Michael Sikand & Simran Sandhu - Co-Founders of Our Future Speak on Getting Acquired by Morning Brew

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Michael and Simi from our future. Thank you so much for coming on the show, guys.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thanks for having us, Casey. It's been so inspiring to see that you had an exit a couple of months before us fire under our ass to get ours done. And I know, you know, how long these things take and how much effort and energy they require, but now we're post exit baby health kick. He's got his cold plug. Oh my God, the marathon wave. And it's just inspiring to see, man. Definitely a great time in our lives.

I appreciate that, man. And I mean, I just want to first start off and say, you know, again, I know I've told this, but to both of you guys, off, off the podcast, but congratulations on the recent acquisition. I know for people that are watching this podcast, you guys are live from the Morning Brew Studio Epic setup. It's looking great and I've been really excited to have this conversation because, you know, you know, I interviewed lots of founders, but the ability to sit down with, you know, like minded founders that are the same age as me, to really dive into your story, but also coming off of an acquisition, something we both recently experienced, I think that the perspective that we can bring to not only younger entrepreneurs, but people that are our age or older is going to be quite different than a typical interview that I do. So I'm super excited to dive in and to have a great conversation with you guys and, you know, just to, to really dive in it for people that might not know what our future is. What is it and where did this whole journey begin?

Yeah, I mean, the journey started when Covid hit and a mentor told me, never let a good crisis go to waste. So, you know, as the smoke was up in the air during COVID times were uncertain, I pounced on the opportunity to start a podcast like I guess everybody else in the world, but with kind of a different perspective and like making business content digestible to Gen Z and making interviews just generally more fun and have some jokes, charisma and overall energy that would make these interviews stand out. So I ended up interviewing CFO of Spotify, CMO of Chipotle, founders of like grubhub, Spike Ball. I think you got Randolph as well interviewed Mark Randolph from Netflix. So I got a really, really good roster of guests. And then it was a matter of seeing the media market change before my very own eyes. I remember I was experimenting with podcast clips on TikTok and I think I knew There was something there when Mia Khalifa, the acclaimed porn star, liked one of my videos when I was interviewing the chief marketing officer of Chipotle.

No way.

Maybe this is a platform where you can put business content out and it can reach the masses and kind of have a time with pop culture. So it was experimenting with that and realizing I should just put all my effort into it because the podcast was taking so much effort. And then so we're like making the clips viral that I was like, why don't I just focus on where the audience is?

Yeah.

So our future started as me just recording like, like little rundowns of business stories in 30 seconds, 60 seconds, editing all my own videos. And then once the distribution rolled in, off the bat, I was like, this is a great basis for building a real company. And Simmy joined me shortly after. We started succeeding on TikTok, and we made a few key business moves that positioned our business for success, the first of which was bringing on another creator. Right. So to build a media company, you need more than one member of talent, Right. So I think that's critical. So I was able to find a creator who was enjoying making business videos on his own, and I offered him a good package to join on and see this as a great opportunity for him, and then ended up winning the my first million pitch competition because being those guys being kind of my idols and kind of had to work my way into their world. And that birthed this podcast, you know, big media. Big, big media play and that we were helping big companies get onto TikTok as well, being such a sexy category. So we got the best of both worlds, right? Original content, and we got the agency right, which developed strong cash flows, a good balance sheet, and put us in position to be acquired.

That is so much. And there's so much to dive in there. And Simmy, how did you meet Michael? And like, where did that relationship initially start?

Funny enough, I guess we're all good relationships. Start joking, obviously, but LinkedIn, we were both doing podcasts.

Okay.

I was doing a daily news show podcast, and Michael was interviewing, you know, really interesting, impressive C suite executives at major blue chip companies. And Michigan University of Michigan wrote an article about him and it was like this up and coming hot shot podcaster, that's epic. Getting on the radars of Fortune 500 companies. And I was seeing success with my own podcast and I was like, I want to align with other people doing well in the space. So I shot him a message and we just kind of hit it off. But funny enough, we didn't actually start working together for a few years until after we had that initial conversation. It was very much so. I was doing my own thing. I was building something in the new space. Michael was doing the interviews and that we were more, like supportive of each other. And what we were trying to do before it was like, let's just kind of come together and disrupt this industry as, like, one team and one unit.

