. This is stupid, though. You, you know, be different. And, uh, be better than you are right now and, and achieve your potential. I think you're, I think you're great." That's typically the way that I work with people, and I don't like hearing when people say that I'm rude. That kinda hurts my feelings because I'm like, "Oh, shit, I don't wanna be, like, I don't wanna be known as a jerk." I'm, I, I'm a pretty kind guy, I thought. So I hate hearing that, but it is the truth.

   24. SPShaan Puri1:03:03

       [laughs] All right.

   25. ARAustin Rief1:03:07

       Shaan, you've worked with Sam.

   26. SPShaan Puri1:03:08

       Well-

   27. ARAustin Rief1:03:08

       What, what's, uh, what's it been like?

   28. SPShaan Puri1:03:09

       We'll let you d- deal with that on your own. [laughs]

   29. ARAustin Rief1:03:11

       [laughs]

   30. SPShaan Puri1:03:13

       Yeah, I think Sam's intimidating to work with. Uh, you know, I think that I've seen a bunch of people who are on the podcast that are intimidated, but it's a good thing. It's a standard. Like, the people who have really high standards for how they want things to go, they're intimidating to work with. Like, for me, we come on here, something's messed up, the camera, the audio, whatever. I'm, "Hey, don't worry. It's gonna be a great show." I'm trying to put that person at ease, so I'm like, "They probably feel like shit. I know they didn't want this to happen." Uh, you know, like, and a lot of these things are... I know, like, that's not you intentionally messing something up. That's like something is going wrong. Somebody's late. So- something out of your control is happening. Whereas Sam gets frustrated, I can see that person start to sweat. And I don't think that's rude, I just think that's like, I think you're focused and I think you, uh, you know, you're just like, you're like a blunt object. It's like, what are you gonna say? Like, "This hammer is not very soft"? No, it's a fucking hammer. We, that, we- that's why we like it. That's why it has-

Episode duration: 1:16:05