Crashing Up - SoundSage

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Randy is joined by Ani Sanyal (@anihustles). Ani is a first generation Indian immigrant, creative entrepreneur and CEO that lives at the intersection of business and culture. He owns and operates a portfolio of companies which span across marketing, real estate investing, food and beverage, and artist management.

They discuss the pros and cons of agency life, navigating multiple businesses during the pandemic, the future of digital media, the power of consistency and so much more.

If you liked this episode and want more content from me, please leave a positive review below and subscribe to my newsletter Crashing Up where I share weekly growth focused insights and tools to help you build the next big thing. You can also check out my website randymginsburg.com or follow me on Twitter.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Dr. John Torrens. Dr. Torrens is an award winning Professor of Entrepreneurial practice and two-time Inc. 5000 entrepreneur with 25 years leading high growth companies. He’s also a faculty member of the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises. But above all, he’s now the author of the book Lightning in a Bottle: How Entrepreneurs Can Harness Their ADHD to Win, where he shares his experience with ADHD as an adult and shines light on both positive and negative effects it can have on striating and growing a company a company. They cover the commonalities of ADHD among entrepreneurs and how entrepreneurs can manage the downsides of ADHD to use it to their competitive advantage.

If you liked this episode and want more content from me, please leave a positive review below and subscribe to my newsletter Crashing Up where I share weekly thoughts and finds for curious, entrepreneurial minds. You can also check out my website randymginsburg.com or follow me on Twitter.

Lightning in a Bottle: How Entrepreneurs Can Harness Their ADHD to Win

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Mindy Zemrak (@mindycasting). Mindy is the Emmy nominated Supervising Casting Producer for the 4 time Emmy Award winning ABC series Shark Tank.Mindy has been part of Shark Tank since season one and oversees the entire casting process searching for the best entrepreneurs from around the country. She has over 15 years of experience in casting in addition to working on a variety of tv shows and feature films including Jeopardy! National College Championship, World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji, Beyond the Tank, America’s Greatest Makers, American Idol, Top Chef, I Survived a Japanese Gameshow, Expedition Impossible, Oprah’s Your OWN Show and many more. They discuss her journey in casting, landing a spot on the show, behind-the-scenes secrets, and shark lessons to help you be a better entrepreneur.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Taylor Offer (@TaylorOffer), Taylor is the founder of Feat Clothing and a top influencer on LinkedIn. He’s also a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and the founder of TaylorPark agency where he helps small businesses improve their digital marketing. We discussed his decision to enter the competitive apparel space, the benefit of developing proprietary materials, the unglamorous side of entrepreneurship and much more.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Tommy Searle (@tommysearle7), a recent University of Michigan graduate and the co-founder & CEO of Wellnest, a brand new social mindfulness and self-care app. The app encourages speech-to-text journalling and helps users improve their mindfulness by leading them through guided question sets applicable to many real-life situations.

Tommy and Randy discuss the idea behind Wellnest, early user insights, 2021 product roadmap, the future of social mental health, founder mental health struggles and much more.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) sits down with Ryan Sneddon, the founder of Naptown Scoop, an email first local media company covering the city of Annapolis, Maryland. He currently sends all the happenings and important news three times a week. With thousands of traditional local media outlets dying out and mainstream media becoming increasingly political for ratings, it’s never been a better time to start a local digital media company.

They discuss the advantages of digital first local media, building a community within a community, and newsletter growth tips.

If you liked this episode and want more content from me, subscribe to my newsletter Crashing Up where I share weekly thoughts and finds for curious, entrepreneurial minds. You can also check out my website randymginsburg.com or follow me on Twitter.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined byJesse Kay, the CEO of Vyber Media, a digital consulting agency helping Fortune 500 brands and professional athletes better connect, engage and monetize their relationships through social media and digital marketing strategies. Notable clients have included Fanatics, Steiner Sports, and pro skater Paul Rodriguez. He also hosts “Trendsetters with Jesse Kay,” a podcast focused on sharing practical lessons and stories from some of the best minds on the planet to help inspire young men and women to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. He’s had an amazing slate of past guests such as Mark Cuban, Jack Dorsey, Erika Nardini, Adam Schefter and Gary Vaynerchuk.

They discuss navigating a brand through the shifting digital landscape, why an athlete’s popularity is no longer based only on their in-game performance, how Jesse and hundreds of other college students started a non-profit and raised $125,000+ for COVID relief.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) links up with Hunter Pomerantz, the former student manager of the Syracuse University basketball team and co-founder of The Players Trunk, a platform that allows former college and professional athletes to sell their team exclusive gear.

They discuss the inspiration behind the idea, the implications of sweeping NCAA NIL (name, image, likeness) policy changes, and how The Players Trunk is turning into a one-stop shop for unforgettable fan experiences.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) teams up with Taylor Hurst, Senior Associate at Konvoy Ventures to chat all things esports and gaming. By years end, the 2020 gaming market is expected to bring in over $159 billion dollars from a community of 2.7 billion global gamers. In addition to the gamers and streamers, there are millions of others who work to build the tools and infrastructure necessary to develop, deploy, and market all of the games we know and love.

They cover emerging trends in the industry, how marketers can tap into the world esports advertising, and the increasingly blurred line between real life and virtual games.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Toby Howell, a writer and social media lead at the Morning Brew, a daily business newsletter with over 2.5 million subscribers. He’s grown his personal Twitter account to almost 17,000 followers in less than sixth months by talking about Twitter strategy, building an online audience, and hating on LinkedIn.

They discuss the writing process behind the daily Brew, the difference between running a brand Twitter account versus a personal account, and the cold email that landed Toby the job in the first place.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) sits down with Rob Karp, the founder and CEO of MilesAhead, a luxury hospitality company. A recent graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration (‘19), he was named one of Travel + Leisure’s International Rising Stars in 2017 and was one of Virtuoso’s Rising Star candidates for 2019. In a short amount of time he’s made a name for himself as a go-to figure in the travel industry and has grown MilesAhead into a multimillion-dollar company.

They discuss the ups and downs of navigating a business through a pandemic, the future of business travel, and why now is actually the best time to own a travel rewards card.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy)is joined by the founding team of OthersideAI, Matt Shumer, Jason Kuperberg and Miles Feldstein. OthersideAI is a company using high-level artificial intelligence (GPT-3) to help you spend less time on your inbox and more time on the things that matter. In just over three months they’ve garnered over a million views of their demos, generated a waitlist with over 8,000 people, been featured in press such as the New York Times, Fortune, and Wired, and have raised $1.5m from a slew of top VCs and angels.

They discuss the future of GPT-3 powered communication tools, navigating a startup through hypergrowth, and learnings from first- time fundraising.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) brings on Brandon Zhang (@brandonthezhang), who built a large internet following sharing his wisdom on mental models and productivity. When he’s not working towards his degree at Columbia University, he’s working with Jack Butcher to help expand the Visualize Value brand and hosts The Student Mindset Podcast where he interviews amazing guests like Anthony Pompliano, James Clear, and many more.

They discuss the secrets of successful online communities, permission-less apprenticeships and the true definition of mindful productivity.

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Alex Wieckowski, better known as Alex and Books (@AlexandBooks_). For the last three and a half years, Alex has been sharing reading tips on the internet and inspiring people to pick up more books. He has over 70,000 followers across his social media platforms and also hosts The Reader's Journey podcast where he interviews amazing authors such as Morgan Housel, James Altucher, and many more. They discuss strategies to actually retain what you read, building an online audience around your passion, and Alex's learnings from interviewing best-selling authors and experts.

*Handles are for Twitter

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) sits down with Sam Harris (@samjamharris*), the founder of Syncify, a social podcasting app based out of the UK that enables users to listen to their favorite podcasts and audiobooks with their friends. Sam also hosts of the Growth Mindset Podcast, where he interviews incredible individuals all over the globe, sharing their insights and lessons on how their mindset has helped them live fulfilling lives.

They discuss the future of social audio, applying and going through Techstars, cultural differences in entrepreneurial mindset between the US and UK and more.

*Twitter

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy)* is joined byGaby Goldberg (@Gaby_Golberg)an Investing Analyst at Bessemer Venture Partners. She was previously an Investment Associate at Chapter One, a venture fund investing in early-stage tech companies. She’s also an incredible writer whose essays on curation and exclusivity have been shared countless times across the internet. The most impressive part? She does all this while still being a student at Stanford University.

They discuss the future of consumer technology, investing in companies with cult-like audiences, and the importance of gender diversity in the tech industry.

*Twitter Handle

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Randy Ginsburg (@GinsburgRandy) is joined by Mat Sherman (@Mat_Sherman)*, the founder of FWD Thinking City (now Growthmeter). He’s also the host of Forward Thinking Founders podcast, where he’s interviewed hundreds of founders of pre-seed and seed stage companies from all over the world. They discuss the future of building venture backed startups using no code apps such as Webflow, Adalo, Typeform, and Zapier, along with the lessons Mat has learned from interviewing over 500 founders.

*Handles are for Twitter

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Good Morning. NFL Wild Card weekend is in the books. Who do you have winning the Super Bowl this year? Let me know by replying to this email.

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💵Investing in Creators

The internet is changing the way we learn. While often viewed as a complement to the traditional education system, it’s much more of a disruptor. Information is widely accessible, and more importantly, significantly cheaper than ever before. Add in sky-high tuition rates and you can see where I’m headed.

Although still a smart option for most individuals, it’s getting much harder to justify the price tag and life-altering debt that comes along with a college education.

Consider these facts:

Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen a 144% jump in average tuition and fees at private National Universities

Out-of-state tuition and fees at public National Universities have risen 165%, while in-state tuition and fees have shot up over 212%.

As of 2019, the average four year college student who takes out loans graduates with over $32,000 in debt.

Three million student borrowers have taken on over $100,000 in debt, with nearly 800,000 students of that total holding student loan debt greater than $200,000.

The worst part is there’s no ceiling in sight. The average university tuition increases 8% every year compared to an average inflation rate of 2%. At this rate, the cost of college doubles every nine years.

Part of the beauty of college is learning about yourself and finding what you’re good at. Many students enter college a blank canvas, hoping to use this period of experimentation and connection to paint the ground strokes of their adulthood. Others already have sketched out where they’re headed. For those with a predetermined, specialized or trade skill in mind (think software engineering or plumbing) ISA’s can be a perfect fit and may even mean forgoing college altogether.

