Founder's Mailbox

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to the Founder's Journal, my personal audio diary where I give you the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. Today, I'm doing something called Founder's Mailbox. Over the last several weeks, we've had tons of new listeners and with that have come tons of DMs on Twitter, tons of emails to my email, alex@morningbrew.com, asking you about the show, asking about my views on entrepreneurship, the greatest things happening behind the scenes at Morning Brew, trends that I'm into.

And so what I decided to do was compile a list of several of the questions I got from listeners and answer them on this episode. I kinda think of it like Blue's Clues, but for our entrepreneurship. So, for the next several minutes, I'm going to bring up questions, I'll call out the listener, I'll answer those questions, and my hope is that for the thousands of new listeners that have come to the show and the last month, because the last month was the biggest month of the show ever, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about myself, answer some listener questions, and hit the ground running in August. So let's do this thing.

Okay, Founder's Mailbox. I think it's the first time we've done this. Well, actually I did an AMA back, like, I want to say almost a year ago, when we were just starting this show, it wasn't really a legit thing, it just a side project, but I think Founder's Mailbox...it may turn into a staple because I think it's a good way to share my point of view on a number of topics that listeners want to know about. It's also a good incentive for you to reach out to me, to my email, alex@morningbrew.com, to ask any questions you have about the show, about business, introduce yourself. So let's try this out and you'll let me know what you think.

Question #1: What is Your Proudest Moment?

So the first question is from Daria. Daria is a Founder's Journal listener and Daria asks, "What's your proudest moment building a business?" So I feel like this isn't going to initially be the popular answer or, you know, I think, you know, some founders would say, it's what I sold my company or it's when we reached product market fit, or you know, it's when we got our first office. My answer is watching team events. Every time I see a Morning Brew team event, I feel incredible pride. You know, it's possible. I'm a little bit biased right now because we had a Morning Brew team event in New York City last week, we all went bowling or half the team did, but it's such a special feeling. And it's such a special feeling because I got to see real genuine long-term connections being made as a result of hiring incredible people and building a culture that we're proud of.

And for me the coolest part about this is, it's not the event itself, it's what the event represents. You know, Morning Brew isn't a huge company yet, but still I feel this incredible pride that, you know, Austin, myself, and the rest of the team, we're powering the economy. We have people who are working for The Brew, are getting their livelihood from the brew. And in the early days, you know, we were a really young team. W when we started the company in 2016, we were a bunch of 24-year-olds. None of us were married, none of us had kids, but over the years, as the organization has grown, we're at 120 people now, there's this immense pride that I feel for building an incredible team with an incredible culture, but where people are not just providing for themselves, they're providing for their partners, they're providing for family members.

And to me, team events are kind of like the most tangible realization of having incredible people working with you and for you, but also people, you know, betting their livelihood, betting their family's livelihood on the business. It's an incredible responsibility. It's an incredible privilege. And it's such a special thing to see, you know, in the flesh when you're at a team event. So that is the answer to "What is my proudest moment building a business?" from Daria. 

Question #2: How Do You Alleviate Anxiety?

Second question from Dan, Dan asked, "How do you alleviate your anxiety?" So, for new listeners that have just recently started listening to Founder's Journal, in past episodes I've talked about, you know, my own experience with anxiety over the course of my life.I've talked about OCD that I experience and how it's a constant job to keep my anxiety in check. And so to answer Dan's question, "How do I alleviate my anxiety?"There's a few things that I do. The first thing is what I call the trifecta, and the trifecta is what I think are three activities that if you do these activities well, your anxiety, or at least my base level anxiety, is significantly lower than if I don't do them well. And those three activities are: keeping a good or balanced diet, exercising at least four days a week, I prefer five, and sleeping at least seven hours.

So for example, my base level of anxiety is higher right now because I think I haven't done necessarily any of these three things well over the last five days. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep—I was playing in a golf tournament this weekend, I had To wake up at 6:00 AM. The previous days our dog woke us up a few times early. I haven't exercised, really, at all the last four days. And my diet, I feel like I've been eating a lot of shit. When I keep my trifecta in a good place, I feel really good. When I don't, I don't. It's like such a binary thing that I've learned over time and just experiencing kind of these waves of anxiety. 