And I would say that. I would just say that I think 99% of co founders, like, couldn't do daily life together. But me and Sydney live together. We pretty much breathed down each other's necks for the past, you know, year and a half of working on this business. And I think having a friendship with people who are successful at your own age, who are ambitious is key to end up. Maybe you end up working together and you have that foundation. But one more thing I want to preface this with, Casey, is that me and Simi were aware of your podcast when we were starting ours, and it was kind of like, who the hell is this Casey guy? Like, dude, like, how does he have like 200, how he's, like, verified. This kid's like, younger than me. He's got like 200, 250,000 followers. And I'd listen to your interviews, like, I'm kind of. Because I'm like a very competitive person. And I'm like, wow, like, he is killing it. And I remember it wasn't too long before you rolled into my DMS and found our future and the ethos of the brand. You said it aligned a lot with what you were doing, but I thought that was pretty cool.

That's so cool. I appreciate you.

I really enjoyed, you know, the Reebok founder and I really enjoyed that sniper episode and listened to a good, good quantity of your episodes. So it's just funny that, that we, we knew of you before we were actually friends with you. You.

That is so cool.

You were like a little bit of. A little bit farther ahead and stuff. It took. Took a little while to actually get.

A meeting with you, but, hell, here we are, dude. No, it's so cool to like. And I appreciate you guys so much. And I, I remember when I first saw, like, what you guys were doing with our future, it's just, it was so different and unique that it's like anyone who saw it, including myself, was like, this is really cool. And it's different, especially when it comes to short form content and like that whole entire new industry from a business perspective, clips, et cetera. But no, I Think it's so cool that you know what you guys just said. I was literally having conversation yesterday with, with my buddy that runs a company called Hooby, and we're talking about this like co founder dynamic where my very similar story, my co founder Kieran on Media Kits, we were best friends for like three, four, not kind of in parallel, but we were best friends like for three, four years before we launched Media Kits and we were both doing our thing. We ended up having the idea, then we shelved it for like two plus years from 2018 to 2020. And then when we started Media Kits, we were living together, but right when the company launched. This is the funny part. Like, Kieran and I lived together in Arizona for like over two years and the moment the company actually launched is when I moved to LA and we went from like living with each other, being friends, supporting each other, to then when we're actually business partners, we were no longer living together. And it was just like this weird dynamic that you couldn't predict. But I think there's a power in changing just not only building those relationships, but understanding that things might not happen right when you meet someone, whether that's finding your co founder or starting that company. But it's super cool and I totally align with that. So Michigan, going to Michigan. Michael, I gotta say, my girlfriend went to Michigan State, so I gotta rep, go green over here. But when you started the brand and you made that transition from podcasting to going all in on the short form clips, I think that a lot of people just get stuck in their ways of let me just keep doing this, let me get, let me just keep doing what I think is going to work versus kind of taking a step back and looking at the environment and saying, hey, this, this is trending up. Like, picking your market is so important and like riding the wave of, you know, attention or in the social currency, when did you really make the decision and why? To say, hey, I'm going to necessarily pause the podcast and go all in on these short form clips. And was that a hard jump for you? Because, you know, it's. It made all the difference early on and it really set the company up for success.