An income share agreement, or ISA, offers funding for schooling that you repay based on your future salary. While not new, this model has most recently been popularized by the Lambda School, a computer science bootcamp that offers education at no upfront cost in exchange for 17% of your post-Lambda School salary for 24 months, but only once you're making more than $50,000 per year (or the equivalent of $4,166.66 per month) with a maximum payment cap of $30,000. This salary minimum incentivizes Lambda to invest time and effort in the education and job placement of their students.

There’s no interest, no credit required, and in many cases these payments can be deferred in the event of emergency, medical leave, or other financial burdens. Currently, ISAs are unregulated which means that payment terms and other details will vary. Like student aid, there are good and bad loans. The same applies here.

Along with major institutions and specialty schools, another avenue has begun to open. ISA’s for individuals, specifically creators. The passion economy is in full force. With more people than ever trying to build careers on the internet, many need funding to jump-start their ambitious journeys. Within the next year or two, there will be a flood of schools offering money, education, and resources to aspiring creators in exchange for a percentage of future revenue.

While it sounds good in theory, I struggle with this idea (at least in the Lambda School format) for a few reasons:

Creator salaries range all over the map and the failure rate is much higher. Similar to VC, you need a few big wins to cover all of the losses and then some.

Skilled coders, artists, and trade workers can be objectively great in their craft. People can learn to produce and edit high-quality content and market themselves online, but that doesn’t mean they will be able to successfully find an audience or carve out a niche. Earnings in this space are largely affected by power law (the majority of earnings are claimed by only a few creators.)

With Lambda school, many students have prior coding experience and are looking to bolster their skills. With these creator schools, creators who have already shown promise can easily be scouted by top talent agencies like CAA and UTA both of which are actively building out creator arms.

With that being said, there are a handful of companies already investing in the future earnings of Creators:

Creator School - Providing education for podcasters, YouTubers, content creators and more in exchange for revenues through ISAs.

Spotter - Providing creators with upfront cash for future videos in exchange for the rights to claim creators’ existing content libraries.

Podfund - Provide upfront capital to podcasters and audio-driven media companies via traditional equity, convertible notes, and SAFEs.

Bottom Line: With tuition prices showing no sign of slowing down, college may no longer make financial sense for certain crowds. A potential alternative are schools with ISA-backed tuition teaching specialized and trade skills such as coding, plumbing, and content creation.

Learned something new? If so, pass it along to a curious friend!

🎙️Crashing Up Podcast

Ryan Sneddon is the founder of Naptown Scoop, an email first local media company covering the city of Annapolis, Maryland. He currently sends all the happenings and important news three times a week.

With thousands of traditional local media outlets dying out and mainstream media becoming increasingly political for ratings, it’s never been a better time to start a local digital media company.

To hear Ryan and I chat about the rise of digital first local media, community building, and newsletter growth tips, click the audio player at the top of this email.

If you want to hear more from Ryan you can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his personal newsletter.

🧰Tool of the Week

This week’s tool isn’t going to save you time or make you more productive. Nope, instead it’s going to use AI to absolutely tear apart your music preferences.

How Bad is Your Spotify? scans your Spotify listening history and provides you with a hilarious in-depth breakdown of your music taste.

The overall consensus I received: Your spotify was depressive-canadian-trap-house-tay-tay-fangirl bad.

Honestly, very on brand.

Give it a try yourself and let me know what you get.

Enjoyed today’s newsletter? Let me know by clicking one of the links below.

👍 This newsletter was interesting and taught me something new!

😐 Meh - was ok.

👎 Not interesting to me.

If you’re new here and want to catch up on some old editions, here are a couple of my favorites: Alone Together and Playing the Long Game You can also follow me on Twitter or check out randymginsburg.com for more writing.

Thanks for reading,

Randy

Subscribe at crashingup.substack.com

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Good Morning and welcome back. I hope you all got a chance to relax, reflect, and prepare for the year to come. Let’s hope this one’s a lot better.

If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, make sure to do so here.

🎟️ Putting the “fun” in NFTs

To most of you, the below GIF is nothing more than an animated pair of sneakers. But for a select few, this is a valuable digital asset worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Last month, one person spent 22 Ethereum ($13,331 at the time of sale and $20,702 at the time of writing) at auction for the X Evolution NFT edition, a pair of AI-designed sneakers brought to life by the team at RTFKT Studios.

“The X auction opened on Nov. 19 and lasted for 10 days on a new platform that RTFKT built. However, the shoe that bidders saw on the 19th was just a plain white high-top. As bids topped a certain amount of ETH, the design would change – a splash of paint at a time.

No one knew what the shoe would look like at its 10th and final “evolution,” and that remains a mystery: The winning 22 ETH was only good enough for the sixth evolution. The final evolution was set at a threshold of 58 ETH.” - CoinDesk

The purchase also included a 1/1 custom pair of physical sneakers, an unlockable Snapchat lens, and an avatar skin to wear in the The Sandbox metaverse.

If you feel lost, don’t worry. Let’s backtrack.

What is an NFT?

NFT stands for a non-fungible token. In order to fully understand how NFTs work, you’ll need to have a basic understanding of blockchain technology.

Blockchains are distributed databases used to securely store data and information in a publicly accessible way. Since these databases are distributed across multiple sites in a computer network, there is no need for a middleman. The most well known use of blockchain technology is Bitcoin, a decentralized digital currency used to make safe, anonymous, and verifiable payments.

Bitcoin is considered a fungible currency because, like the USD, it can be exchanged for another token (or dollar) of the same value. This means that the one dollar bill in your wallet is worth the same as the one dollar bill in mine. Fungible currencies are also easily convertible. One dollar can quickly be converted to four quarters.

It’s very important to note that NFTs are not a form of currency, but rather a digital token of information stored as a database entry in the blockchain. These tokens are unique, noninterchangeable, and can be used as a reliable and verifiable proof of ownership vehicle.

Where can NFTs be used?

Art & Collectibles - An NFT can be used as a certificate of authenticity for frequently counterfeited original paintings, sculptures, sneakers and more. After being verified by an independent authenticator, a token can be created for a specific piece of art and transferred with ownership once the item is sold.

This also works with digital art:

“Because of the legitimate scarcity made possible by blockchains, buyers can rest assured that the art they purchase is, in fact, rare. This gives digital art real value that we’ve never seen before.” - Decentraland.org

Like physical art, the value is in the eye of the beholder. Wealthy folks could soon be swapping out the Picasso originals in their living rooms for digital screens bearing AI-designed abstracts. As demand for these collectibles grows, digital art curators and galleries will continue to emerge, giving birth to an entirely new industry and alternative asset class.

Gaming - Much of Fortnite's $2.4 billion in 2020 revenue came from in-game cosmetic purchases of skins, dances, and emotes. NFTs can be used to resemble these in-game items and move them from one game to another. They can also be used to build singular, unified virtual identities and share public player records.

Ticketing - NFTs can be used to store a variety of ticket information like time, place, and seat location, while also assuring that you’re in possession of a real ticket. I’m very bullish on this use case as the virtual event industry continues to grow.

Identification - Passports, birth certificates, and driver licenses are all forms of identification that can be digitized through non-tradable NFTs. While this is still a ways away for the US, China is already taking steps towards digital identification as part of the plans for its blockchain-powered smart cities.

Bottom Line: NFTs have the potential to disrupt multiple industries through their ability to digitize the provenance process and serve as an alternative investment asset. The technology is still early, but the upside is there. Pay attention to these over the next five years.

Found this interesting? Subscribe now for more ideas and insights on emerging tech and the future of entrepreneurship.

🎙️Crashing Up Podcast

Say hello to Jesse Kay.

Jesse is CEO of Vyber Media, a digital consulting agency helping Fortune 500 brands and professional athletes better connect, engage and monetize their relationships through social media and digital marketing strategies. Notable clients have included Fanatics, Steiner Sports, and pro skater Paul Rodriguez.

He also hosts “Trendsetters with Jesse Kay,” a podcast focused on sharing practical lessons and stories from some of the best minds on the planet to help inspire young men and women to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. He’s had an amazing slate of past guests such as Mark Cuban, Jack Dorsey, Erika Nardini, Adam Schefter and Gary Vaynerchuk.

This episode covers:

Why an athlete’s popularity is no longer based only on their in-game performance

How Jesse and hundreds of other college students started a non-profit and raised $125,000+ for COVID relief

How to navigate your brand through the rapidly shifting digital landscape

🎧 Listen in by clicking the audio player at the top of this email.

Have a question for Jesse? You can send him a DM on Instagram or text him at 201-298-9171.

🧰Tool of the Week

The best productivity tools have three qualities:

Save Time

Improve Workflow

Low Barrier to Entry

Many great tools fulfill two of the three, but very few check all of the boxes.

Hebbia is one of these few.

Hebbia is an in-page search chrome extension that analyzes long documents and webpages in seconds, understands your questions, and highlights the answers relevant to you.

It’s like if Google and Cmd+F had a baby. A really smart, AI-powered baby that saves you time by reading and finding the answers to your questions. You can test it out here.

Enjoyed today’s edition? Let me know by selecting one of the links below. If you didn’t like it, I’d love to hear why and what you’d like to see to make it more enjoyable.

👍 This newsletter was interesting and taught me something new!

😐 Meh - was ok.

👎 Not interesting to me.

If you’re new here and want to look back on some old editions, check out Alone Together and my interview with Toby Howell from the Morning Brew. You can also follow me on Twitter or check out randymginsburg.com for more writing.

Thanks for reading,

Randy

Subscribe at crashingup.substack.com

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Good Morning. If you've learned anything from Crashing Up this year I’d love it if you shared this with your smartest, most ambitious family and friends.

💄The Rise and (Likely) Fall of Influencer CPG Brands

Let’s play a game. What do all of these brands have in common?

Chamberlain Coffee

Ani Energy

David’s Perfume

Kramoda Coffee

Item Beauty

Morphe 2

Yes, they are all CPG products. But there’s something else here. All of these companies were founded by influencers. (Emma Chamberlain, Bryce Hall & Josh Richards, David Dobrik, Zane Hijazi & Heath Hussar, Addison Re, Charli & Dixie D’amelio, respectively)

In a seismic shift of the CPG industry, influencers are now launching their own products in an effort to steal market share from the leading brands they once used to promote.