The second thing I do is just talk to other people. When I experience anxiety, the most helpful thing for me to do is, you know, talk to my girlfriend about it, talk to my mom about it, talk to my sister about it. I find anxiety to be provoked even further or to be exacerbated when I keep it in, I don't verbalize it, I don't get to see someone else's reaction to it, have them ask me questions. So, I find talking to those who I trust to be a really good way to alleviate pressure created from anxiety. Few more things. The third is, this is a very specific to me, but I like meditating, and I like meditating in showers. The type of meditation I do is very focused on sounds and smells and tastes. There is a type of meditation than I had learned several months ago, it was called like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 meditation, where basically it's like you spot five things in your surrounds with your eyes, then you feel for things around you, then you smell three things and then you taste two things, and then I can't remember what the one was, but basically it was all of these things to get an awareness around your senses and in doing so, it places you back in the moment and it gets your head from spinning around all of the things that you're anxious about. Anyway, when I do meditation in a shower, there's a lot of stimulus from, you know, the vent in the bathroom, feeling the tiles on my body, the sound of the shower hitting the floor. And so I really liked doing meditation in showers. 

And then the final thing is just going on a walk or, you know, there, there are so many successful people that talk about the value of going on long walks for productivity. I don't even look at it as necessarily a productivity booster, while it may be. I just think that when I go on long walks, especially where we are a New Jersey with a view of the New York City skyline, it really just takes a weight off of my shoulders and allows my brain to clear because when I'm going on a walk, when I'm having an awareness around the people that are walking by me, the dogs that are in the dog park, looking at the city skyline, seeing boats on the water and just taking my brain away from obsessing about the things that are currently my head. And so those are the few ways that I worked to alleviate my anxiety, and again, it is constant work, but I found those things to do well over time. Thank you for the question, Dan. 

Question #3: What Does an Executive Chairman Do?

Next question from Kevin, listener Kevin. "What does an Executive Chairman actually do?" That is a great question, Kevin, I'm really not sure. As I mentioned it at the top of the episode, I am the Executive chairman of Morning Brew. I moved into this role three or four months ago. I was the CEO of the business from 2015 until 2021. And in my new role, I would say, first of all, that Executive Chairman means something very different at every company, just like CEO means something different at every company and every company based on its stage of business.

But I would say Executive Chairman is even more amorphous or non-standard. So for example, for many businesses that are in the process of fundraising or working on selling their company, an Executive Chairman will spend a lot of time on that. Executive Chairmans also a lot of times spend time interfacing with the board, if you have a bored as a company. For me personally, it's a little bit different. I spend a lot of my time creating content like I'm doing now. It's something that I thoroughly enjoy, and also as Morning Brew grows as a brand, specifically in video, audio and social, using me as kind of the Guinea pig to understand what does talent, like personalities, look like and Morning Brew, I think it's a really good learning experience for all of us.

I spend time talking with my co founder, Austin, who is now the CEO, talking through some of the biggest strategic decisions as a business from hiring senior people to our product roadmap, to conversations with our parent company, Business Insider a Axel Springer. And then finally, I spend time doing speaking engagements that basically used me as a megaphone for the brand. And I do that because you know, I've built somewhat of a brand myself, I'm one of the cofounders of the business, and when I think about the one or two things that I generally believe I'm exceptional at, one of those things is storytelling and articulation. So I continue to try to work out that muscle to benefit the business. So that is what I do as executive chairman of Morning Brew. 

Question #4: What Did Selling Ads Teach You?

Let's do three or four more questions. From Jennifer, Jennifer asks, "What lessons did you learn selling ads in Morning Brew?" Well, what I'll say is, I experienced as selling adds, but I really think it relates to selling anything, whether it's advertisements, whether it's a product, whether it's an investor to invest in your business, whether it's a prospective employee thinking about joining your company who has questions or hesitations? My view is you never sell a product. You never sell an output. You sell a feeling and you sell a solution.