Yeah, I mean, it was a transitory phase, right. Where I kind of realized that, shit, this podcast thing's not really working. Like, I'm putting all this effort in, I'm getting great guests, it's a great quality of content. But I was only getting like, you know, 500 listeners an episode at best. So I was like, what's going on here. How do I build a media company? Like, how do I actually, how would I build something that could, like, big advertisers might want to be on? So the first kind of inklings of the idea were when I was putting the podcast clips on TikTok. And then I went through this phase of like, how do I. So how do I build a media company? So I started studying other media companies. I was studying the Hustle and Morning Brew and I ended up launching a newsletter that was a companion to the podcast that was a lot of fun to work on, but growth was really hard, really, really difficult. I did a lot of growth hacking ways to get people into that email newsletter. And it evolved in a number of different ways. But I was still like, so dead set on multimedia as opposed to newsletter. Yeah, I'm a big proponent of, like, if that something's been done before, I don't want to touch it. Like, I don't want to do anything that anyone else has done before. And I saw the views that were being given out on TikTok and I was like, wow, like, say Morning Brew has a couple million newsletter subscribers. Like, I could reach more people than that and like a day with short form video clips. And if I'm reaching more people in a day with short form video clips in the same category, shouldn't I be able to rake in the same kind of advertising dollars that they are? So it was like, oh my God, TikTok's giving out all these views can build like a. This is a real media company overnight. And I remember trying to think of, should I do listicles? Should I do an online article website? And I just found that all these companies had failed. There was this one called Odyssey that was supposed to be this kind of distributed journalism platform. And I looked at her campus media, which is actually a really unique business, and overall just started working towards the transition. And I think a lot of people think starting a business or pivoting a business is risky. I'll tell you that I wasn't risking anything financially. It was more of risking my status and what I pigeonholed my personal brand into, which was being a podcast host and the embarrassment of leaving. But once I had, I had gotten millions of views on TikTok before I quit the podcast. So I put out an episode like, hey guys, I'm leaving. I got 10 million views in the past week. And that was like, it was like not really taking a jump, right? Because I had de. Risked the transition, the pivot, by creating this critical mass of audience before turning off the podcast. So the audience respected me for pursuing a higher leverage opportunity.

Love that.

I think there's also like a broader lesson here, which is if there's something that catches your interest or there's something that you're pursuing, you should very much so keep doing that. And that was something like from the, from the podcast side, right? Like if you're putting out episodes, it's going to take a long time to grow. And I really do believe that there's so many other opportunities that come your way. Like you have to double down and let time do its thing. But, but you should also be aware, right? Like when there are kind of emerging trends or in this case like platforms like your TikToks or YouTube and Instagram Reels in our case, you should be constantly evaluating if there are easier ways to do what you want to inherently do. Like what? I feel like you should know what your end outcome should be, but you should not be rigid in how you get there.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

And that's something that, that to just keep in mind, right? Like it's not a failure to now want to leave podcasting and going into a different platform if it helps you get to your goal quicker and help impact even more people.

Absolutely. No, I totally, I agree with that. And just having that foresight, I think, and being, you know, curious enough to make the switch and not to pigeonhole yourself and just do it, I think is so powerful. And I want to take a, take a step back. Like when you guys. I didn't go to college and I just like growing up, I necessarily didn't really know what I wanted to do, but this whole idea of building a business always gravitated over my mind. Right. Like when you were given a paper in school, oh, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I always just like picked business. I didn't know what it meant. I don't come from an entrepreneurial family by any means. For you guys, when did you realize that you wanted to go into the business world? And just what was that thought process growing up in terms of like both of your guys backgrounds?

I can take it. First for me, it was kind of an interesting path, right. I had Indian parents and they were segmenting me towards either being a doctor or being an engineer. Right. And that just kind of comes with the stereotype, I suppose. But it hit me as I got older, I was like, their incomes are capped to some point, right? Like they have to go to school for 10 plus years to hopefully make mid six figures at some point in their life. And then I was exposed to certain people around me in the lifestyles that they had. And it hit me. I was like, they're not even. They've gotten to a point where they're not having to work super hard anymore. Sure, they ate shit for a while to get to that point, but they're making millions of dollars and their ceilings are so high. And that is what business and entrepreneurship can do for you. So it was being exposed to the lifestyle that could provide, that it could provide, and then just trying my hand at a few different business opportunities. And then, luckily for me and Michael, that our future ended up being, like, a huge success, and we were able to do something cool and taste what having success can do for you and the kind of people you meet and the access you get. I love that.

