The Co-Founder Of A $75M+ Company Gave Me His BEST Business Ideas

I'm joined by Alex Lieberman, Co-founder & Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. We discuss some of the hottest trends and opportunities for entrepreneurs in 2024, how creators can successfully monetize their newsletter and the best ways to innovate an existing business.

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Episode Timestamps

00:00 Why content curation is a superpower
01:00 First business idea: The new Sports Illustrated
08:21 How to monetize a newsletter
13:21 How to rejuvenate an existing business
19:09 Second business idea: A modern-day Weight Watchers
28:30 Trend to watch out for: In-person peer groups
35:14 Third business idea: Software recommendations for entrepreneurs
40:17 Fourth business idea: Content curation as a service
52:19 Where to find Alex

Creators & Guests

Host

GREG ISENBERG

I build internet communities and products for them. CEO: @latecheckoutplz, we're behind companies like @youneedarobot @boringmarketer @dispatchdesign etc.

What is The Startup Ideas Podcast?

This is the startup ideas podcast. Hosted by Greg Isenberg (CEO Late Checkout, ex-advisor of Reddit, TikTok etc).

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Greg Isenberg [00:00:00]:
I believe that curation is like a superpower in today's Internet. For most people, creating content is actually not the best service that they can provide to society. It is curating the best ideas from the top 1% creators. There are certain creators who I really respect and follow. Like for example, I read everything that Ben Thompson writes. I read everything that Matt Levine writes. As interesting to me, what I'm listening to is the thought I have in my head of what is going into their body, what is informing their views, what are the interesting things they're reading and consuming such that they're outputting these ideas. And so this is like a bigger swing.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:36]:
That's like an idea I haven't seen. But I would love a world where basically curation as a service becomes a thing.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:43]:
Alex Lieberman, co founder of Morning Brew, lover of ideas lover of business ideas. So you're in the right place. Welcome to the show.

Alex Lieberman [00:00:51]:
Thanks. I am quite the hopeless romantic around business ideas, but I'm excited to be jamming with another hopeless romantic about business ideas.

Alex Lieberman [00:01:00]:
So one of your ideas really got me thinking. Sports Illustrated. I hadn't heard that name in a while. Tell me your Sports Illustrated idea.

Greg Isenberg [00:01:10]:
Yeah, so Sports Illustrated has unfortunately, like a checkered recent history. Sports Illustrated, I believe, is owned by, I always get it wrong because there's so many companies involved in this, but there's basically arena group and there's authentic brands and authentic brands I believe owned Sports Illustrated and they had given the license to Arena Group for some period of time to use the Sports Illustrated name and build the company. And long story short, things broke down and Sports Illustrated's entire staff was laid off. So the entire staff of Sports Illustrated was laid off, which to me tells me there's now this entire repository of content created over the years from Sports Illustrated. There's a shit ton of emails of people who clearly have opted into caring about sports and sports. So, you know, I am sure right now that the owners of Sports Illustrated authentic are probably shopping Sports Illustrated, shopping the license to the highest bidder. But I think it's going to take a very specific type of company to kind of revive the brand because to me, Sports Illustrated peaked in the 90s, maybe the early, it's kind of lost relevancy in the Internet age. And I just think there's such a massive opportunity to build the great daily sports newsletter, right? Like this was something that Kendall Baker had first with Sports Internet, then he sold to axios.

Alex Lieberman [00:02:49]:
He had Axio Sports for a while. He just left and he's running Yahoo. Sports's newsletter. But I don't think there's like the go to daily sports newsletter. And I think to have a head start with Sports Illustrated's list, whether or not I would even have to use the like, it's actually kind of irrelevant to like, if I could just get the list, buy the list, even if it's not tied to the Sports Illustrated name and I don't have to pay a ton for the license. I think there's just a great morning brew for sports that can be built, especially if you have a head start with a massive corpus of emails for people who care about following sports on a daily basis.

Greg Isenberg [00:03:26]:
So I'm surprised you said that. So I'm surprised that you just buy the list. Like you're open to buying the list.

Alex Lieberman [00:03:34]:
Why?

Greg Isenberg [00:03:35]:
I don't know. To me you seem like a brand guy and I could see how you would be kind of like a hopeless romantic, also for brands. And the conversation could have gone like this could have been like, I remember when I was twelve years old and I used to be in my childhood bedroom and I'd be reading Sports Illustrated and I had such a connection with the brand and it was the beacon of sports and I'm missing that feeling and the brand's diluted.

Alex Lieberman [00:04:09]:
Yeah, it's funny now you're having my brain go about how for the longest time I wanted to bring back Dunkaroos because Duncaroos were not for a long time, the product wasn't being created. And if you wanted to buy Duncaroos, I remember this in college, my mom literally had to order boxes of Duncaroos from Canada because it was the only place in the world that you could buy Duncaroos from. And I had massive boxes in my dorm room and I always thought about what if I bought Duncaroos and just brought back the brand? Look, I think that there is absolutely value 100%. There's a ton of brand equity to the Sports Illustrated name. I'm also just, I guess, trying to be realistic about what you probably have to pay for the license for that brand. Like, I would assume it's a non nominal amount of money. So if money wasn't a factor, of course I'd love to have something that is like the daily newsletter from Sports Illustrated because you can kind of draft off the brand equity. But I guess let's just assume I had to pay seven figures for an annual license for the Sports Illustrated name to be able to use their list.

Alex Lieberman [00:05:18]:
Or let's say I could spend $50,000 to buy their emails. I feel way better about being able to convince an email list of qualified sports junkies about the quality of a product I put out by hiring a badass newsletter writer than I do about having to in a year, basically from scratch, build a business that's doing at least seven figures just to cover the cost of the license. So in theory, I like it. I just feel like it would cost a lot more to have to license it out. But I could be wrong because I haven't done a licensing deal before.