What do I mean by that? Well, when we figured out the best way to sell Morning Brew, we weren't trying to sell a newsletter. It didn't matter what format the content was coming in. We didn't sell the metrics on our audience. You know, we didn't sell that it was a native advertisement. Yes, those are all parts of the pitch, but that is not why people decided to work with us. We sold a lifestyle and we sold an audience. And the idea was, back to what I said, sell a feeling really, at the end of the day, you want to sell FOMO. You want to sell FOMO where a potential hire says, I can't not join this company because I'm going to be missing out on this incredible train ride.

I can't not invest in this company because I think this company's going to be a huge, you know, I can't not advertise with this company because I need to get in front of the audience. Sell FOMO, not the product. And so with Morning Brew, when we would talk to everyone from the biggest advertisers in the world, like Discover or IBM, to small start ups in the early days, companies like Allbirds or Casper, we would sell Morning Brew's lifestyle, the lifestyle of the modern business leader. And we would basically explain, "Look, there's this massive wealth transfer happening in the world, and a ton of wealth is being passed to people like my age, 20 something to 30 something year olds, and we have a concentrated group of these people, people who are ambitious, who are going to run companies and countries in the next 10 years. And by the way, we have their attention every day for five minutes in their morning routine. Do you understand how precious the morning routine is? And when you think about companies that have this attention, that have the trust of this audience, name them for me, you're not going to be able to, because so many companies have focused on generations older because those are the people that have wealth right now. And so when you think about getting in front of an audience who has tons of purchasing power coming into their wallets, who's making huge life decisions like marriage, buying a house, going on vacation, investing their money. There's nowhere else to go but to us to get in front of this exact audience, who's making huge decisions in life."

And so that's how we would pitch advertisers. And again, we were selling them FOMO and getting in front of our audience. When you're selling a new hire, you're selling FOMO on joining the team and joining the rocket ship that your company is. So that's what I learned from selling ads is sell FOMO, don't sell a product. 

Question #5: What is the Future of Food Influencers?

This is a fun one, it's a very specific one, but I like it. "What's the future of social media food influencers" from Matt, who's a listener. So I'm assuming this question is aimed at something like Tasty, which does the hands and pan, or like the top down view of recipes and things like that. I think where food influence...so anyone on Instagram, Tik Tok, et cetera, who is building personality and doing so in the food category...where it is going is I think these people are going to become restaurants in their own right.

And the reason I say that is infrastructure has been created where you don't have to own a physical property, you don't have to own real estate to be a restaurant or to be a food influencer or sell your food. The example that comes to mind is there's this YouTube influencer, Mr. Beast, if you haven't heard of him, you should check him out, even if you're not into his content, because to me, to be, like, a citizen of the internet, you need to understand YouTube. And the only way to understand YouTube is to understand one of its biggest creators, which is Mr. Beast. He had 65 million followers. Mr. Beast launched Mr. Beast Burger, which is his burger joint. and it's a menu of different burgers that you can order from Mr.Beast. But the kicker here is he doesn't own any physical restaurants. He has his orders fulfilled by existing burger joints or by ghost kitchens, which are basically kitchens that are just meant to create food for the purpose of delivery. And so I think where food influences going is that people are going to go the way of Mr. Beast.

So, say your shtick on TikTok is you create Italian food, you create a great pastas, you create great salmon dishes, I think that people are going to be able to take their recipes, they're going to create menus out of them, they're going to basically create digital restaurants that any fans can order their recipes, and it gets fulfilled by ghost kitchens or actual brick and mortar structures. So I think that's where food influence is going. 

Question #6: What Does a Good Cold Email Look Like?

Two more questions: what do you like to see in a cold email from Hoda? Well, I'll tell you what I don't like to see in a cold email, and what I don't like to see that I still see all the time, and it's crazy to me that people do this, is the classic six automated emails that are selling me and Morning Brew on some software, and it's clearly not customized at all, they've clearly just filled in my name, and the body of the email is the same for the thousand people that they've decided to send this email to. Like, to me, that shows so  little care for someone else's time and it shows laziness on the part of the person sending the email.