Definitely, like, obviously very grateful for the outcome. Like, really just so blessed, right, to be here and talking about this right now. My career path was never kind of, like, pigeonholed into business when I was young. I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to be a vet. There was just, like, so many different things, and I'd have these obsessions, and they would just kind of, like, go ebb and flow with the tides. And in freshman year of high school, my high school, I was very fortunate to go to a good school, and they had, like, a business and entrepreneurship program, and that's what really, like, piqued my interest. Right. Like, being able to take a class in freshman year of high school about business 101. I thought was. Was so cool. And at the foundation of that was an organization called deca, which essentially, I.

Was in deca, kids, to. Yeah.

Deca is responsible for many. Like, many future billionaires, if not already a few billionaires. I think it's a tremendous organization. Yeah. And I just saw, like, I just loved putting on a suit, and I loved public speaking, and I loved the entire vibe. And then I watched Wolf of Wall street in freshman year, and I was like, look, I'm not built to be a professional athlete. Like, what is. What is the ultimate man in American capitalism? It's the fucking billionaire, right? It's the rich guy. The rich guy's got all the ladies and the sick cars and the sick houses and lives, the rock life, right? So for me to achieve kind of that pinnacle of the person I wanted to become, it had to have been business, because I couldn't rely on my body to play basketball. Right?

Sure. I love that.

Right?

For sure. I love that. It's super good context as well. And I want to, I want to go to the conversation of getting acquired. I think that, you know, whatever outcome, the lesson and the learning within it is so powerful. And I think, you know, having a podcast for five years and interviewing tons of founders, I always like to go through the journey of starting, growing, scaling and selling a business and really try to pull out key lessons within that. Like, what have you guys learned from selling our future to Morning Brew? And where did that process even begin?

Yeah, I mean, I can go back to the kind of the beginnings of the conversation. So obviously I went to Michigan, so I had a connection to Alex in Austin and was a while before they kind of took my ambitions in media seriously. I interviewed Alex on my podcast, was always so inspired by what they achieved. Been a lifelong, or at least, you know, since high school. Morning Brew reader. And our first conversation with Austin was like, we want to raise around, so we want Morning Brew to be our lead investor. And if Morning Brew is leading around into a media company, like we're going to have so many, it's going to be so oversubscribed because we wanted to, you know, raise money for this originally and build out a huge media company and, you know, know, take on the Wall Street Journal and become the next Bloomberg. And Austin was like, look, like, we don't really do that, but we'll buy you guys. And I was instantly like, no, like, we're going to hold onto this thing and make, you know, a billion dollars. And then we just started to realize the limitations of the space that we were building in. And I think as an entrepreneur you have to add some humility sometimes about what you're building and what the path is. And me and Sydney did kind of a, a over time estimation of what this business will be worth and so say three to five years, what it would take to get there, what our lifestyles would look like to get there and juxtapose that against the exit opportunity. And we decided to put our eggs in that basket.

And I think something that's interesting is when we sold, our business was in the strongest place it had ever been. So what we kind of took into account is that when we wanted to go raise money, our entire thesis was around we are going to build a gigantic advertising driven business. We're going to expand across several short form channels and bring on so many different creators and build out a huge network that was our entire play. And it was like, no one has built a gigantic short form video company and we're going to be the first ones to do it. What you come to realize is that short form video is phenomenal as a discoverability and reach tool. Right. It is meant to be funneled to other forms of content. In this case, in our case, long form content. Right. So this is just like, this is not how you build true connection, audience and maybe an affinity to the people that consume your content. This is just a tool to get to get you where you want to be. And so when we thought about it through that lens, we thought, okay, well Morning Brew has this own distribution audience. They don't have the video side figured out. They've got massive clients. We'd be surrounded by people who have done this on arguably the biggest scale and at such a young age. And so if we can become that short form video piece to them and really become ingrained in that puzzle, we can do something really magical together. And now having been here for a month, I feel like that thesis was proved out true. It was everything we thought it was going to be. And even though we didn't necessarily stay independent and we didn't just stick with the huge cash flowing business we had, the other benefits made a ton of sense for us to do this deal.