Greg Isenberg [00:05:52]:
So if I were to do that deal, what I would do would be I would come up with a pitch called sportsrelyustrated.com. And knowing that there's so much turmoil in this asset, I would contact someone on authentic brands, I would cold dm them, get a meeting, and I would say, yeah, I'll pay you x amount of dollars for this license, for this newsletter. And the concept is it's kind of like what pomp's doing with Bay Area Times. Like the visual newsletter. It's a visual newsletter for sports junkies.

Alex Lieberman [00:06:36]:
I like that. By the way, where I see another opportunity here is I think a lot of people in old media don't understand the value of attaching a media brand to a non media company to provide top of funnel for it. So if I wanted a quick way to monetize this, I would hit up companies that I think would benefit a ton from the Sports Illustrated list and their top of funnel, whether it's a sports betting company, whether it's a sports memorabilia company, et cetera, I'd get them interested and then I would try to help broker the deal between basically what happened between HubSpot and the hustle, or Barstool and Penn. What does that look like in the context of Sports Illustrated? And how can I broker this in a way where maybe authentic isn't thinking about positioning the brand in this way?

Greg Isenberg [00:07:28]:
What do you think is going through authentic's mind right now? Because for folks who don't know, authentic brands is huge. I just checked their revenue. They do 21 billion a year of revenue. I didn't realize this, but they own Reebok, they own forever 21. They're massive. They're massive. So it's a conglomerate and they're probably looking at this and this is being like, this is a thorn.

Alex Lieberman [00:07:52]:
That's what I was going to say. I think this is the equivalent of a VC who invests in a business that at some point you realize the business is not going to be their fund returner and they're like, fuck, now I need to sit, attend their board meetings, do all these things and it's never going to be the thing that's actually worth my time. I think that is probably how they're looking at it, which actually to that point means there could be an opportunity just like, to be a headache remover for them.

Greg Isenberg [00:08:21]:
And going back to acquiring newsletters, you obviously have a lot of experience in this space. How do you go about thinking about a framework for what's the right price for a newsletter?

Alex Lieberman [00:08:32]:
Yeah, by the way, one just thing I would say here is I'm using the example of Sports Illustrated, but there's a similar kind of approach I would take with other companies. The approach here is like, I always talk about this idea of the hub and spoke model of just like latching onto hubs that already have access to built in distribution. So you don't have to start from day one. Right. That's what you would do with latching onto Sports Illustrated's email list. But I think there are so many companies that don't still, it's crazy to me, but still don't realize the value of email. And even if they do realize the value of email, they have not taken the step of putting a ton of work into making email a true destination product and monetizing it effectively. So I'll just use an example for you.

Alex Lieberman [00:09:17]:
Like epic gardening. Have you heard of epic gardening?

Greg Isenberg [00:09:21]:
Of course.

Alex Lieberman [00:09:22]:
Okay, so I was talking to Kevin from Epic gardening and. Epic.

Greg Isenberg [00:09:26]:
Yeah. Explain what it is. Explain what epic gardening is.

Alex Lieberman [00:09:30]:
Yeah. So epic gardening is basically like the go to YouTube channel for green thumbs for people who are into gardening and learning everything about the process of gardening techniques, products. Right. What's really interesting about epic gardening's business is I don't know if their numbers are public, so I'm not going to say them, but basically it's a multi million dollar business that does monetize through advertising. And the way they monetize through ads is the epic gardening website, the like, they have sponsored content through the media asset, but actually the way they make the majority of their money is through product sales. Kevin and Epic Gardening bought a seed company that they sell through their channels. And so they do both direct to consumer, but they also sell their seeds wholesale. And that was part of kind of like the thesis that Chernon, who's invested in a lot of these kind of niche, passion area media companies, goes into the deal with, which is like, you have a passionate audience, how do we build kind of like this content to commerce model.

Alex Lieberman [00:10:37]:
So anyway, that's epic gardening. Their YouTube channel has 3 million subscribers, I believe. And by the way, there's another kind of like side lesson, side quest we can go down of Kevin just launched a new YouTube channel and it is super onatural, like super low edit him just talking to camera. And it's grown to 15,000 followers in a few weeks. And so it's interesting to see why that is doing well. But anyway, Epic gardening has 3 million subscribers. And from talking to Kevin, they have an email newsletter. But I would say because they have a lot of other things going on because email isn't their expertise.

Alex Lieberman [00:11:15]:
There is a ton of untapped potential in having a great daily or three times a week newsletter for the modern gardener. And I would love to explore a deal. Maybe Epic is not the right brand to do it with because they've gone kind of the venture route. But what would it look like to relaunch their newsletter as a daily newsletter for gardeners? Hire a great writer. Use the organic distribution strategies we use to grow. Morning, Bruce. They have 3 million YouTube subscribers. You should be able to get that list to 500,000 subscribers quickly.

Alex Lieberman [00:11:47]:
And what would it look like to do a revenue share deal where we basically are the ones driving the newsletter and we make money through some rev share that we drive on all ads or commerce that comes from the newsletter.

Greg Isenberg [00:12:00]:
Why aren't you doing this? To me, this sounds like such a no brainer. What you're talking about is Morning brew for X, but partnering with a creator and doing rev share, you did such hard work to, as, you know, the struggles of going zero to one. And it's like with the creator in mind like this, it's easier. The hard part is the fulfillment, which is how do you write the content? But you know, that, and to me.

Alex Lieberman [00:12:32]:
That'S actually like, that is where I could bring advantage because I would say there was so much blood, sweat and tears to figure out what makes a great newsletter writer, what makes a great newsletter in the early days. But it's like I kind of understand the process now. Yeah, I think that's another interesting path as well.