In June, Facebook teamed up with Kantar to publish a report on the benefits of influencer marketing. Here are some key takeaways:

Among US makeup shoppers, 44% indicated that creators affect their purchase decisions, with 55% saying that they are more likely to buy a product based on a social media post

60% of global consumers say that they’d follow a brand on Instagram after seeing it promoted by a creator who shares their values and interests

Given the information above, it’s a no-brainer for influencers to leverage their audiences to promote their own products instead of somebody else’s. Not only does this maximize their earning potential, but it also creates optionality.

Many of the savvier influencers recognize that they won’t be this popular forever. Although hard to imagine, platforms like TikTok and Instagram will grow obsolete. Teen heartthrobs will inevitably age and lose a bit of their appeal. The endless firehose of brands looking to throw money at them will eventually run dry.

“You must own equity to gain financial freedom” - Naval Ravikant

Influencers are finally now recognizing the benefit of owning equity over quick money-grabs. Some are asking for equity in place of cash in brand deals, while others are investing in startups directly, bringing their wealth of marketing expertise to cap tables across the country. The most entrepreneurial of the bunch are building a portfolio of investments, while also creating products of their own. Regardless of the approach, the younger generation is buying into the long game.

But there’s one big question that remains… Will these brands stand the test of time?

Yes, right now while the stocks of the personalities behind the brands are high, it’s a smart, easy move. Every teenage girl in America wants to look like the D’amelio’s and Addison Re. They’d probably buy a bag of horse manure if it had Charli’s name on it. But what happens when the dust settles?

The beauty, food, and drink industries are grueling to break into, even with a head start. Without a great product and well-oiled operating team, these brands won’t survive. While low hanging fruit in the short term, building a long term, household name CPG brand is an entirely different story.

I have a feeling that very few of these influencer led ventures will turn into sustainable businesses. The truly entrepreneurial and creative influencers will continue to crank out innovative products to their audiences, while those solely relying on their name as a value add will quickly fizzle out.

My prediction for the winners? David Dobrik and Emma Chamberlain.

🎙️Crashing Up Podcast

Hunter Pomerantz is the former student manager of the Syracuse University basketball team and co-founder of The Players Trunk, a platform that allows former college and professional athletes to sell their team exclusive gear.

🎧 To learn more about the inspiration behind the idea, the implications of sweeping NCAA NIL (name, image, likeness) policy changes, and how The Players Trunk is turning into a one-stop shop for unforgettable fan experiences, click the play button on the audio player at the top of this email.

🧰 Tool of the Week

The audio space is buzzing (no pun intended). Smart devices like Siri and Alexa have become honorary family members and social audio apps like Clubhouse (I have an invite for whoever shares this newsletter with the most people) and Discord are reinventing the way we connect with others over the internet. Now, audio can also help you get in touch with your self.

Wellnest is a journaling app that helps you track your thoughts and moods through voice notes. It provides journal prompts and guided content on a variety of topics to help you when you get stuck.

I’ve only been using it for a few days, but I’m already loving it. It’s easy, fun, and therapeutic.

Want to get started? You can download the app here.

Enjoyed this week’s newsletter? Click one of the links below to tell me how you feel.

👍 This newsletter was interesting and helpful!.

😐 Meh - was ok.

👎 Not interesting to me.

That’s it for this week. If you’re new here and want to catch up on some old editions, here are a couple of my favorites: Alone Together and The Owls and the Larks You can also follow me on Twitter or check out randymginsburg.com for more writing.

Thanks,

Randy

Subscribe at crashingup.substack.com

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🎙️Crashing Up Podcast

Meet Taylor Hurst.

Taylor is a Senior Associate at Konvoy Ventures where he focuses on investing in video gaming technology.

By years end, the 2020 gaming market is expected to bring in over $159 billion dollars from a community of 2.7 billion global gamers. Initial thought of as a lazy hobby, gaming has now transformed into wildly lucrative career. In addition to the gamers and streamers, there are millions of others who work to build the tools and infrastructure necessary to develop, deploy, and market all of the games we know and love.

🎧 To learn more about the increasingly blurred line between real life and virtual games, how marketers can tap into the world esports advertising, and other emerging trends, click the play button on the audio player at the top of this email.

RG: Good morning Crashing Up family and welcome to another edition of the crashing up podcast. Notice how I didn't say Friday Features. That's because since these interviews are now being launched on Monday, the Friday features name does not stick exactly as well. So I will be coming up with a new name, but is still to be determined. So for now, this will be the crashing up podcast, I'm really excited about today's guest.

He's the Senior Associate at Konvoy Ventures, where he focuses on investing in video gaming technology. Gaming is one of the fastest growing most popular spaces and industries right now. And honestly one that I don't know too much about, even though I'm very interested in it. So I'm super excited to dig more and learn about what is going on in that space. So without further ado, I would like to introduce Taylor Hurst. Taylor, thanks a lot for being on. I really appreciate it.

TH: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Randy.

RG: Awesome. So first, I want to know a little bit about yourself. How did you get into the gaming industry and esports and where did that interest come from?

TH: Yeah, so my route isn't isn't very traditional. I actually started in edtech company in college, that was what kind of got me my first experience in the startup world and we went through the ASU startup accelerator there and graduated, our co founder decided that it wasn't going as fast as we expected. So we decided to put on hold, but that was kind of that got my first taste.

Then I went to a typical financial background. I was a Portfolio Manager at a family office in Maryland, actually, where I'm from, and it was, it got to a point where I needed to get back into the startup space, but I wasn't ready to start another company. So I decided to see if I could get into VC, which isn't isn't the easiest career path to just hop into.

So actually decided to quit my job and work tons of internships and see what what different firms or companies would give me the opportunity to just kind of learn and figure out what makes a successful VC. So I actually ended up in Denver working for Rocky's venture Club, which is a funding Angel syndicate in Denver and did their investment analyst program. Then after that ended, I actually went to went through a program in San Francisco, which is where I met Josh, and Jason over to the partners, at Konvoy. So getting into gaming eSports actually was never really the plan, it was something that just to me, that the stars align. And when I heard what they were doing before even raising the first fund was actually I couldn't, I couldn't stop thinking about it, I was I basically was doing work for them.

After after hours on the weekends, sourcing deals for them helping even try to source capital because I wanted to be part of this. And you got to a point where we actually made a joke about it that I know, someone hacked my way into this because they they didn't, they weren't hired anybody at the time. But I basically told them, , I'm not, I'm not looking for a salary, I'm looking to find a career that I enjoy. And the idea of investing in early stage gaming companies and or gaming and eSports coming to the time was something that just started looking that I could do for the rest of my life. So I that program that I was in, in San Francisco ended on a Friday, and they told me that they would give me the shot and I was I was in the office the next Monday morning and now we're on our second fund here.

So it's worked out and it was but it wasn't it was never really a planning in the esports gaming space. I just actually when I when I heard that it was it was possible it was something that I had to do.

RG: Awesome. The idea of just breaking into VC in general like you said is no easy feat. So kudos to you for grinding and doing that. Did you grow up as a gamer?

TH: Yes that was so that this is actually quite like, I I feel like every time I get on the phone my parents again to just catch up it's another day of trying to explain that there's there's a career in this in and that I'm not just playing video games all day anymore because they they bought me and watch me spend time on the 64 and every generation of Xbox and now that I'm telling them that I have the ability to build a career around this it's still one of those things that it's tough for them to grasp but to this day, I'm still an active gamer. I am part of the the the Xbox class that is it is a that is also a hotly debated topic internally about which which access ecosystem is the strongest but I know I'm pretty confident if the Xbox.

RG: I'm an Xbox users myself, so I agree with you. I know Konvoy invests in infrastructure tools, platforms, can you talk a bit more about their investment thesis and some of the trends that you're seeing going on right now?

TH: Yeah. So we, we really want to invest in the foundation of gaming which the future of gaming will be built on. That's, that's really important to us, we, we really believe that you can always want to invest in the next Fortnite. That's, that's what everyone when they when they reach out to us, that's, that's like, the first question is, how do we how do we invest in the next Fortnite, and we always don't, that's actually not what we want to do. So we really want to invest in the infrastructure, the picks and shovels of the market and kind of what the future of gaming will be built on. And that to us, is really interesting. Because there, there's so much that goes into building a game, and there's so much that goes into making a game successful. And picking titles is, is terribly hard to do, you're already going to be competing with the the likes of the triple A studios.

But the thing is, is every even the triple A studios, use third party tools to build these games and and help them become more successful. So we look at it and look at we look at things like like user acquisition, that's a that's an area where we know a majority of the budget for any game is going to go into and we want to, , we would rather say let's, let's figure out how we can help a ton of game developers instead of begging on that one title user, which is a great area for that.

We've also looked at the , the traditional buzzword, typical buzzword of UGC tools, and this is actually something that, , while it is it is buzzword, obviously with the hype around this and Roblox we just we just think this this idea around democratizing development process is going to be something that accelerates gaming to a level, we haven't really seen. Giving gamers and, and anyone I guess the tools to build games, and create the way they want to create is something that were really passionate about every it seems like every year, it just becomes a little bit easier to build what people want to build. And we're excited for what the future is when building seamless and I think discord uses the term. The third place see that as just being in games and that's where people are going to hang out where they're going to experience things. And we want to make to make it easier for people to create within these spaces and hang out with them and hang out in these spaces and build communities. And these things we believe are what was gonna bring gaming to the next the next level of entertainment.

Unknown Speaker 7:50

RG: Yeah, hundred percent. And I know a UGC, user generated content, right?

TH: Yes.

RG: So it's interesting because you talked about UGC and you also talk about customer acquisition. You mentioned Roblox, and you have Among Us, which is picking up like crazy. You have Minecraft who's been popular forever. A lot of these games, the three I mentioned, for the most part have been around for a while, but now they're seeing these crazy spikes in usage. What do you think is the reason for that? Is it COVID? Are their trendsetters within the space, whether it's streamers, or people with influence, who start using it, and everyone else picks up? So I think those three games really encapsulate what you just mentioned, the idea of creating a community bringing people together and having people build their own, with the exception of Among Us building their own worlds inside the game.

