Austin Rief: Building Morning Brew, The Ultimate Guide to Building Newsletter Businesses, Side Hustle Ideas, & More

In Will Smith's book, he had a great quote ... 'Becoming famous is awesome, being famous is cool, and losing any fame is horrible.' And I feel the same exact way about money.

One general framework I think people should think about is when you're in shitty economic times... you should look to save companies money or earn individuals side income.

I always felt like, whenever I would meet founders, one of the highest predictors of success was do they even know what the main thing is?

The ability to have life-changing money, if anyone has the option, I always think it's good to take half your chips off the table.

I've never been as hyper-focused as I was in 2018 on us writing the best newsletter, growing the best newsletter, and selling it. I woke up every day—write, grow, sell...

I got an undergraduate business degree, and I always used to shit on undergraduate business degrees. I'm like, what a complete waste of time. Like, those four years were so dumb. But as I look back, it really did give me a pretty good overview of what it takes to run a business.

I think the biggest opportunity is, Shaan, what you did, which is Morning Brew for X. You find a growing industry, and you just ride that tail wave. You just own that and build a brand, something really distinct in one of these niches.