Greg Isenberg [00:12:50]:
Say less. Say less, my guy. All right, we'll table that one for a bit. Authentic brands. Let's see what happens there. Canadian company. So I have some connection there, but I think someone is going to buy this and someone is going to do really well. Let's just end it with there's going to be a bunch of these opportunities I've talked about on the show Buzfeed is kind of a similar opportunity.

Greg Isenberg [00:13:21]:
I'm curious, before we end on this note, what other similar type of companies have you seen where there's an opportunity to get involved?

Alex Lieberman [00:13:31]:
To be honest with you, it sounds bad, but I think any legacy media brand that stands for something that is cutting headcount or staff at bare minimum and closing their doors at maximum is an opportunity for this because I still have yet to meet a legacy media company that truly thinks about their newsletter as a destination because it was always an afterthought to driving site content or driving social views. So it's actually like to me the exception to the rule would be some old school media company that's great with newsletter, but I can't think of an example. So whether it's Rolling Stone or what's the name of the newspaper, like good housekeeping or I think actually niche legacy brands could be as, if not more interesting as creator brands today because I think creators actually are kind of more with it and understand the value of email. I think legacy brands actually still don't understand the value of email, but they're just looking to get anything for their business right now because they're struggling so much. Just to say, I think there's a few reasons that it's an interesting time to pick up undervalued assets in media. I think one is you have a number of, and this has been happening for the last few years, but still happening. Another, a number of venture backed media companies that were great businesses if they weren't venture backed, and are horrible businesses if they are venture backed. And I think we've seen some of those already, either have down rounds, layoff, staff shutdown, et cetera, and I think you'll see more of those.

Alex Lieberman [00:15:04]:
But then I think you're just also at an interesting time in kind of what I would call like traditional or mainstream media, where there's less trust than ever before in mainstream, monolithic media brands. The advertising market for the last year and a half has been absolute dog shit to run one of these businesses. They're so cost intensive, they run these businesses so fat. And so I think you're just going to kind of continue to see this wave of businesses either cutting staff or closing doors altogether.

Greg Isenberg [00:15:36]:
So basically put a Google alert for different media companies and layoffs 100% and reach out to these people. You'd be surprised people are going to listen to this and be like, no. Easy for them to say, he started morning Brew. Of course they're going to open their email but I don't know, 15 years ago, ten years ago when no one knew my name at all either. And I would reach out to people and I would be surprised. It's a numbers game.

Alex Lieberman [00:16:07]:
Yeah. And by the way, what I would say is like, okay, maybe for me it's going to a business and it's rejuvenating their email newsletter and doing a rev share on it. By the way, the way I think about this model is like, it's basically the digital version of sushi Baibu. Do you know Sushi Baibu's model?

Greg Isenberg [00:16:25]:
No.

Alex Lieberman [00:16:26]:
It's the most genius model. So sushi Baibu, there's a few in city. It's, it's like a high end Omakase chain. We have a few in New York City. My wife and I live in Hoboken. They just opened one in Hoboken and their model is genius. Every sushi Baibu is in a hotel and they go to a hotel and they say, hey, hotel, let's say your lobby is 3000 sqft. See those 250 sqft in the corner of your lobby that right now has a chair and maybe a chess table.

Alex Lieberman [00:17:01]:
Let us build a sushi bar right there. And what we're going to do is you're not going to charge us rent on it because you'd be doing nothing with that space as it is. We're going to open the sushi bar. We're going to market because we already have locations all over the country and we're going to do a rev share. You're going to keep 20% of all revenue that we generate for the sushi bar. We keep 80%. And if it doesn't work out, we leave your hotel and you have the unused lobby that you had before. If it does work out, you've just automatically opened up a revenue stream you never had with your business.

Greg Isenberg [00:17:28]:
And forget about the revenue stream, the cachet that it adds.

Alex Lieberman [00:17:32]:
Exactly.

Greg Isenberg [00:17:32]:
You have like an omacase.

Alex Lieberman [00:17:35]:
Exactly.

Greg Isenberg [00:17:36]:
In your hotel.

Alex Lieberman [00:17:37]:
I'm sure part of their pitch is, yeah, like look at what happens to your hotel prices when we put this in.

Greg Isenberg [00:17:42]:
Exactly. So I think, damn, that's really good. Yeah, that's really good. And it's also just a reminder that you don't necessarily need to get inspiration from Twitter or podcast. Like the real.

Alex Lieberman [00:17:55]:
I mean, this is talked about ad nauseam, but I just generally think the best inspiration is drawn not from the industry that you're in or the bubble that you're in. It's just literally pattern matching from another industry where something has worked. And that was the thing I was going to say is like, okay, sure, for me, maybe I have an unfair advantage to approach a business and relaunch their newsletter and open up a new revenue stream for them. But that doesn't have to be the thing. Your thing is community. You could go to a business and do the same thing of like, let me assemble a community around your hardcore fans and we'll do a rev share there. It's like, what is your core competency that can open up a new revenue stream for a hurting business and approach them with an already existing plan? What the rev share is, and I am guaranteeing you they'll listen because they are desperate to listen.

Greg Isenberg [00:18:42]:
Yeah. And basically everyone is hurting unless you're open AI, you're looking for new revenue sources. So people are pretty open to these opportunities right now. And I don't know how interest rates might go down lower. Cheap money might come. This might not be forever. So I would suggest, like, now is the time.

Alex Lieberman [00:19:08]:
Totally.

Greg Isenberg [00:19:09]:
I want to move on to your Weight watchers idea. They're actually a past client of our innovation agency, so there's only so much I could say, yeah, I'll do the.

Alex Lieberman [00:19:22]:
Talking here and you can just read. So I was just in Florida with my grandparents and they have done weight watchers for the last five years. And I asked them, why do they do it?