TH: I mean, I think COVID accelerated the process, I think it was going to happen. And from a gaming perspective, it was COVID can absolutely be seen as an accelerant. But what is really interesting, we mentioned was the streamer side of this and I also want to bring into the fall guys, which when we were everyone was so engaged in August for what seemed like a a relatively short period of time like 20 days where it was consistently about getting a win.

But that drove so many purchases in the game and more people were playing the game. And that was so streamers have so much influence and among us is a great example of this where the developers are looking to plan on shutting the game down and working to play it and then they are they weren't going to continue to update it. And then it got it was somewhat popular I know in like South Korea, but not popular enough for the for developers to continue to build and update the game but then it became the perfect streamer game, the game where you could see streamers interacting with each other in a way that's not not the same way you would interact in like a Fortnite or, or a WarZone where you’re just playing ateam to get to an objective. Everyone's kind of free for all.

It was Among us that ended up being this fantastic viewing experience for, for anybody who was watching streamers, which then which then made made it a more popular game for people to buy and play with their friends. So, , we're the streamer side of this is super interesting because they became a medium of marketing games that I don't think I only think there's anything even prepared to watching us to replay a game at the highest level makes me want to buy that game, or watching watching all the tumors that I follow playing together makes me want to do that with all my friends. And to me that is it's just something we haven't really seen. I think it was an apex legends really kind of kind of sparked this flame.

But, um, and then on the , on the Roblox side, I think what what they really benefited from was the people that were kind of forced to stay home that the this this younger age group of people whose entire lives have been around. Going to school and seeing their friends every day. Last that Roblox give them the ability to hang out with their friends, again, play and chat and and kind of get the experience of, of community and, and friendship building that they weren't getting anymore at school. So that was , it became the go to area for them, which I think it accelerated it and now it's going to, , we're going to see how how well they can hold those numbers. But I really think now, that's like, that's what those those kids are gonna grow up with is we all hung out in in Roblox, like, just me and my friend, we still play call duty, every son every day to go home and be having Call of Duty. It's like it's natural for us. And so I think, I think that's, that really, really helped. A lot of these a lot of these kids get over the issues of, , being alone.

RG: Yeah, I know, growing up, I put in some serious hours on Minecraft, and I'm not even a huge gamer. I'm honestly terrible at most video games, and I had my COD phase and I played a bit but Minecraft was really the game that I put a ton of time in because I was be able to be on FaceTime or video chat and just with people, and you had the servers where you had the whole community aspect where you can meet people outside of your initial friend group. So yeah, I agree with that. And on the Among Us run, I think one of the beauties of among us is the fact that while Minecraft, and Roblox you can play at any age, there is a strategy aspect of Among Usthat people who the older you are and the more developed your thinking is, you almost have a whole different viewpoint on the game, and I have people from work and Bombas who will like the day will be over, it'll be who wants to play Among Us, because people really love it. So I think like you mentioned, both games really fall into both of those niches. I want to take a step back on to the gaming industry as a whole. I know we talked about streaming we talked about the games and infrastructure Can you break down any other sub industries within this big umbrella of gaming?

TH: Yeah, so I know we did touch on you're going to have like when you look at sub industries, you're going to have the obvious stuff , your developers and publishers who's building the games who's publishing the games on the other side of that is also distribution where you're gonna have , steam which is obviously the dominant player on PC you're gonna have the epic store which is which , they're hoping to kind of shake that space up with with a much more developer friendly revenue share model you're you're gonna have your your engines your your unreal, your unity go dot you're also looking at things in the user acquisition space like app love and tapjoy iron sores these guys and then streaming tools like Twitch and YouTube like these these all became these these very, very valuable sub genres of gaming like people like I mentioned the very beginning everyone would talk about gaming testing, they're like, oh man fortnight made $300 million in a month and but it's there's there's so much that goes into building that and there's so much that goes into making that successful you mean you're gonna even have your social tools like like discord or Teamspeak where people are people are engaging outside of gaming outside of the game itself but still hanging out and talking and enjoying themselves. So this , this this the sub genres just they go on forever. I mean, I can you can even sit here and talk about UDC tools outside of like Roblox and stuff you're looking at, like Garry's Mod or, or mod.io or more verticalized solutions, like, actually two of our portfolio companies like hybrid world or Dorian, where they've, , they've taken to the idea of UGC and you , you look at a specific genre in gaming and build on that and allow people that are passionate about that type of space to build and distribute through the tools you build.

RG: I want to touch base on the streaming aspect because I'm very interested in the esports side, which I feel like those are kind of directly connected in a sense. Um, I hear the saying that influencers are the new athletes on the internet. And I think that eSports athletes in general are really combining the two, they are athletes, and they're on the internet, how do you see brands who might not be traditionally in the gaming space, they now take notice of this, and they try to partner with eSports athletes for marketing, or advertising? or just general partnerships? Have you seen that the massive trend? And what do you think will continue?

TH: Yeah, so this, I always felt like the streaming platforms offer a really scalable solution to marketing. One one brand I always like to bring up that I think is is rarely talked about is cash app. So , you have the obvious one word, , they sponsor hundred thieves. And, , their facility is is sponsored and partially funded mostly by cash app. But what they also do that is extremely underrated as they've, they've kind of hacked the the twitch ecosystem, and they found out that for, , maybe $500, you can, they can donate subs to a streamer, which then puts their their brand at the very top of the chat for weeks at a time I've seen on Tim the tap man on Pokemon. And these, these streamers might have 30,000 to 50,000 concurrent viewers. And cash apps paying $500, which half of that goes to the streamer and half that goes to twitch to be front and center at all times.

That's To me that is it is just wildly valuable. And then you have the value of being you're actually sponsoring a streamer, which then typically goes with you might have a ninja where he has his Red Bull cam behind him at all times. Or, , you have a post mates that that will sponsor a streamer. I know they they sponsored ninja shroud. And I think Pokemon as well, where they're their brand is always front and center on the stream as an overlay. And what makes us really scalable is that every time that a twitch clip is done, or a VOD is created with, with that stream, their brand goes with that, and lives within that video forever. So you may , a ninja can post a video on on YouTube with post mates logo in it, that thing is going to get another two 3 million views on top of them always being visible on on the stream itself. And , that's it's invaluable.

If you actually you it's kind of hard to actually to guess how many views they will get. And you might even you might even have into a viral clip where ninja didn't post it and but somebody took the clip and they posted it on Twitter and then it went viral but Postmates lives or whatever brand what are the brand lives within that, that clip and then you have the the in game side which I think is also really interesting because again, it's very scalable every time that something's clipped or posted somewhere else it follows so you have like a , Louis Vuitton and League of Legends for example, they they have their own custom skin, if any, if any. it's obviously it was it was bought, , they will get a revenue share with that.

But on top of that, every time I click shared or videos posted, I believe a time skin is being being shared or you'll get fortnight in the Marvel Universe combining and it's funny, , you've just they had their their season, the season ending event yesterday. And actually restaurant Matthew ball tweeted it out right before or right before it started that three 3.2 million people roughly were watching on YouTube and Twitch on top of 15 million people in the event itself. So , part of that event was Iron Man talking to you Wolverine jumping on the bus with you. And that's that's going to be posted all over with streamers. We're streaming it so everyone can watch it didn't get into it. Obviously with the 3.2 million people watching and then clips are gonna be made a bit and I have I got to play engaged somewhat with those characters myself. So that's like that that was , it's a great marketing structure in a way to get people engaged in in the Marvel brand and Marvel IP.

RG: Yeah, that's a great point I didn’t even think about what you mentioned with the virality of just all these people who whether it's the streamers themselves sharing it or just fans creating content, how is constantly shared and just really circulating around the internet and you can't really quantify the amount of impressions that you get on something like that. And on the cash app front, I know that they do that a lot with Barstool on the PMT stream. I know Barstool is playing directly into the gaming hype, and they're playing Among Us or Roblox or whatever they're playing and Cash App is a big sponsor for them as well. I'm thinking on the in-world games kind of combining this idea, like you mentioned of how you can have your world inside the game and they're bringing real life things into the game. All the Fortinte concerts, I think those were some of at least the ones that I found the first that really gained mass adoption, where you had people tuning in, like, holy s**t, there's marshmallow or Travis Scott, in your game? Do you think that the concert aspect is something that's going to continue where theres these live events, and you actually are partnering with celebrities?

TH: Yeah, cause then another one was a Lil Nas X did it in Roblox and like this, it's another way there's so much value for the artists there to get to engage fans, they might not typically engage with, , all three of those artists are not really my cup of tea. But I'm absolutely going to go experience that and in the fortnight event, or the, or the Roblox family, that's, and there's tons of people that are going to do that, not everyone's not going to a concert physically. And this does allow people to engage with fans, I typically wouldn't get to engage with and give them an experience and also a concert can give because, , within a game, it's really, , limitless possibilities, , this tribe has got flying around, obviously, it's not happening in a real concert.

And I think there's, there's so much value, to making it even more engaging and more fun. And you get to experience it with your friends in a in a way that's, , more valuable to your, to your friendship because you get to be in a party together all being chat together, that doesn't really happen in a concert, , you're not, you're not talking to your friends or, , flying around a world together and , and laughing and talking about it right after there's and then obviously, there's the , the the sell through model of this where you're part of that concert was Travis Scott's ins and everyone wanted to buy it. And , it came out I think the article came out today around or has been certainly more around today we're gonna Travis got a contract generated $20 million. Not all for not all for Travis Scott. But he also mentioned that he never once went to the epic studio. Like that's That to me is, is crazy.

It's he had to do basically nothing besides sign over his, his brand, and his likeness for concert that generate epic, and him millions of dollars. That is, it is valuable, and I think more people will, will continue to do this. And I think it's just , it's, it just it seems too obvious to to not do when you see how many people are going to these things, were going to talk about this, just step back a second, the 15 million people in the event yesterday, like you can't you're not getting 15 million people in a stadium, it's, it's a way to, it's a way to really get people to, to engage and it's it's a, it's going to become that the FOMO type of feeling where everyone want everyone's gonna want to go to just the experience is going to keep getting better and better, I think we'll see, I think we'll see a lot more of this.

RG: And on the artist side, too. For him, like you said, the mass size and the sheer amount of people viewing is great for even Travis who's one of the biggest artists in the world. But Travis concert tickets are historically incredibly expensive. So for someone who might not be able to afford a $350 ticket, or even $100 ticket, this is really the next best thing. So I think this is a great bridge for people of all demographics, all ages, just any type of fan level that really gives them exposure to whoever the artist or brand is.