Absolutely. No, I mean, I'll say I'm the first one to say. Like when I saw the news I was like, this is so epic, not only just for you guys as founders, but the alignment, right? Like I'm not in your business day to day, I don't understand all that context but like the alignment of brand affinity and what you guys have built, the short form content, like becoming the kings of that with Morning Brew and their reputation and their business overall, I was like, wow, when you think about acquisitions, some of them you're just like, that makes so much sense and it's just so epic to see. So again I want to say congrats. What's your advice for founders that are starting a company or have a company and maybe they're not even thinking about wanting to get acquired right now, but when that conversation came up to you guys, especially when with having a co founder, how did you guys manage that discussion and what were some of the conversations that now looking back, you learn from that you'd want to give advice to other founders or co founder dynamics.

If it's specifically pertaining to the acquisition, I would say manage expectations. If you get in this mode where you start visualizing what an acquisition could lead, look like it can kind of pollute your thinking, right? Like your entire strategy, your entire like work ethic is can be impacted if you now envision something for yourself, you're like daydreaming about an acquisition. And then even in our case it took way longer than we thought it ever would. I mean it was 10 plus months. Right. And we thought we were going to get it done in 30 days. And so it's just taking into account assume when you're going into an acquisition that the deal actually isn't going to close. Like operate very much so in the, in the state of mind that this isn't going to happen and I need to keep focus on growing my business. And again, that's funny for us is after a while where we were like, I'm not so sure this is going to happen, we were like, let's double down on our agency and trying to begin bring in even more blue chip clients to our advertising driven business that we actually made ourselves even more appealing acquisition targets.

Right.

Like because the business was getting better and better.

So yeah, I would say managing expectations was by far the hardest part because we had, you know, these visions of like, you know, our lives changing overnight dancing around in our heads and it was just like, fuck, like why are we even like grinding so hard in this moment if this is already kind of like guaranteed to us? But it's definitely not guaranteed to you. My advice to founders who are considering selling their business is you need to gauge how serious this company is about buying you. And to me, what I think the benchmark for that would be is you arrive at deal terms within 30 to 45 days from the initial conversation. Right. If that happens, I think that it's probably something worth entertaining and something thinking about. But until those deal terms arise, don't let those high level fucking wishy washy conversations dictate your thinking around your business. And I think for us, me and Sammy kind of had to struggle because we were two really young guys and these are some busy executives at this kind of very successful media company. And we had to work hard to show them. We had to do all this work and all this stuff to show them that why we should be bought. And that's just because we're young. We had a business that was in more or less its infancy and you know, on the grand scale. And I think that if you're farther along in your path, really embrace the power that you have.

Right.

Really embrace that. They want me, right? Don't chase, like attract.

Yeah.

And I think that's the best way to go because if you're in the whole, I'm just Going to focus on what's best for my business and if this comes my way, if they're going to throw money in my face, I'll look at it. But if they're not throwing money in my face, then I'm not even going to consider it. And I'll keep building my business as I should because someone will come around and make that offer. We were just in a unique situation and that this was like the best route for our business where we were and our age and we had to focus on getting it done. But for other founders who are building businesses with maybe more longevity and a longer term expectation of enterprise value for sale, then absolutely, keep going.

I'll add one more thing just because Michael kind of got my wheels turning a bit. Be very, very clear as to what you're getting out of this and what I mean by that is don't ever assume that they're going to give you something like get it in writing, like be very certain that everything, title, money, whatever it is, like get that in writing and don't assume, oh, let's just get this hard stuff figured out and maybe like they'll just give it to us. Like we don't need to worry about that right now. It's like no, no, no, like do your due diligence, make sure that you're going to get those things so it doesn't come as a surprise later and a big letdown if you don't get it.