Greg Isenberg [00:19:37]:
By the way, explain weight Watchers. Because Americans know what Weight Watchers is, but actually the vast majority of non Americans don't know what it is and explain why. It's genius.

Alex Lieberman [00:19:46]:
Totally. And by the way, you may be able to fill in the gaps here because I just know it's secondhand for my grandparents. I've never done Weight watchers myself. So my understanding is Weight Watchers is a dieting program that involves a combination of an actual program and system. And the Weight Watcher system is basically that if you want to lose weight, you have a certain amount of points of food a day, and basically every food has a different point value associated with it. So I can't remember what my grandparents are, but let's just say it's like they could have 30 points a day. You know, when you're thinking about having food, you look up on the Weight watcher site how many points that food is associated with, and you know that you will lose weight if you hit your 30 point total intake per day. And so there's this system that you have to follow if you are part of weight watchers.

Alex Lieberman [00:20:42]:
On top of that, there are weekly meetings. So my grandma and grandpa attend a weekly meeting every Saturday morning where they go, they weigh in, so they see how they are tracking on their weight relative to the last meeting. But it's everyone else in their area that's part of Weight watchers. And it almost feels like the way they described it is like aa, where the group is congregating, talking about what is working for them, what is not, and any new recipes or foods they have that they recommend to the group because there's like a low point value, but it's a really hearty or tasty meal. Did I hit generally what it is, or is there anything I'm missing?

Greg Isenberg [00:21:19]:
So, yes, you nailed it. Except for one little thing that has sent the stock up, like 100% this year.

Alex Lieberman [00:21:27]:
Is this the investment in the weight loss drugs?

Greg Isenberg [00:21:32]:
Yes. Basically, ozempic and the like have obviously taken the world by storm. Weight Watchers is a community based program that works like the system works like, people go to these meetings, they follow the system, and there's some amazing results. Some people don't want to put in the work. Your grandparents want to put in the work, some people don't, and especially the younger generation. So they actually invested in, I think it's a GLP one drug, and it's kind of like, hey, do you want to lose weight this way? Do you want to lose that weight that way? So they're giving more options to folks to lose weight.

Alex Lieberman [00:22:14]:
Yeah. And specifically, the company was sequence that they bought, I think it was in March of last year. And basically, my understanding is it's a telehealth obesity treatment platform. And so it's basically, if you're exploring weight loss via one of these drugs, whether it's ozembic or wagovi, it's a platform where you talk to an expert and then you end up getting basically recommended or prescribed one of these drugs.

Greg Isenberg [00:22:41]:
Exactly.

Alex Lieberman [00:22:43]:
Yeah. Just to go to the idea for a second. Basically, there's just like a few interesting trends that I think line up to have an interesting business for 20 to 30 somethings who are looking to lose weight. The first is like, I think weight loss has been important for a long time to people in kind of the modern age where health has been emphasized. But I feel like we are in kind of like a hyperdrive period around body and health optimization. And I think you're seeing interesting things pop up, like what Brian Johnson, ak zero is doing with. I think blueprint is the name of right, where Brian Johnson has literally created this blueprint for trying to extend his age and never die. And I think that is going to resonate with some people.

Alex Lieberman [00:23:28]:
I think it's especially going to resonate with startup, kind of super early adopter folks who are kind of in a good way extremists about going all out on a certain goal of longevity and health. But I think for the average person, like the average millennial, that's going to feel too intense. It's going to feel too intense to think about the idea of doing a blood transfusion in order to save a few years of your life. And at the same time, this post Covid age, I think, has just created this constant reminder of the importance of community and the importance of in person gathering. It's like why I'm sitting in morning Brew's office right now is like, I realized how much I missed that. And so, you know, it's definitely a good thing for Eisenberg. Like, there's never been more emphasis or value placed on community. And so I think this idea of community accountability and emphasis on a health program that helps you lose weight.

Alex Lieberman [00:24:29]:
And I think especially at a time where Ozembic and Wagovia are being talked about, but I think for every story about it, there's going to be a negative story about how this is not a sustainable way to be healthy and it's not for everyone. I think this kind of model of diet program with accountability group, I haven't seen it exist for our age. There's some new modalities. I think Noom has been very successful. But I tried Noom. It wasn't successful for me. I think pure accountability or group accountability with diet program can be really interesting.

Greg Isenberg [00:25:07]:
I agree with you, but I want to say a few things. So one is what's interesting is if you look at the Google Trends data, like the search interest data over the last eleven years for weight loss, it's actually gone down.

Alex Lieberman [00:25:24]:
So interesting.

Greg Isenberg [00:25:25]:
So interesting.

Alex Lieberman [00:25:27]:
Why do you think that is?

Greg Isenberg [00:25:28]:
And spoiler alert, it's not because everyone's fit now. It's not like people are magically way more fit in 2024 than they were in 2013. I think that when I think about, okay, so I think this idea could work if you rebrand weight loss to this generation. I think the reason why people are not searching weight loss anymore is because weight loss to me feels like a term that was very popular in the, it's like when Diet Coke was everywhere and the diet phenomenon, aspartame got really popular. So I think a lot of people tried to diet and realize dieting is just difficult. It's a lot of work you have to put in your work. And let's be real, people don't want to put in the work. That's why they're taking a drug.

Greg Isenberg [00:26:21]:
Literally a drug to shortcut. To shortcut. And if I was trying to create something in this space, what I would do is I would brand it as like, the drugs are badforyou.com.

Alex Lieberman [00:26:36]:
Yeah. You'd counter position it against drugs.

Greg Isenberg [00:26:39]:
Yeah, exactly. And I would make it a challenge. Like join the challenge. A free challenge that people can join. Kind of like, I really like smallbets Co. Have you seen that?