TH: So yeah, it's fun. On top of that, too. I know fortnight also did the tenant trailer, where you got to you can watch the tenant trailer there. And , there could also be a future where we're seeing arrays, , a lot of these direct platforms, types of movie releases Disney's obviously doing because they own so much IP and they're able to they're selling it for, , they might sell it for more than movie ticket, but people are going to get the benefit of staying home. But the idea here could also be that you and your friends watch a movie together in in fortnight in a world where every now and then you can start charging for it. One even like one $2 imagine yesterday if you had to pay $1 for that event. And they were able to still reach 50 million people that's a that's a pretty serious return on investment. Right right then and there. So , I really think this is gonna there's gonna be a lot more stuff like this even outside of concerts.

RG: Yeah, definitely. I want to jump now to sort of this same idea. We're talking about the real world and virtual being combined. Now we have eSports and real professional sports being combined to I know the NBA has their 2k league. I'm a big, big Knicks fan. I know the Knicks have their team and MSG has a show that's like a reality TV show around their Esports team. How are you seeing this bridge start to come together between the two worlds? And do you think that soon people will be as big of fans of their Esports teams as they are of their normal team? So it's just an extension of their fandom?

TH: Yeah, this it is interesting, similar to you, I'm a huge Washington sports fan. And , they've they've really leaned into the esports space, , Ted Leonsis is the owner of the caps and wizards he's also a partner with axiomatic and which which is a holding company for Team Liquid and also makes investments in a gaming eSports companies. But I do think this is a great way to start engaging that younger crowd because I think, , there's there's a lot of talk about how how engaged younger generations are in traditional sports, how little these these individuals are also playing sports because I , for me, growing up I played sports, I mean, a sports fan, , I was played basketball, my favorite sport is basketball. And this in creating these, these, these more virtual experiences for people to be fans of allows them to also they kind of, , push their team, , be a be a fan of of the cap scheming, which is the , Washington Capitals, NHL 20 team, and then you be then you kind of sort of learn more about the Washington Capitals. And this creates this, , this a more and more engaged fan to your traditional sports in which right now is much, much higher monetization level for sure. I mean, looking at eSports, which might have a monetization anywhere from one to $4 per fan. And then you're looking at like the NFL alone, it's estimated about $200 per fan.

So like, there's, there's so much, there's so much room to grow here. And at the minimum, you can push those eSports fans to also be a fan of the traditional sports, then you have so much more value from a monetization perspective. So I really think it's going to be a much bigger investment for me. I can't even think like Ronnie James just signed with FaZe clan. Yep. You have. No Josh Hart is really big. No judge her. Does he know that? The pelicans now? Yeah, yeah, he, , he's he invested in play versus I think you've made a couple other investments as well. , you're I think you're gonna get your David Beckham, part of the esports organization is just went public. These these brands are, so are so big already, that they can start to, but they need to find ways to engage and create fans with these younger generations. And I think, going eSports and gaming is a great way to do this.

RG: Yeah. And you even have professional players who it might not be their, their game that relates to their sport, but you have a Vale McGee who's streaming on Twitch, and he has a lot of followers. And I think athletes and gaming always have gotten together. I think you always even back in the day, you used to have ESPN stream, the Madden tournament's on TV. So I think it dates back a while and you're now seeing it fully come to fruition. And then also, I saw one of your portfolio companies ask deals with betting the betting side of it. What is the status of that now? Because I've always for years, me and my friends have sat and done like, oh, why isn't there just an easy platform where I can play someone online and Madden and wager, and there's a middleman and deals with our money? Where is that along the lines of what's going on right now.

TH: So there are tons of of wagering platforms. The, the issue here is, I mean, you have like, one of the most popular ones is Players Lounge. Drake invested in them, they're successful. But the way that works is just they're just a middleman. They're they help you find somebody to play with. But at the end of the day, the the issue with these platforms is that there's manual verification. So I know, I know, some of these companies don't have big issues with it, but it's still , you and I challenge each other through the app. it , beats, we swap gamertags we go play with each other, and go back to the app. We say who won, what the score was in the app distributes the money takes a little bit off the top. But to me that there's so many steps and , I think we're getting to a place where you look at something like maybe skills, who was also recently going public, , making making these more seamless, , having the wagering side be a part of an SDK where it's just , everything, everything is handled for me. And I just, I just keep playing against more and more people. And , the money just as I when they, , API tells him that I won, they gave me the money that that is that is where I do think it's going over the long term. I don't think it'll be able to sustain itself in a manual verification type of world.

But I do think it's, , it's very popular, it's, it's a great way to test your skills. I mean, I, I grew up on game battles, where it was the same thing. It was a, , we were, we were playing, and we had a computer next to us, it would tell us when somebody accepted it, get a message, and we'd all get a private lobby together and play and it was work, but it feels like it hasn't really changed it, , nothing has really, truly innovated since since then. And that, to me is just seems to be lagging behind the rest of the market. But it's also tough. That's the only thing , having access to every game API is not possible. So yeah, we'll see. I think we'll see it start rolling out I think maybe we'll maybe we'll see. companies do it themselves. But it'll it is, it does seem to still be a little bit a little behind the rest of the market

RG: Yeah, definitely. Because I know even when, like you said, there's just way too many steps involved. Like even if I want to find someone random, and we'll message and they'll be like, oh, send me your Venmo. Even if it's not through a standard app, like liar's loans, like you said, if there was just API that did all of the payment transactions seamlessly through that it would be a lot more easier, a lot more enjoyable. And I think a lot more profitable, because I think there are a ton of people are always going to be gambling, and people are always going to be playing video games. So I think it's just a no brainer, once they're able to figure out the regulatory stuff. And like you mentioned the tech side of it, too. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I learned a ton. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Other than that, the floor is yours if you want to plug anything and use your investments portfolio companies convoyed. So yeah,

TH: yeah, well, I really do appreciate you having me on here. Obviously, a busy time, , I enjoy having these conversations. I talk to people all day long. And just just go back and forth and talk about the space of , anybody feel free to reach out to me obviously, we're always looking for early stage startups that are building tools and technology in the space and if anybody is doing that as well. We're always we're always interested to talk and , we typically take every take every single call or any any meeting that we have, we can because I like to learn and I feel like every call I have I learned something so where we were about to launch fun to visually so if anybody wants to reach out to us, feel free.

RG: Awesome. Well I appreciate it, Taylor and that is it for this week. If you like the episode, let me know you can reply to this email. You can click the field letter link in the email, you can shoot me a DM all of the feedback that you give will be used to make this the best that it can be. Thank you and I will see you on Friday.

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🎙️Friday Features

Today’s guest is a writer and social media lead at the Morning Brew, a daily business newsletter with over 2.5 million subscribers. He’s grown his personal Twitter account to over 13,000 followers in less than sixth months by talking about Twitter strategy, building an online audience, and hating on LinkedIn.

Say hello to Toby Howell.

🎧 To learn more about the the writing process behind the Brew, the difference between running a brand Twitter account versus a personal account, and the cold email that landed Toby the job in the first place, click the play button on the audio player at the top of this email.

RG: Good Morning Crashing Up family and welcome to another episode of Friday features. If you're new here over the course of each week I interview some of the smartest, most innovative minds I can find. And we'll share our conversations with you here every Friday. I'm really excited for this week's guest. He's a writer and social media lead at the morning brew of business newsletter with over two and a half million subscribers. He's grown his personal Twitter account to over 13,000 followers in less than six months by talking about Twitter strategy, building an online audience and most importantly, hitting on LinkedIn. And I'm a huge brew fan. I know I've been a longtime reader, I think a lot of other listeners are as well. So with that, with that being said, I'd like to introduce it, Toby Howell. Toby, thanks for taking the time really excited to dig into this with you.

TH: Yeah, very excited to dig into the nuances of hating on LinkedIn.

RG: So to start, can you just walk me through a bit how you ended up at the brew, I know you are a writer, and you started as a writer, so just walk you through that?

TH: Yeah, so I have a bit of an interesting path to the brew. right out of college, I graduated 2019. I was working in Portland, Maine, pretty dead end, like I was working at a sports marketing firm, but was with two other guys was getting paid on the table, like really, really not exactly launching the career at a at a great spot. But then I discovered the brew, and I knew that my writing style kind of like mirrored their writing style, and basically just kind of sat there trying to find a way in to the brew. And the way in that I finally found was was sending a cold email to Alex and Austin, the two co founders, pitching them a new product idea. It was called sports brew. And yeah, basically said, like, you guys should be in the sports vertical, which is something that they had obviously already thought about. But then they said, Alright, we'll hear you out. And so then I wrote them a full sports brew, they said, we're not going to do a sports group of maybe you should interview for the for the writer role, wrote them a few more newsletters to look at. And then eventually, in the span of about a month went from not knowing anyone to bring into having a job at the brew. And then from there, once I once I actually started writing, about a month into my tenure, I also took over the social media, because our previous social media person left and again, no prior experience, but just asked for that literally asked for the passwords, and said like, Hey, I have some ideas. Do you mind if I like get those passwords and credit to them? They they just turned him over to me a month and a half into my into my role? And yeah, it's just kind of grown from there. And yeah, and my personal account has also grown just from basically me sharing all the stuff I try out on the broom account. And so yeah, it's been it's pretty crazy trajectory that started in Portland, Maine. And now we're here. Yeah, that's awesome. And you always hear like, the benefit of a startup is you get kinda to wear so many different hats, and you get to put your hands in a lot of different projects.

RG: I’ve seen that with Bombas a bit too but it's still a larger company. So with that the ability that you've had to just kind of like grow your following and build a name for yourself as a social media person is invaluable.

TH: Yeah, absolutely. No, it is a credit to like the brew as as just like a company that, like there's no reason that I should have been able to step into that role. But they're just like, hey, yeah, if you if you're confident about it, go for it. It's amazing.

RG: So I want to start at the writing piece, because that's initially what you came on to do. I've always been curious, can you walk me through a bit of the writing process that goes on behind the scenes, the newsletter, so I know you have multiple contributors? Somehow you all manage to have the same conversational funny tone? How do you decide who covers what's topics, make sure it all flows, etc.

