Alex Lieberman

Hiring never gets easier.

Morning Brew will hire 20 people by the end of 2020.

That is a ton of people.

And we must make sure we don't commit the cardinal sin of hiring: Being impatient and rushing the process.

Whenever we’ve messed up a hire, it’s because we rushed.

Finding unicorns takes time. 🦄

2016: “Newsletters are dead”
2017: “Advertising is dead”
2018: “B2B is dead”
2019: “There’s a ceiling on growth”
2020: “Why podcasts?”
2021: “Can’t become a media co”
2022:

It's official.

Morning Brew acquired Our Future, a digital media company & short-form agency.

- 1bn views & 1m followers since 2021
- Creates TikTok content for big brands like HubSpot, StartEngine, etc
- Michigan alumni acquired by Michigan alumni

☕️🚀

Fundamentals of Poker should be a required class at every business school.

- You learn statistics IRL
- You learn how to weigh risk / reward
- You get a crash course in human behavior
- You learn how to act when $ is on the line

Today's $200k question:

Is an MBA worth it?

Hit the LIKE (👍) if you believe it is.

Hit the THINKING FACE (🤔) if you don't.

Share any caveats or additional color in the comments ⬇️⬇️

A boy asked his bitcoin-investing dad for 1 bitcoin for his birthday.

Dad: What? $15,554??? $14,354 is a lot of money! What do you need $16,782 for anyway?

via @cryptomanran

Wow.

What a journey this has been.

If I didn't spend the entirety of this post thanking people, I'd be making a massive mistake.

[December 6, 2014]
# of recipients: 45
Subject line: Market Update 12.6.2014

[February 7, 2019]
# of recipients: 1,000,000
Subject line: ☕️ We've got a big announcement

We couldn't have done it without you. It's that simple.

To my family - you are everything to me. Your unconditional love and support has turned me into the person that I am today.

To my friends - I couldn't ask for a better, more warm-hearted group of people to surround myself with.

To the team - A group of 20-somethings trying to change the world. I'm so lucky.

Austin Rief | Neal Freyman | Tyler Denk | Kinsey Grant | Sasha Alexander | Jenny Rothenberg | Josh Kaplan | Brian Schneider | Shayna Love | Jeremy Bloom

To our investors - you believed in us when others wouldn't. You are generous with your time and your wisdom.

To my mentors - I have learned more in the last 2 years than the first twenty.

Todd Benson | James Orsini | Alan Murray | Lisa Barse Bernstein | Brian Kelly | Suzanne Grimes | Tara Schmitt | Brandon Steiner | Steve Rubel | Allen Gannett| Erica Amatori | Dean Ginsberg | Betsy Morgan | Lisa Kovitz

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

To the moon 🚀

A $12 billion startup is being sued for corporate espionage.

Parker Conrad (CEO of Rippling) posted (on March 17th) that Rippling was suing its competitor Deel for having a spy infiltrate their business to steal trade secrets for months.

You literally have an HR company that’s accusing another HR company of stealing trade secrets. The irony is biblical.

Here are the spark notes of the 49-page legal complaint:

• 6/20/23: Rippling hires the Deel Spy (which they call DS) as a Global Payroll Compliance Manager.
• Until 11/24, DS showed no unusual behavior. 
• DS began searching for [deel] in slack channels 23 times per day and taking sales pipeline data + “competitive intelligence battle cards.“
• 12/19/2024: A customer was looking to leave Deel for compliance reasons. Shortly after, this prospect unexpectedly signed with Deel instead, and it’s suspected that Deel may have used the stolen info to retain the customer. 
• 1/25: Rippling employees started receiving unsolicited job offers from Deel. At least 17 employees on the payroll team were contacted and 10 received job offers, some without interviews.
• Three other potential spy ops referenced...
1) DS feeding info about a negative press article about Deel’s potential Russia sanction violations
2) DS accessing a slack channel about a customer prospect choosing between Deel and Rippling
3) DS pulling information on 728 new companies requesting demos, 282 in-depth sales notes, and 26 deals in negotiation with customers considering switching from Deel to Rippling

This whole saga is insane, but where things got even crazier is on March 11th when Rippling set a trap (also known as a honeypot) to confirm Deel’s involvement in the espionage.

Here’s how it worked...
1) Rippling’s General Counsel sent a legal letter to 3 Deel executives mentioning a fake slack channel called d-defectors that had supposed damaging info on Deel. 
2) Prior to General Counsel sending this letter, the channel did not exist. 
3) Within hours, D.S. searched for the d-defecters channel and accessed it. 
4) This proved that Deel leadership was directly feeding information to D.S.

So that’s what’s going on. Absolutely wild stuff, right.

If you want to dig deeper, I recorded a pod about that saga that includes:

1) The timeline of events
2) The epic honeypot
3) A lawyer’s analysis
4) 3 takeaways for founders

Grab your popcorn & listen…

I lost my dad eight years ago.

It was sudden, unexpected, and unfathomable.

But I've always tried to see the light in the dark & push forward.

This Founder's Journal pays homage to my hero 👇

Building an audience on TikTok is daunting as hell.

I've finally cracked the code.

Here's how I grew to 84,000 followers in 90 days:

THREE WORDS.

60 Second Startup.

My Shark Tank-esque social series has led to:

- 10 million views
- 84,000 followers
- 371,000 likes
- $15 million raised

Not familiar with it?

1. We set the clock at 60 seconds.
2. I ask an entrepreneur questions.
3. You comment whether you'd invest.

So that's the series.

Now here's the playbook that made it such a success.

7 strategies you can use to build an audience on TikTok...

1) Serialize your content

Consumers like knowing what to expect.

When you create a recurring series:
- viewers can binge your content
- follower % jumps
- recording/editing can be batched

2) Remixing > Inventing

When you invent, you need to prove content-market fit.

When you remix, you adapt content-market fit to a new audience/channel.

60 Second Startup = Man on the Street + Shark Tank

It's okay to be “unoriginal“!

3) Novelty is your best friend

When content is novel, audiences flock.

Novelty is achieved by at least one of these:
- Controversy
- Unexpected
- Something that's easy to love/hate
- Obvious, but unspoken

4) Stack the deck

You have an advantage. And your job when creating content is to find it & use it.

For Nik Sharma, it's DTC knowledge.
For Zach King, it's editing chops.
For me, it's unfair access to Founders.

Find yours.

5) Crush the intro

The first 5 seconds REALLY matters. You MUST hook the viewer.

Thanks to killer analytics, you can study retention like a hawk.

Example: changing the show intro increased 5-sec view % from 52% to 62%.

Don't put out the same content & expect a diff result.

6) Consistency > perfection

I've tried to predict which posts will perform well. And I'm really bad at it.

Of course, you can get better at predicting success.

But more important is taking quality at bats for a long time.

I'm 70 episodes in & I'm just getting started.

7) Break the 4th wall

Shark Tank is a great show.

But there's no interaction with the judges/contestants.

TikTok makes it possible:

1) Each 60SS has a poll for viewers to select if they'd invest

2) Viewers could actually invest in CROSSNET after they appeared on 60SS

These 7 strategies helped me grow to 84,000 followers in 90 days, and they'll allow you to do the same!

1) Comment below if this was helpful or if you have any questions!

2) Follow me on Linkedin for more on building an audience.

I miss and love my dad so much.

He instilled in me the values that guide my every day:

1) Family
2) Honesty
3) Work Ethic
4) Empathy

I would be so incredibly lost without his 20 years of friendship and support.