Alex Lieberman [00:26:52]:
No.

Greg Isenberg [00:26:53]:
If you go to their website, interested in entrepreneurship, forget about starting a company. Try making $1,000 with a small project first. So it's basically a bunch. It's like events plus community around people who are.

Alex Lieberman [00:27:05]:
This is cool.

Greg Isenberg [00:27:07]:
Yeah. Trying to try new things. And just the idea, like, the brand around small bets is really interesting. I would do a challenge, basically, my point is I would do a challenge. Email based, maybe text based, even.

Alex Lieberman [00:27:20]:
Yeah. It's almost kind of like, it's like a modern version of, or, like, there's aspects of it that remind me of orange. Like, I don't know if you know the orange theory model, but basically called hundreds of orange theory locations around the US. Every day, orange theory has the same workout in every single studio. So every studio on that day has everyone doing the same workout. And there are basically leaderboards. When you go to orange theory, they have their proprietary scores, which are kind of like how long you're in the orange zone, how many splat points you earned, and every day there's a leaderboard for the people who earned the most splat points or were in the orange zone the longest. And so I can imagine a world in which kind of, there's the same challenges that exist across all groups within this program, and there's both short term goals and long term goals or challenges that people are competing against.

Alex Lieberman [00:28:13]:
And there's fun and interesting prizes around it.

Greg Isenberg [00:28:15]:
Yeah. And I think what's so brilliant about that splat points, I've never heard about that is, like, you can only get your splat points in one place.

Alex Lieberman [00:28:23]:
Exactly.

Greg Isenberg [00:28:25]:
When you own these terms, it's a moat that is very defensible.

Alex Lieberman [00:28:30]:
Yeah. And by the way, one thing also to say here is beyond just like, let's call it the modern day weight watchers. I think there's, like, a broader thing that's interesting, which is seeing more and more businesses. This is more of a trend that are capitalizing on the idea of peer groups. I don't know exactly where the most interesting opportunity is yet, but I think you have everything from peer groups on the fringes to peer groups that are more mainstream. So what I consider to be fringe peer groups is, like, men's groups. Men's groups feel very much still like they're this thing that exists for super liberal people living in Brooklyn or startup founders for a group of eight to ten men to talk about, to have vulnerable conversations with each other, but it still doesn't feel like it has gotten to mass market. Then you have peer groups in the form of AA, which has been around forever.

Alex Lieberman [00:29:26]:
And I think, honestly, AA is just a model for anyone who is interested in community building and group dynamics. Like, should just read the big book and study AA's history. But I think there's an interesting model of what does AA look like for tech addiction? I would join that because I'm so addicted to my technology. But then you have more mainstream applications that are popping up. Like, I don't know if you saw the founders of Soulcycle just launched a peer group business where they were basically like, what would Soulcycle look like if we launched the business without the bicycle? That was, like, their whole thing. We launched the business without the bicycle. And it's like, basically, it's a space. They do it virtual and in person.

Alex Lieberman [00:30:06]:
In person. They launched a studio in New York City where a group of strangers come in and they have deep, meaningful conversations that almost acts as, like, their spiritual rejuvenation or workout on a weekly basis. I don't know what the right entry point is here, but to me, there's a reason that all this is happening.

Greg Isenberg [00:30:24]:
Do you remember the name of the soul cycle experience?

Alex Lieberman [00:30:27]:
Peoplehood.

Greg Isenberg [00:30:28]:
Peoplehood. So I was a part of, I think, the first or second or one of the first peoplehood in person meetups in 2019.

Alex Lieberman [00:30:38]:
Are you serious?

Greg Isenberg [00:30:39]:
Yeah. So I was invited, and it's really interesting because they basically, I forget the name of the author, but they worked with some well known author in the space who has a system for having good relationships with people. And so basically, in a way, they license this system and they productized it via a peer to peer group and via an app, and it's brilliant. And it's a similar concept to the Weight Watchers point system or the orange theory. It's always start with the system. Actually. What is it? Let's break it down. It's category of one.

Greg Isenberg [00:31:25]:
How do you build a category of one? It's how do you build a system that is super scalable. And what else am I missing?

Alex Lieberman [00:31:34]:
Well, and to me, it's like, I mean, this is the obvious one, but how do you hit on an acute need that's most needed right now? And that's where I'll say I both understand it. But I also think it's a hard business. So what people it is doing to me is capitalizing on this, you know, kind of like all of this narrative around loneliness, right? Like, you see all these studies around loneliness in society, and I do believe it, but I also think it's way harder to build a great business off of that because it's always less tangible, it feels more ephemeral. You want to join a dieting program, you very clearly know if you're losing ten pounds. And other people very clearly know if you're losing ten pounds, whether you feel less lonely or not. It feels like a squishier problem to solve for someone.

Greg Isenberg [00:32:22]:
Yeah, unless it's improving. I think they call it relationship fitness. So it's improving a relationship. So unless you're going with your partner.

Alex Lieberman [00:32:33]:
Totally. And to me, that's why I always wonder, even as I was talking about the AA for tech addiction, and by the way, the reason I have that idea is because I think for me to be less addicted to my technology, I need accountability built in. Because when I've tried different apps, I just don't follow the rules and I stay addicted. But I will say the reason I think even that business is harder to build is because while I really want to change that behavior, it doesn't feel like the same level of desperation to someone who is in the throes of addiction and it's ruining every aspect of their life.

Greg Isenberg [00:33:09]:
Yeah, I agree. I mean, maybe there's an opportunity to go to AA and just be, you know, cell phone addiction is the new.

Alex Lieberman [00:33:18]:
So they launched their own group. That's ITAA. It's Internet and technology addicts anonymous. And I attended a meeting.