TH: It's I was also surprised about because I asked the same question when I interviewed him, like, how do you guys do it? And it's, it's, it's a lot more free flowing than you might think. So from the first part of the day, all of us are just kind of in the new cycle, just looking around. So we have, we have three full time writers and then like a full time managing editor, and that's Neil. And we kind of rotate through on days. So I write Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we get like, paired up with other writers. And so the the early part of the day until about even like noon to one, we're just reading the news and just kind of getting a sense of what the biggest stories of the day are. Um, and we have a Slack channel that we just throw ideas in called daily stories of just yeah, stories we think are interesting to cover. Some days. It's just like very, very clear what the top story is going to be and then some days, it's just, it's it's more of a grind and you have to kind of dig deeper. But so then right around right around noon I'd say usually stories have bubbled up. And then the writer say like, hey, I want to, I want to grab tik tok, and I want to grab whatever the the antitrust hearings, and then we'll go and run, we'll just everyone will go away, get into their little writing hole, crank out a piece and then we actually toss them in a Google Doc, like every single Bruce starts as a Google Doc, every morning. And then once every story is in, Neil, the editor will come look at them. Literally just comment on the Google Doc any tweaks he has. Um, and then after that, there's a fact checking around that we used to do all ourselves, we used to do like all the edits, in fact, checking ourselves. But now we have a freelancer comes in her name is Holly, she, she's a wonderful woman. She comes in reads, it all does a fact checks. And those are like the name statistics. Like any numbers, I'm just like, making sure that everything is factual. And then from there, we take it into like our newsletter system that kind of converts it into the newsletter that you're gonna see. And then we send emails to ourselves. So as like a final step, to like, read through it, make sure everything looks okay. And sometimes, and then we make any changes, send another test email, send another test email, and that and then we set the newsletter around like 630 in the evening, and then do it all again the next day. So are you on deadline, you said 630 is kind of your cutoff point. So I mean, our only deadline is we have to get it out by 6am the next day. And so like during the election cycle, um, Neil was waking up at 6am, making sure that nothing had like changed overnight. Like we didn't want to have to send an email out and like they had,like a president was was decided at midnight. And so like, technically, we can work all the way up until 6am. When we need to send it there is no hard and set deadline. Oh, we usually finish around 630 in the evening. Yeah. So on the days that you are writing, how have you found to balance the kind of Twitter role as well, because that's something that you really need to be quick on your feet with you got to be thinking like, right when people post or write when news breaks, you got to be on top of it. Yeah, I mean, that's why I said we embed ourselves in the new cycle. And like, the new cycle happens on Twitter, too. So like, I'm pretty much on Twitter all day, like we all are. And yeah, and then it's just a matter of reacting. Yeah, like you said, in real time to developing stories. Um, but yeah, it helps to that our whole company is very, like very much Twitter savvy and on Twitter, so like, people are always throwing ideas into our social media, Slack channel. And just riffing and deciding like, Oh, my God, Nicola earnings are out, like, what should we do? So yeah, it's just, it's just the jobs kind of like, mesh nicely together, because researching news for the actual writing helps the social media side of things as well. So yeah, they're pretty correlated.

RG: Totally. On the Twitter front you came in no social media experience, just ask them to fork over the passwords. You kind of have this blank canvas now where they gave you the creative control. What did you do when you started? What was your mindset? What were you trying out? And how is that evolved?

TH: Yeah, so my mindset was, I had said in my interview process that I think that the blue Twitter could be like better because before it was, it was a lot of it was just kind of regurgitating stuff that was in the newsletter and just like taking a fun fact and putting it on the Twitter account. But like in doing so, what it doesn't really give any people any incentive to follow you because they just saw it in the newsletter. So I kind of had this much snarky or much more like finance twittery voice for the morning brew account that I had brought up multiple times in my interview and so then when it like it was like Showtime I just tried to convey the voice or like the image of the Twitter account that I had in my mind and yeah, people just initially people like really went nuts when the when they was like clear the morning room voices change because there's something about seeing like, a verified like news outlet just like talking like a normal person and, and like shooting the s**t with people that like really got people taken aback at first. So yeah, we enjoyed like this really huge, like initial follower follower jump. Um, and yeah, since then, it's just been honestly trying to step into more of like a real social media role.

In the end, everything was fine. I was just experimenting. But now like I'm trying to figure out, alright, what are we trying to do on social media? Like what are we trying to do across multiple platforms like? So it's it's been an evolution for me personally, of going just from experimenting phase to like actually trying to take it to the next level

RG: Have you found because I think your personal account kind of carries the same voice? Do you find that you need to maybe turn like sensor down your personal voice on the brand account or confusing the two? Or do you think it just flows seamlessly over?

TH: It does kind of flow seamlessly, which, which is great because like I write the newsletter also write tweets. And like, I'm just very much I'm just like, very in tune with, like the brew voice across all platforms. And so like, it's very lucky for me that Yeah, the brew voice is kind of my voice. And I mean, Neil also tweets a lot from the from the brew account. And, yeah, so I think that the only toning down I would do is, yeah, I mean, just try to stay like the brew count, try to stay out of like politics as much as we can.

Yeah, there's not, there's not like a whole lot of toning down, which is, which is really nice. Because like, I don't feel scared to post on the account, either. Because it's like, it feels like posting on my account at this point. Um, so yeah, that's a good question. But there's not a whole lot of toning down, I would say, yeah. Now, that's great. And the fact that you've been, you have a couple people running the account, and at least from an outside perspective, and I see I'd say a good chunk of your tweets, I would have no idea that it's not the same person. Right. So it's pretty, pretty cool. If you want a little insider tip, Neil, just got a Google phone like the pixel. So if you ever see it from Twitter from Android, that was something Nielsen, and then I'm like, Twitter, from web, Twitter from iPhones.

RG: Noted, insider tip. You heard it here first. So growth strategy… can you walk us through some of the things you've seen that worked on the brand side and the personal side and some things that you might have thought were great for brand you tried on your personal on that ended up as duds?

TH: Yeah, that's interesting. So I think I'll start with personal. The number one growth tactic for personal account is like Twitter threads, like that is where I've gotten, I'd say like, 99% of my growth. Um, yeah, my first like, initial follower bump on my personal was, I posted like a thread of things I had learned running the morning brew account, and that like netted me 4000 followers and like, one day, and I was like, whoa, whoa, because I yeah, I went from like, literally, like 400 followers to 4000. And I was like, okay, so like, Twitter threads, like, holy crap. So I I've definitely, and then from there on, yeah, like, I've done a thread on cold emails and a thread on Twitter threads. And every time you post a thread, like you're gonna net, so an exit amount of followers. So yeah, Twitter threads are just like, the number one growth mechanism for my personal account. But then on. So I thought, all right, let's do some threads on the brute count. Like let's see how it goes. But it just is not the same.

Because like, as personable and as like relatable the brew account is it's still not a person. And like people just trust people more on on social media to give them like actionable advice, then, like faceless brand account, which, which is tough. And I do think that there is there is an opportunity for the brew to post threads and have them drive the same amount of follower growth. But yeah, that was something was very surprising to me that like you would think that like a fun business newsletter writing a thread about like, how to interpret like, the market data, like that would be really well but again, since it's like faceless, it just doesn't it doesn't quite pop off as much as your personal account.

RG: Would you think that that's because you've given like, if you started before you jumped on and it was like kind of regurgitating stuff from the newsletter and you did a thread in that format. Do you think that would be effective or because you kind of gave it this fun playful voice that now people are used to that and you're going to going back on what it was?

TH: No, well, I mean, the threads are trying to capture the same voice so it's not like the threads are dry enough. It's just that unfortunately like the brew is faceless like, um, and I was talking with I don't know if you follow like good marketing examples like Harry, Harry's marketing examples, she like debated between. The name was good marketing examples and he debated like, for a long time on whether to change to Harry's marketing examples, because yeah, he was facing the same thing. It's like people trust people. I'm like, I've built this great brand, but I want to tie it back to. And like, I honestly was advocating against it, because I'm like, no people love the authority of like, good marketing examples. You built up all this authority, but eventually he did change it. And I think it's worked out for him. Because Yeah, just like, people connect with people more than than brands. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

RG: So on the growth side from the brand account, what have you seen that's worked there that hasn't translated over the personal side?

TH: Yeah, for the brand. I mean, we've had a couple of tweets go pretty viral. And like they've they've honestly kind of run the gamut like some of them are just like clips on on like videos funny videos ago around some of them are like, like legit memes that have grown. And I think that from from like the brand account you can have, like it's it's, I've tried to post like some some memes I don't think that we're going to make it are going to like do on the brand account all I try to post them on my own personal account. And like, it's just not that funny when it's coming from a person. It's kind of like the it's the same thing in reverse where like no one wants to see like, Toby's means because like I'm not known for that and like it's just kind of like falls flat. But means coming from again that like faceless, verified like news outlet brand account, like it just that makes it that much more more funny. It's like when any brand account like from Netflix or Wendy's or Xbox tweets in like a self aware way or like tweets out something funny like that just really strikes people because you're like, Oh my gosh, like this brand is like oh my god, they're so hip and self aware. So I think that impact hits much better on the brand account versus my personal account.

RG: Yeah, I agree. I mean, like you said, with the Wendy's stuff and Xbox anytime I see a brand kind of personify themselves and kind of talking about first or even third person but make it seem like they have emotions and feelings it definitely Right. Exactly. Yeah, you hit it spot on. So I know you often like will comment on Elon Musk like right when he posts I'm assuming you guys have notifications on or you're just on top of it. I saw you stirred the pot with tornado and barstool. What came from that? Did you have any kind of nerves going into it? Because obviously you've seen them meme the hell out of everyone and like they have a pretty ravenous fanbase.

