In this episode, Alex Lieberman answers burning questions about balancing brand building with profits, testing new business ideas, choosing to be a chairman, ultimate goals with Storyarb, and changing motivation after selling Morning Brew.
29:07
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Quick takeaways
Morning Brew prioritized long-term branding by aligning all activities and investments with improving content, growing the right audience, and attracting brands for advertising, while maintaining ethical considerations.
Transitioning from conceptualization to action involves breaking down goals into manageable steps, testing ideas through low-risk actions, and gradually scaling based on demand and feedback.
Deep dives
Maintaining long-term brand focus while ensuring short-term profits
To maintain a focus on long-term branding while ensuring short-term profits, Morning Brew adopted a strategic approach. As a media business, they kept costs low in the early years, with a minimal budget for expenses like email management and website hosting. However, they prioritized a single goal—becoming the best daily business newsletter for millennials and creating a sustainable business model around it. To achieve this, every activity and investment had to align with three objectives: improving the newsletter's content, growing its audience with the right demographics, and attracting brands for advertising. While concessions were made to achieve profitability and fund the business, such as hiring based on potential rather than experience, they maintained ethical considerations in accepting advertising dollars.
Transitioning from conceptualization to action: Testing a new business idea
When considering how to transition from conceptualization to action, Morning Brew's founder, Alex Lieberman, sees it as a step-by-step process. He likens it to walking across a stream, carefully stepping on stable rocks rather than taking a leap of faith. Each step represents a milestone towards building a business. The milestones include identifying a problem, researching existing solutions, exploring better ways to solve the problem, conducting tests, gaining initial positive feedback from customers, and eventually scaling the business. Alex also shares a specific example of how he tested his executive ghostwriting agency, starting with low-risk actions like posting on Twitter and gradually increasing involvement based on demand and feedback. He emphasizes the importance of breaking down goals into manageable steps to make progress and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
The role of a chairman and motivation after selling a business
For Alex Lieberman, becoming a chairman after selling Morning Brew reflects a shift in personal and professional goals. Personally, he aspires for StoryArb to become a lifestyle business that can provide for his family and supplement his previous salary. Professionally, he is passionate about empowering subject matter experts through audience building. StoryArb serves as a foundation for future businesses, leveraging the built-in audiences to co-create new products and ventures. After selling Morning Brew, Alex discovered that his motivation shifted from financial and status-driven factors to more intrinsic drivers, such as curiosity, learning, and making a meaningful impact. He finds fulfillment in providing advice and support to other founders and aligning himself with missions he believes in, rather than purely seeking external validation.
Episode 36: It’s time for another mailbag episode! Alex Lieberman (@businessbarista) answers some burning questions from our listeners. In this episode, Alex talks about how to balance your long-term brand with short-term profits, how to test a new business idea, why he chose to be a chairman vs. CEO, and ultimate goals and motivation.
Timestamps:
(02:08): How to balance brand building with profits
(09:05): How to test a new business idea?
(16:32): Why be chairman from day one of the new business?
(22:00): What’s your ultimate goal with Storyarb?
(24:34): Did your motivation change after selling Morning Brew?