Greg Isenberg [00:33:27]:
And how was it?

Alex Lieberman [00:33:28]:
It was fascinating.

Greg Isenberg [00:33:30]:
Were you live streaming it?

Alex Lieberman [00:33:31]:
I didn't live stream of it, no, but it was on Zoom. It was virtual.

Greg Isenberg [00:33:35]:
Are you serious?

Alex Lieberman [00:33:36]:
Yeah, I know. Pretty antithetical, right?

Greg Isenberg [00:33:42]:
I will say this, you realize how that makes no sense, right? That's like having a Weight watchers meeting at a McDonald's.

Alex Lieberman [00:33:50]:
Yeah, it's so true. Yeah. Take it up with AA. But, yeah, I think it was really interesting for a few reasons. I think one of the values of AA and just these groups in general is it makes you feel less isolated. Like I always thought I was really addicted to my phone. But then when you hear some of these people share their stories about how they say for the last decade, once a week they pull an all nighter because they are on their phone literally through 24 hours straight. And it's gotten to the point of suicidal ideation.

Alex Lieberman [00:34:25]:
You're like, holy shit. There's another level of this. I think the other interesting thing is I had a certain image in my head of who is the person that's addicted to their technology. And while, let's say, there are 20 people in this meeting, while, say, five of the people in the meeting lined up with my vision, 15 of them did not at all. I can't tell you how many middle aged moms who are addicted to playing candy crush on their home, on their phone, when they're at home for hours a day were in this meeting as well. And so I think for me, actually, there wasn't so much like programming or education in it. There was this feeling of, you're not alone. And it sounds so obvious, but when you experience that feeling, it really is kind of infectious to want to keep experiencing it.

Greg Isenberg [00:35:09]:
I lit. I just love it. Amazing. Yeah. All right, let's move to a new idea. G two. Personality driven. G two.

Greg Isenberg [00:35:21]:
What do you mean by that?

Alex Lieberman [00:35:22]:
Okay, so g two is like the software review site.

Greg Isenberg [00:35:26]:
Yeah. Which is really big.

Alex Lieberman [00:35:30]:
It's huge. It's huge. Yet in some way, I've never gone to g two to make software choices.

Greg Isenberg [00:35:37]:
Yeah. And why do you think that's?

Alex Lieberman [00:35:38]:
Have you?

Greg Isenberg [00:35:39]:
No. And I buy tons of software. Yeah, I'm constantly buying. So I bought software today.

Alex Lieberman [00:35:45]:
Isn't that crazy though? Yeah. I think the reason is, one is the business model is inherently broken because it thrives off of sponsored posts and sponsored listings. There's just this inherent question about the authenticity of the recommendations. And I think this is like a question that kind of like any sponsored content driven site goes through. I also think g two is for a certain demographic that really isn't, in my mind, focused on cult like the new age businesses or venture backed founders or Internet companies. It feels like it's more focused on older school, larger corporations. I could be wrong, but I'm just going off of the fact of none of my friends have ever used g two. And so I think there is an interesting way to help founders and executives make smarter decisions around their software in a more scalable way than Greg texting one of his friends to ask them, hey, what do you use for video editing? Because that friend could be the right person to give you the recommendation, but they also may not be the right person to give you the recommendation.

Alex Lieberman [00:36:53]:
So pin that idea for a second. Have you heard of a business called Kit Co?

Greg Isenberg [00:36:58]:
No, I have to. I've been here, but I haven't used it. Yeah.

Alex Lieberman [00:37:03]:
Okay, so Kit co is a place where content creators can share their gear stack. So for example, right now I'm on, you know, one of the big youtubers, MkBhD, his setup. So I'm on his page right now, it's Kit Co. MkBhd slash my setup. And it shows me exactly what his setup is. So I see he has a Yamaha studio monitor or Herman Miller and body chair. Very fancy. Marquez next desk.

Alex Lieberman [00:37:34]:
Air Pro seinhiser headphones, et cetera. Basically, my view is combine kit co and g two. What if there was a place where entrepreneurs and executives can create their software stack where they list out all of the tools they use to run their business or their part of their business. They can review the tool. They can provide some notes. So there's nuance so people can understand, like, is this right for me in the context of my business? And you can actually do revenue shares with the people that create their stacks. So all of a sudden you as a platform, you can set up affiliate deals with, say, the 250 most commonly referenced software companies on the platform by your creators. And you get affiliates when anyone signs up through your platform and that affiliate is shared with all of the creators who have listed their stack.

Alex Lieberman [00:38:27]:
So there's an incentive for them to have a stack and continue updating their stack.

Greg Isenberg [00:38:31]:
I'm just looking at this. This seems like a no brainer idea. Yeah.

Alex Lieberman [00:38:39]:
And by the way, one reason I say this is there's an entrepreneur I know and I don't know if he wants people to know this, so I'm not going to say who it is who built a popular direct to consumer company, sold this company, and he has manually built his stack. So he created a Google Doc that has all the software and the agencies that he used to build his company. It's a Google Doc. It's in his link and bio. When someone follows him on Twitter, they get an auto DM from him saying hello as well as if they're interested in the tools he's used to build his company, they get access to the Google Doc. He's currently doing $40,000 a month in affiliate fees from this doc. And by the way, a huge value of this platform to creators is it is an absolute pain in the ass to set up all these affiliate deals. I'm setting this up for myself right now, and I'm going company by company by company, some of which have affiliate deals, some of which I'm having.

Alex Lieberman [00:39:35]:
Create affiliate deals for the first time. It's a nightmare.

Greg Isenberg [00:39:38]:
Yeah. And Kit co. Really isn't geared towards us, like the b to b creator.

Alex Lieberman [00:39:46]:
Exactly.