TH: Yeah, that was a crazy. That was a crazy day because I had actually, I mean, obviously in quarantine, like Dave had gotten way until like the finance side Twitter. So like, it had been a goal for a long time to like, yeah, like poke the bear basically, like get under his skin because like, yeah, cuz like, I knew that. It's ravenous, like everything, it would just spiral into this, this really big thing. So I would just every once while just keep poking them with with like, a shot, like a job here and there. And then yeah, finally, I was literally just like, in my, in my basement, like, got retweeted and like it was on and like the whole like, I had both Alex and Austin like, like, texted me like, careful, like, what, like, what are you doing? And I'm like, No, this is good guys. Like, this is what we were looking for. And And so yeah, it was definitely dicey. But, like one, I'm familiar with Barstool and like I know how they operate. So I kind of knew how to leverage it. And then but I also wanted to, like, represent the brew well, like, again, I care a lot about like the brew ban. So like, I'm not going to do anything that is gonna, like jeopardize our whole vision. But yeah, it also totally worked for what I was trying to do. Like, we gained like 3000 followers in a day. Like it was it was exactly everything that I thought would happen did end up happening from a growth perspective. So yeah, that was like definitely intentional. I've been trying to do that for a long time. It was nerve racking. But yeah, just just operated within what like, how I thought we should and we got like, three or four tweets out of them, which is which is like huge, so yeah, I don't think you got actually coming after you either. So I think that's a win. There's a funny story too. I posted a thread on my personal account about like, David started a podcast with like a tech talker I saw like scented pop and I basically said like, Dave's like sucks. And he in the next podcast, I see him I call this out again. He's like, these freak these like, folks from morning brew, like who they think they are and like, Dan like so. So eventually something great is gonna come out of this. I don't know what it's gonna be. But yeah, kind of kind of a surreal moment.

RG: Yeah, and it's pretty funny because he's such a figure that takes so much backlash that the amount of like s**t he gets for yours to kind of stick through and trigger it enough where he like remembers him and references it again like, yeah,

TH: yeah, no, it's true. It's a it's a weird world.

RG: Totally. So on the social media front in general, I know email wise your big KPIs really unique opens. Right. So what are your bigger KPIs for social?

TH: That's something that we've had a lot of conversations about, actually. Because we're not a traditional news outlet whereI've talked to people like you talked people at BuzzFeed, their KPI is let's drive traffic, like we got to get so and so millions of hits to traffic. So like, that's all social media is is trying to get traffic to their website. But for us, like, I'm very much unburdened by any of those, like traditional, like, I don't need to drive traffic to our website. I don't even really need to drive signups because I, like it's social media has proven that like, not a lot of people sign up from Twitter or from from Instagram, unless it comes from what someone that you know, sharing their referral link.

But like I'm very much unburdened by any traditional KPI so it's, it really is like, a voice to play, like letting people connect with voice on Twitter. So then hopefully, they go and subscribe. Um, yeah, and then like an audience building perspective, like community building, that's probably like, the next step for me is like, the morning brew has the potential to create, recreate, like, inside jokes, every, like people feel like they understand, like we referenced fairly oddparents this morning, and people are like, Oh, I know, fairly oddparents. And so like those moments where you really connect with the brew, I want to try to bring them on to social more until, like, it feels very much like the brew is like this community that it's almost, I have you have you seen far guys like that Twitter account. Like, they're so good at creating like these inside jokes that their audience can connect with. And it's just like this very, very active and engaged community. And I think we still have like room to improve on that front. That's probably like the next step for the bootcamp.

RG: Definitely. Then for your own personal account, I know the whole idea, you build the audience. And once you have the audience to eventually try to monetize a lot of people go through the course route, the kind of build once, twice, I saw you tweeted about potentially launching this course. Can you give a little insight on where you're headed with that?

TH: Yeah, so actually, so I've been really nervous about Yeah, like, go in the courtroom. Because one, like, I think so many, it just comes across, it's just like, really, I don't know how to say it, but just like inauthentic and like, like the, like the money Twitter side of Twitter, like, I really don't vibe with with like, how they like four left, three left to left, like, yeah, so like, I don't want to ever get into that territory. Um, but so going back to the audio course, I was approached by there's like the startup called knowable, and they help, they like work with creators to create on audio courses, and they're like, an hour long, they'll help you with, like, the production, the, like marketing side of it, and the distribution. And so for me, like, this is a really good way to just like dip my toe in the water without like, diving in fully. I'll have like, support, I'll have like guidance on how to do it. And I hopefully it's not going to come across as like, like course chilling or anything like that. Um, because yeah, like, it's something that I do want to pursue, but I just want to do it in like, a, an authentic way. So yeah, this is this is like my first step, the course is going to be about writing Twitter threads and how to use Twitter threads to grow your following. So it's something that I feel like it's very much in my wheelhouse to so I feel like comfortable and confident like doing a course about it. So that helps with like the imposter syndrome II side of it. Um, and so yeah, like, I'm super excited for it. I've never done any sort of like audio product or like any podcast, so it should be interesting to see how that goes. But I'm excited and hopefully this like, opens opens my eyes to like, being able to sell, sell, sell something online.

RG: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think we've known about the power of audiences now for years, but I think for whatever reason, in the last year or two weeks really started to see how like, anyone can build this audience and how powerful it actually is. And just like optionality and being able to launch a course to get new news to do whatever else you want to do so I think that's a great next step.

TH: Yeah.

RG: All right. Well, I appreciate you taking the time. This was awesome. I learned a ton. I'm sure everyone else did as well. If you want to plug anything you got going on whether it's the brew account, your personal account the course Go for it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, always follow the brew at morning brew on Twitter and Instagram. Subscribe, if you haven't yet. And then yeah, be on the lookout for this noble course coming and I think it's gonna be in about two weeks. It's whenever I get it done, basically, but be on the lookout for the noble course. All right, sounds good. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you again, Toby. If you liked this episode, please let me know you can shoot me a DM on Twitter. You can click the feed letter link in the newsletter, you can shoot me an email. All of this feedback is greatly appreciated and will be used to make future editions the best that it could be. Thank you again and have a great weekend.

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Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork

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Welcome to all of the new Crashing Up family members who’ve joined since Monday. If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, what’re you waiting for? Sign up below.

Hi friends,

Back again with your weekly shot of Friday Fuel, a collection of things that I’ve been learning from or enjoying recently.

🎙️Friday Features

Today’s guest is a good friend of mine and a fellow member of the Crashing Up family. He is the Founder and CEO of MilesAhead, a luxury hospitality company. A recent graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration (‘19), he was named one of Travel + Leisure’s International Rising Stars in 2017 and was one of Virtuoso’s Rising Star candidates for 2019. In a short amount of time he’s made a name for himself as a go-to figure in the travel industry and has grown MilesAhead into a multimillion-dollar company.

Say hello to Rob Karp.

🎧 To listen to us chat about navigating a business through COVID, the future of business travel and why now is actually the best time to own a travel rewards card, click the play button on the audio player at the top of this email.

…and whenever you do fly next, make sure to book your trip with MilesAhead. Trust me, you’ll be in good hands.

If you found this conversation interesting, I’d love it if you shared with a friend!

📕What I’ve Been Reading: So far, every guest I’ve interviewed on Friday Features has been under the age of the thirty. While I don’t intend to only focus on young change makers, this has been intentional up until this point. In all industries, but specifically tech, age is no longer a barrier to entry or success. For Generation Z (depends on who you ask, but for this case we’ll say born in ‘95 or later) we’ve grown up in the digital age and it’s all we know. This is a massive advantage, especially in early-stage tech where investors’ jobs are to bet on emerging trends.

Early-stage Gen Z investor Meagan Loyst spent time chatting with 71 young investors working in venture capital and growth equity, at accelerators/incubators, student-run VCs, and as angel investors — all aged ~18 to 25 years old. In this article she shares her findings, gathering data on their favorite brands and the emerging trends they have their eyes on. The top four trends? Prosumer / Consumerization of Enterprise Software, Social Gaming, EdTech, and the Creator Economy. If you’re interested in where the tech world is headed, take notes.

📺What I’ve Been Watching: I saw an interesting quote from David Perell that said, “A shocking number of the best entrepreneurs I know ran illegal businesses when they were kids.” This immediately made me think of Coss Marte.

I learned about his full story from this Vice Documentary. After running a cross-state, multimillion-dollar drug empire as a teenager, Coss was arrested and locked up for seven years. Upon his release, he founded ConBody, a prison-style bodyweight bootcamp that has found massive success.

The best part? He only hires those who’ve been previously incarcerated. Even cooler? Zero of his employees have been reincarcerated.

This story has quickly become one of my favorites to share as it proves that not all criminals are bad people and furthermore, that David’s idea has legs.

🤯What’s Blown My Mind: After listening to Peloton founder and CEO John Foley’s appearance on How I Built This, I’m even more impressed. To think that he started this all with little to no fitness or tech knowledge and an initial prototype of an iPad connected to a spin bike...

🧵A Thread I’ve Enjoyed: There is a massive difference between being a great writer and a great copywriter. Copywriting is a delicate process, like baking a cake. The same way too much of one ingredient can spoil the entire recipe, an addition or removal of one word can drastically change your conversion rate. The best copy is concise and sells the customer on why they need your product or service. While examples of good copy are everywhere, great ones are hard to come by. This thread gives an inside look into the latter.

🎤A Quote I Enjoyed - “The smartest person in the room is usually the person who knows how to tap in to the intelligence of every person in the room.” - Scott Kelly

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If you’re new here and want to catch up on some old editions, here are a couple of my favorites: The WATZ Stack and When In Roam. You can also follow me on Twitter or check out randymginsburg.com for more writing.

Thanks for reading and see you on Monday,

Randy

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This week I sat down with the founding team of OthersideAI, Matt Shumer, Jason Kuperberg and Miles Feldstein. OthersideAI is a company using high-level artificial intelligence to help you spend less time on your inbox and more time on the things that matter. If this sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve shared one of the demos in an earlier edition of Friday Fuel.

If you haven’t heard of them, take a look at this GIF. It’s magic.

In just over three months they’ve garnered over a million views of their demos, generated a waitlist with over 8,000 people, been featured in press such as the New York Times, Fortune, and Wired, and have raised capital from a slew of top VCs and angels.

🎧 If you want to listen to us chat about the future of communication tools, artificial intelligence, hyper growth and and first-time fundraising, click the play button of the audio player the top of this email.

Want to test it out? You can sign up for their waitlist here.

Enjoyed this episode? Let me know by shooting me an email at randy@randymginsburg.com or DMing me on Twitter.

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🎙️Friday Features

Today’s guest has built a following sharing his wisdom on mental models and productivity. When he’s not working towards his degree at Columbia University, he’s working to help expand the Visualize Value brand and hosts The Student Mindset Podcast where he interviews amazing guests like Anthony Pompliano, James Clear, and many more.

