My First Million

The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.

Having an enemy (real or imagined) is essential for startup motivation and focus

Both Morning Brew and The Hustle used each other as competitive motivation, driving obsessive improvement and market focus

Founders should identify or create competitive threats to maintain urgency and drive performance

Competition should be healthy and focused on customer value rather than beating specific competitors

Using competitor analysis to set daily content standards and drive team performance through competitive benchmarking

Standard Setting Through Allowance

The quality standard of any business becomes whatever level of work the leadership allows to pass without correction or

IQ Arbitrage Strategy

Moving talented people from highly competitive, intellectually demanding industries into underoptimized industries where

Content-First Newsletter Economics

Building newsletter businesses by obsessing over content quality first, then layering on growth and monetization rather

Launch and scale a newsletter to 7-figure revenue

100K+ engaged subscribers generating $18+ annual revenue per subscriber through advertising and products

You're totally right, but you can be right and not be an asshole

Being factually correct doesn't justify poor communication or relationship management

The news business will see massive disruption opportunities despite historically poor economics due

General distrust of traditional news creates openings for upstart news organizations to capture audience and advertiser