Greg Isenberg [00:39:46]:
This feels very, like, consumery.

Alex Lieberman [00:39:49]:
It feels youtubey.

Greg Isenberg [00:39:50]:
Yeah, exactly. Which is great for them. I actually think that they picked the wrong market. But this is the right market. This is the right market.

Alex Lieberman [00:39:59]:
The market where the average deal size is right market.

Greg Isenberg [00:40:02]:
Right. Meanwhile, Mr. Beast is, like, gloating about getting 250k for, like, what, 100 million views on YouTube. Exactly.

Alex Lieberman [00:40:10]:
Thinking to myself, that's a hard game I don't want to play.

Greg Isenberg [00:40:13]:
Totally. I'm like, wow, that was a lot of work, my friend. Yeah. Cool. Let's do a couple more Pinterest for knowledge. My wife works at Pinterest.

Alex Lieberman [00:40:26]:
Oh, nice.

Greg Isenberg [00:40:26]:
Don't displace her yet.

Alex Lieberman [00:40:28]:
No, I like Pinterest. So basically, this is like an idea that I have been so passionate about since launching the brew, and I haven't seen a great solution for this is I believe that curation is like a superpower in today's Internet. And the reason I believe that is because it's never been easier to create content. More content is being created than ever before. And my belief on all this, where this kind of ends up netting out five to ten years from now, is you just have this messy middle of a ton of regurgitated, mediocre content that's put out onto the Internet, and you just still have this small band of the top 0.1% to 1% ideas that doesn't really get that much larger because there aren't that many of those people that have truly novel or best in class ideas. And so my view is, like, for most people, creating content is actually not the best service that they can provide to society. It is curating the best ideas from the top 1% creators. And I've had this idea because there are certain creators who I really respect and follow.

Alex Lieberman [00:41:38]:
Like, for example, I read everything that Ben Thompson writes. I read everything that Matt Levine writes. I listen to Andrew Huberman's podcast. I listen to Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast. As interesting to me as what I'm listening to is the thought I have in my head of, like, what is going into their body? What is informing their views? What are the interesting things they're reading and consuming such that they're outputting these, like, I don't know, if you saw there's a lot of people who already curate what they're consuming just in this manual way. Like Chamath. Chamath comes out with a newsletter every week. That's what I read this week.

Alex Lieberman [00:42:18]:
And it's like a link dump of seven URLs to me. I would love a platform where I can follow the. I can basically go down the rabbit hole of individuals brains so I can follow the people whose brains I admire most and I can see exactly what is the shit that they're putting into their brains. And not only can I follow them, but I see an interesting way where ultimately you can create stacks. You can create stacks of the stuff you consume around fitness, the stuff you consume around the world of frontier tech or hardware, whatever it may be. And I see a world in which you can actually have premium subscriptions to people's curated content where you not only get the curation, you get the notes and the annotations, people's analysis of the stuff that they're reading within their curated stacks. And so again, this is like a bigger swing. That's like an idea I haven't seen.

Alex Lieberman [00:43:11]:
But I would love a world where basically curation as a service becomes a thing.

Greg Isenberg [00:43:17]:
This is one of those ideas which is like I don't want to do at all, but someone do. At I worked at a company called Stumble upon, which was like an OG content discovery app. You'd press a button, a stumble button, and it would bring on a web page and you were able to like it and dislike it. One of the most interesting features was stumbling other people's. You know, Garrett Kemp, who's the co founder of Uber, he's also the co founder of Stumble upon you can go. And he's got amazing taste and you'd be able to go on to his likes and just see what is he putting into his brain. I think I agree that that stumble likes needs to be reincarnated in some way.

Alex Lieberman [00:44:06]:
Exactly. It's like, what if I could see Greg Eisenberg's bookmarks on. And I think you just brought up a word that to me is like, becoming more and more. It's being more and more emphasized than ever before, which is taste. In a world of hyper commoditization, where software is commoditized, where content is being commoditized, where many things are becoming, where we are being displaced by technology, I think taste like having, being an incredible tastemaker is actually one of the greatest advantages you can have. To me, when I think about people who have individuals who have unfair advantage in different industries. Whether it's music agents who find talent super early, whether it's media entrepreneurs who find writers early in their career, whether it's podcasters who decide the topics or the guests that are worth surfacing. I actually think taste is like, it's only the early days of taste being one of the more important things or skills that the best, let's call it professionals or entrepreneurs will have.

Greg Isenberg [00:45:10]:
So I got a text today from a creator that, you know, millions of followers, and she says, random question. She doesn't text me a lot. So I saw, she texted me. I'm like, whoa, let me open this up. Random question. Hiring those who have, quote unquote, taste. How do you define taste? Visual editorial, for instance. My head of HR does not have taste, aka his dress style, his word choice.

Greg Isenberg [00:45:38]:
How do I screen that and define taste? So I responded, I don't know if this is right, but this is what I said. I just wrote in quotation marks. Who do you follow on Instagram? What are your favorite brands? What was the last concert you went to? What is your favorite drink? Can you make a mood board on Pinterest? On Xyz topic? Yeah.

Alex Lieberman [00:45:55]:
Basically what you're saying is you use specific examples to basically say, have the person show you their taste. And then in a meta way. In a meta way, it's almost like, kind of like an overconfidence thing of, to assess this, you have to assume you have good taste and you're assessing someone else's taste based on your taste of their taste.

Greg Isenberg [00:46:15]:
Exactly. I mean, we used to have technology assessments. It's like, hey, can you write this program now? We're going to have taste assessments?

Alex Lieberman [00:46:23]:
Yeah, I think it's. What's like the famous definition of product market fit. It's like, how do you know when you see product market fit? It's like hardcore porn. You just know it when you see it. You just know the people on the Internet that have great taste and you know the people that don't. Sean Purry. I would say Sean Purry has great taste. He has great taste in what entrepreneurs are going to naturally feel a magnetic pull towards.