What I also don't like to see is an email from someone that asks me for entrepreneurial advice in a really open-ended way—a way where, I don't know, I'll use an example of like, "I'm thinking about creating a business, what business should I create?" Or, "I'm thinking about quitting my job. How would you think about if I should do it?" And the reason I don't like that is it feels lazy. It feels like someone has been taken the time in themselves to go through the considerations of the question they're asking about, and instead of doing their own thinking, they're basically asking someone else to do their thinking for them. And the reason I don't like that is, not only I do i think it doesn't necessarily respect my time or the time of anyone who gets an email like that, but it also is doing a disservice to the person sending me an email because I'm acting as a crutch in that conversation, and if people continue to respond to their emails, they're never going to learn to think on their own and think for themselves.

What I do like to see from cold emails is something that can warrant a quick response. You know, every three days I have to answer probably over 350 emails. And so the longer the response that's needed from me, the lower the likelihood that I'll actually respond. 

Question #7: How Do You Shut Off From Work?

Let's take one more question, this is from Pershant. Pershant asked, "How do you shut off from work?" Well, it's both difficult and it's also evolved over time. I have found it easier to shut off from work as an Executive Chairman versus as CEO, and then in my previous job before starting Morning Brew or working full-time at Morning Brew when I was a trader at Morgan Stanley, I found it really difficult then because I was working for someone else and it was my first job and the hours were really long and I felt an obligation to stay in the office as long as my boss, but I've done two things that I think help me shut off and feel okay about shutting off.

One is creating plans. When I create plans at the end of the day, whether it's with a friend who I'm catching up with, whether it's my girlfriend, whether it's my family, creating those plans allows me one, to focus on other parts of life that are just as important to me, and it creates a force function for stopping my work because I'm not going to cancel on someone. If it is something that I committed to, if I committed to something, going back on my commitment is something that I don't want to do, just from an integrity standpoint, so making plans with people a few days a week acts as a force function to be able to shut off from work. And I do it at a time that I know won't make me super stressed, but also will allow me to do something outside of just work from morning to night.

The other way that I shut off from work is by making a list at the beginning of my day of the things I need to get done to feel like I have a successful day. And then I do those things throughout the day, and I do so in a way that is low procrastination, where I'm not, I don't feel like I'm going to social media or, you know, taking a break in watching TV. If I get to the end of my day, and I feel like I have done a majority of the need-to-do things on my list, not the nice-to-do things, but the need-to-do things on my list, and I feel like I've done those in a low procrastination way, where I was generally very focused, I took a small breaks, but I didn't feel like I was going off to social media or kind of easy, cheap activities to prevent me from doing smart work...If I get to the end of my day and I feel like I've done that, I am okay with shutting off because I told myself I would do something at the beginning of the day and I followed through on my promise. And when I follow through on my promise of what I said I would do, I have no reservations about shutting off from work at the end of the day. 

I Want to Hear From You

So I think we got like five or six questions there, but honestly, there's a bunch of more I didn't get to answer. I love doing Founder's Mailbox. This is a ton of fun for me. And clearly Founder's Journal listeners love asking questions of me about entrepreneurship, media, angel, investing, managing career, life, anxiety, et cetera. And so with that, would love to do another one of these maybe at the top of next month, and also we have a ton of new listeners.

Again, last month was the biggest month ever for Founder's Journal. So I would love for you to write in. Shoot me an email introducing yourself, let me know why you decided to listen to Founder's Journal, and ask me any questions you have about myself, about my career, really, anything is fair game, and I will just save up these questions, I'll answer them over email to you, but I'll save them up to answer several of them in the next Founder's Mailbox that we do. So shoot me an email to alex@morningbrew.com Or DM me on Twitter @BusinessBarista and I will answer as many questions as I can. As always, thank you so much for listening to Founder's Journal. And if you enjoyed, please let others know who you think would enjoy the show as well. Thanks again, and I'll catch you next episode.