Without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Brandon Zhang.

🎧 If you want to listen to us chat about the secret to successful online communities, mental models, and mindful productivity, click play on the audio player at the top of this email.

You can also check out more of his writing and interviews on his personal website. If you want to sign up for a Visualize Value course or join the community, click here.

Enjoyed this episode? Let me know your thoughts by replying to this email or shooting me a DM. I’ll use these insights to decide on future guests. You can share this episode by clicking the button below. To see the rest of today’s newsletter, click here.

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🎙️Friday Features

For the last three and a half years, today’s guest has been sharing reading tips on the internet and inspiring people to pick up more books. He has over 70,000 followers across his social media platforms and also hosts The Reader's Journey podcast where he interviews amazing authors such as Morgan Housel, James Altucher, and many more.

Without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Alex Wieckowski, better known as Alex and Books.

🎧 If you want to listen to us chat about reading strategies, productivity hacks, and building an audience around your passion, click the audio player at the top of this email.

You can also check out more of his writing and interviews here.

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🎙️Friday Features

If you’re new here, every Friday I’ll be sharing my conversations with some of the smartest, most innovative minds I can find.

Today’s guest hails from London, UK. He’s the founder of Syncify, a social podcasting app that enables users to listen to their favorite podcasts and audiobooks with their friends. He’s also the host of the Growth Mindset Podcast, where he interviews incredible individuals all over the globe, sharing their insights and lessons on how their mindset has helped them live fulfilling lives.

Here’s my conversation with Sam Harris.

Your feedback is important! Please let me know what you thought of this episode. I’ll use these insights to decide on future guests.

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Hi friends,

Here’s your weekly fix of Friday Fuel, a collection of things that I’ve been learning from or enjoying recently.

🎙️Friday Features

If you’re new here, every Friday I’ll be sharing my conversations with some of the smartest, most innovative minds I can find.

Today’s guest is an Investment Associate at Chapter One, a venture fund investing in early-stage tech companies. She’s also an incredible writer whose essays on curation and exclusivity have been shared in past editions of Friday Fuel. But perhaps the most impressive part about her, is that she does all this while still being a student at Stanford University.

Here’s my conversation with Gaby Goldberg:

To listen, click the play button on the audio player at the top of the email.

Your feedback is important! Please let me know what you thought of this episode. I’ll use these insights to decide on future guests.

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If you liked what you heard, please consider sharing with some of your smartest, most curious friends, family, and co-workers. I have so many exciting things in the pipeline and want to build this community to be as strong as possible.

📕What I’ve Been Reading - Have you ever found yourself thirsty in a high foot traffic location and thinking to yourself why isn’t there a vending machine here? I had this thought a few weeks ago after I hiked to the top of a mountain in Lake George and had unfortunately forgotten my water bottle in the car. This prompted me to dig deeper into the business of vending machines, where I stumbled upon an amazing article on the Hustle. Titled “The economics of vending machines,” journalist Zachary Crockett shares insights he collected from 20+ independent vending machine operators.

Here’s a quick glimpse of the market:

Of these 5m US-based vending machines, ~2m are currently in operation, collectively bringing in $7.4B in annual revenue for those who own them. This means that the average American adult spends ~$35 per year on vending machine items.

What makes the vending industry truly unique is its stratification: The landscape is composed of thousands of small-time independent operators — and no single entity owns >5% of the market.

Further in the article you can find a variety of charts with data on location, inventory and unit economics. If you prefer consuming your vending machine business content through video, I’d suggest watching some of Jaime Ibanez’s YouTube channel. He runs a 35 machine operation and documents the entire journey to his 362k subscribers.

Spoiler: He makes more money off YouTube than his machines.

Pretty wild.

🎧What I’ve Been Listening To - Sahil Lavingia is a founder, investor, and creator all rolled into one. A very talented early iPhone app developer, Sahil was recruited as a teenager to be one of the first employees at a small company called Pinterest. He went on to build its mobile app and play an integral role in its growth. He then went on to build Gumroad, a platform for creators to sell their work online. Its simplicity and ease of use has garnered attention from creatives all over the world who have contributed to the $10 million of revenue it brought in last year. He has also been one of the first people to launch a rolling fund, a new venture fund structure that has taken the industry by storm.

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, Harry Stebbings sits down with Sahil to talk about his entrepreneurial journey and the current state of venture capital. I really enjoyed this episode because it dives into the dark side of entrepreneurship. At some of his lowest points, Sahil experienced years of failure, depression, and anxiety. Hearing this side of the story from someone so successful was very refreshing and made me respect him even more.

🤯What’s Blown My Mind -

In past editions of Friday Fuel, I’ve shared images and emails from the early days of multiple billion dollar companies such as Shopify and Airbnb. Now it’s time for Spotify. Here’s Spotify’s website when it launched on October 7th, 2008.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Bill Gates who said:

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Twelve years later and Spotify is available in 92 countries and has revolutionized the music industry. In 2019, it brought in over $7 billion of revenue, marking the first year that the company turned a profit.

Much of this success can be attributed to the unique leadership style of CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek, a Swedish native who initially found the company in 2006. On Sunday, Sriram Krishnan published an in-depth interview with Daniel where he shares more about his unique morning routine, attitude towards goal setting, and decision making style.

🧵A Thread I’ve Enjoyed -

Part of the magic of entrepreneurship is that no two founders’ journeys are the same. No matter what industry or type of business you’re building, adversity and hardship are inevitable. Resilience is crucial for success. This thread illustrates just that. Immigrant, no money, no connections. Just intelligence, hustle, and heart. We often only hear the unicorn success tales, but in my opinion early stories like Kesava’s are even more impressive and inspiring. I promise this story is worth reading.

Enjoyed today’s newsletter? Let me know by clicking one of the three links below. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

👍 This newsletter helped me. Thanks.

😐 Meh - was ok.

👎 Not interesting to me.

If you’re new here and want to catch up on some old editions, here are a couple of my favorites: Cash is King and Friday Fuel - August 14th, 2020. If you were forwarded this email and haven’t subscribed, make sure to do so here.

You can also follow me on Twitter or check out randymginsburg.com for more writing.

Thanks for reading,

Randy

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Welcome to all of the new Crashing Up family members who’ve joined since last Friday. With September in the books, I’m happy to announce a fourth consecutive month of double-digit growth!

If you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed, make sure to do so here.

Hi friends,

Here’s your weekly boost of Friday Fuel, a collection of things that I’ve been learning from or enjoying recently.

🎙️Friday Features

On Monday, I announced that I would be launching a new segment of the newsletter called Friday Features. In case you missed it, each week I’ll be interviewing some of the smartest, most innovative minds I can find and will share our conversations with you every Friday.

This is something I’ve been planning out for a while and I’m so excited to finally share it with you all.

You may have read about today’s guest in a previous edition of Crashing Up. He is the founder of Forward Thinking City, a virtual start up city aiming to recreate the serendipity of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Bay Area. He’s also the host of Forward Thinking Founders podcast, where he’s interviewed hundreds of founders of pre-seed and seed stage companies from all over the world.

Without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Mat Sherman.

To listen to the conversation, click the play button on the audio player at the top of the email.

Here’s where you can help: I need your feedback! What did you think of the episode? What do you want to hear more of? If there’s someone you’d like to hear from or you think would be a good fit for the segment, please let me know. Reply to this email, shoot me a DM, or leave a comment on this thread. Whatever and whoever it is, I will try my best to make it a reality.

📕What I’ve Been Reading - Risk and entrepreneurship go hand in hand. We often hear that it’s important to take risks early on in your career. While this is true, this is only part of the equation.

In this article, investor and entrepreneur Erik Torenberg shares his favorite piece of career advice: Take asymmetric bets.

Here’s his assertion:

In short, I think the mistake we make is not understanding that taking more risk, when the benefits are asymmetric, often creates more optionality.

Consider starting a company for example—the bigger risk is not that you fail, it’s that, if you don’t start enough companies, you don’t get enough actual shots on goal to actually create a big company.

After reading this, my interpretation and attitude towards risk completely shifted. The article is a must-read for everyone regardless of your field of work or professional goals. I’d highly recommend giving it a look.

🎧What I’ve Been Listening To -

Influencers have now effectively become the “athletes of the internet” and larger media companies are starting to take notice. This week, tech employee, turned investor, turned internet media star Anthony Pompliano aka “Pomp” teamed up with TikTok-er Bryce Hall to launch Capital University, a podcast dedicated to helping creators turn their income into generational wealth. Dave Portnoy also teased a podcast with famous TikTok creator and Triller Chief Strategy Officer, Josh Richards.

These are both brilliant moves as people like Pomp and Dave succeed in reaching the younger TikTok demographic, while stars like Bryce and Josh are able to continue to balloon their careers off of the platform. Bryce and Josh have both publicly declared their commitment to using their influence to build generational wealth through entrepreneurship and angel investing, so picking up some tips through Capital University seems like a perfect next step.

Only a few hours after its launch, Capital University sits as the number one business podcast in the country. Yesterday, the tandem released their second episode with Mark Cuban. I haven’t gotten a chance to listen yet, but you already know I’ll be tuning in.

🤯What’s Blown My Mind -

In 2012, Turner Sports purchased Bleacher Report, now a sports media staple, for between $175 and $200 million. Here’s a tweet from Bleacher Report’s founder breaking down the hyper-growth that the company experienced.

After the the first year of bootstrapping, the company raised a $1.5 million round of funding from a group of (now very happy) angel investors in year two. That’s some serious ROI.

🧵A Thread I’ve Enjoyed -

Sometimes it’s hard to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they love you, they might not be as interested in your work as you are. At first, I thought it was personal and took their disinterest to heart. It wasn’t until recently that I realized how common this is amongst solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and creators. This is normal.

If you’ve ever had a dream of building something of your own, click into this thread.

It’s an important lesson to learn.

Enjoyed today’s newsletter? You can share it with your brightest and most curious friends, family, and co-workers. Crashing Up has been grow rapidly over the last few months and I want to keep the momentum going.

If you’re new here and want to catch up on some old editions, here are a couple of my favorites: The Grand Reopening and A Whole Lot of Socks You can also follow me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading and see you on Monday,

Randy

Subscribe at crashingup.substack.com

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Randy Ginsburg