Alex Lieberman [00:46:56]:
Could I write a presentation defining the taste of Sean Purry? I think it'd be really fucking difficult because there's 15 years of context, of career context that has led him to using his gut a lot. And his gut is this incredible amalgamation of data points over many years. So he has taste, but it would be very hard for me to define what his taste is.

Greg Isenberg [00:47:20]:
Totally. And I want to say you can be older and have taste, but you can also be young and have great taste.

Alex Lieberman [00:47:27]:
Yeah. And actually, I'd argue one of the most impressive things to me is when you are a generation different than you have. Great, let's just use an example of like, Matt Levine. Matt Levine, I think has great taste on what he talks about for millennials or young professionals. But I don't think he's considered a millennial. I think he's considered like a generation older. And I would say that's actually sometimes what's most impressive to me is when people are able to basically straddle generations with quality taste. Because I'm even seeing for myself when I look at my younger cousin who's still in high school and what is deemed as good taste for her friend group and people of her age, it's super difficult because you basically have to immerse yourself in living in the way that her friend group lives while also living in your age group.

Greg Isenberg [00:48:18]:
So if we think that the world is going to appreciate taste more, I mean, if we're hiring for taste, and I'm sure there's others, how do you monetize taste besides getting a job with.

Alex Lieberman [00:48:30]:
And besides creating a Pinterest for knowledge?

Greg Isenberg [00:48:33]:
Yeah. What's an easier way to monetize your taste without raising a bunch of venture capital and going crazy?

Alex Lieberman [00:48:41]:
You know what one way is? What's the name of the 1 second? I want to find the name of this one. Isn't there a website called really Good Sites or really good design?

Greg Isenberg [00:48:51]:
Yes. Really good emails.

Alex Lieberman [00:48:53]:
Yeah, really good emails. What does really good emails look like in a different vertical for people who need inspiration to do their job? Basically, I don't know how really good emails monetizes, but basically it's like I'm on their website right now and it's very clearly for email marketers. And really good emails has basically used their taste and their judgment, and people come to really good emails because they trust their judgment to look at a collection of different email newsletter designs that they deem to be high quality. I think it's interesting to think about like, and I know there's another website that does this for ad creative. I can't remember what they're called, but there's like an inspiration site for if you're a paid marketer and you want to look at great creative to run on Facebook or Instagram, whatever. I'd think about what is another vertical where a b two B professional needs great inspiration to do their job effectively?

Greg Isenberg [00:49:47]:
Yeah. And they do really good emails. I'm looking right now. They've got, like, 169,000 subscribers to their email. They charge $9 a month and you get unlimited collections. You can sort, you can filter. There's a chrome extension. I'm sure they do quite.

Alex Lieberman [00:50:07]:
Yeah. By the way, another example of this is what does really good emails look like for written content? What does it actually look like to create an inspiration board of the best? Twitter, LinkedIn, like written text content for people who are Copywriters or text, like, just writers on the Internet?

Greg Isenberg [00:50:28]:
Yeah, I think with your taste. Right. With some context.

Alex Lieberman [00:50:34]:
Exactly.

Greg Isenberg [00:50:34]:
Marketing examples. Do you know that one?

Alex Lieberman [00:50:36]:
Yes.

Greg Isenberg [00:50:37]:
Similar idea where they have a bunch of different categories, acquisition, conversion, retention, brand. And so I'm looking right now. Go ahead.

Alex Lieberman [00:50:49]:
By the way, the other way to do it is through content. Like, if you want to do this as a creator, if you're willing to dedicate your entire life to it, do what David Sendro did with founders. Right. This guy has picked a vertical, and he's curating the best biographies and autobiographies in the world about the greatest founders, and he has the taste to pick the best books. And then it's this combination of curation and then remixing. He's remixing it by basically redelvering you what's most important and why you should care. So think about, like, what's a vertical where it takes a lot of work to do the curation, but that curation and that analysis is really important to the people that this is for.

Greg Isenberg [00:51:28]:
I like that founders for X is a big idea.

Alex Lieberman [00:51:32]:
Yeah.

Greg Isenberg [00:51:33]:
Amazing, dude. This is. This has been awesome. I actually have to run to a haircut. I actually just got a haircut before I joined here, but I walked into my apartment and my wife was like, what happened to your hair? And I was like, what do you mean? It looks great. I looked in the mirror. She's like, no, mean. She's like, the back.

Greg Isenberg [00:51:51]:
The back is like, they fucked up the back. I mean, I'll show it for the people. I can't believe I'm doing this.

Alex Lieberman [00:51:57]:
But hold on, let me see.

Greg Isenberg [00:52:00]:
Can you see that? It's curved.

Alex Lieberman [00:52:02]:
Yeah. It's not a straight line.

Greg Isenberg [00:52:04]:
No.

Alex Lieberman [00:52:07]:
Your wife did you a solid. It's like calling someone out when they have something stuck in their tooth. It's the equivalent of that.

Greg Isenberg [00:52:14]:
So I'm going to go for a little even out. Yeah. And where could folks find you and the projects you're working on can find.

Alex Lieberman [00:52:25]:
Me on Twitter at business barista. My podcast is founders journal. Where I'm curating the best startup content on the Internet and then synthesizing it so you don't have to do the searching or the reading. And then my new business story, Arb, which helps executives build their brands on social.

Greg Isenberg [00:52:44]:
I love it. Check them out. Come back anytime. Alex, this is obviously.

Alex Lieberman [00:52:48]:
Appreciate it.

Greg Isenberg [00:52:49]:
So fun later.

Alex Lieberman [00:52:50]:
This was fun.