Totally. No, I, I love your guys perspective on that for sure. And I, I align with so much of it of just managing expectations, getting to deal terms and just you know, of course like being willing to walk away and doing business as usual, but entertaining offers and having the conversations for sure. I want to, I want to bring up just living in New York now, right. Like you guys are at the Morning Brew headquarters. You guys were both in Austin. I don't know exactly how long you guys were living out there, but how has the transition been, right? Like from a business, from a business perspective it's one thing, but from a personal perspective as well. I think obviously like being in early mid-20s, something that I'm so grateful for is that when I graduated high school, I moved from Virginia to Arizona like literally a month after I graduated. And like that transitionary period for me like set the foundation of how I think and how I operate and just really changed my perspective. And now living in LA for two and a half years, like a move just creates so much optionality in your life and change from an Individual perspective in terms of people and opportunities, et cetera. So for you guys, like, how has the move been from Austin, New York and you know, just what's, what's your day to day life looking like and what's exciting and just what's new?

Yeah, I would say that moving to New York was just an added like, you know, cherry on top of the, the milkshake. Right. It was like these two guys achieved something big. They're being written about and now they're in the New York City, right. Walking up, taking photos of the Empire State Building. Like, you know, just you're in the heart of where everything is going on. Walking the street up, you know, through Flatiron, past the billboards and the, all the hype and frenzy of the city. Like you really feel like you're on the path to making it right. So that was really, really energizing to have this change. I'd say working out of the morning brew office, me and Simi have never been more productive and the things that we do. I've never written better video scripts. I've never been more productive or as responsive with clients or is overall just successful in doing day to day. So being in an office environment I think is infectious and exciting. I will tell you. I am and I don't know, probably Simi as well. Like we're, we're more built for suburban life. Like definitely more of a California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Midwest type guy. So we are moving back to Austin with all the associated lifestyle benefits next week.

Oh wow. Next week. Wow. This is. Yeah, wow. Epic.

We're going to be, we're going to be camped out for, for south by and spending some time there. But yeah, I think being in a. Also being in a city that's like emerging and stuff is exciting as well and being like a bigger fish in a small pond. But what else about New York and what I love about New York is people here grind harder than anywhere else I've seen on planet Earth. People are always chasing the, chasing the bag and of course everybody that's like truly like killing it. In many ways the people to meet are in New York. Like somebody met the co founder of like Duolingo at some random networking event that's just like a and awesome and just getting invited to events and stuff.

It's hard. Like the caliber of people here can't be matched. Like no other city has Michael used the word infectious. Like the, the energy really here really is like contagious. It is, it is like you see other people and how badly they want to pursue their dreams and how badly will they want to achieve? And it's like, I love this. Like, you, I think you kind of go in either, both. There's no in between. You either, like, it really resonates with you and you catch fire. Or it's the other side, which is a bit more negative, which is like, you know, you maybe start doubting yourself and it's like, oh, am I really cut out for this? I don't feel like there's a middle in between. So you either really adapt or you don't. For us, it was like one of those things where we love the energy. This is really cool. We're as productive as we've ever been. Um, but at the same time, like, is this trade off better than, like the lifestyle stuff? Like in, in Austin, it's so open and we have tons of friends there and have a lot of fun.

She's got a car.

Yeah, she did get a nice car. Yeah.

So it's. It's gonna be fun.

Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, I, I agree. I've never lived in New York, but I describe in one word, intensity. Right. Like, when I go there, it's three to five days of just back to back to back. And like, if you don't take account of how crazy it is, like, the city can, in my opinion, like, just swallow you. But I love New York and definitely that's so cool to hear about that experience for sure. When it comes to short form content and working with advertisers, I think, you know, you see lots of different media companies and there's lots of maybe young founders out there that are looking to maybe start media companies because it's just a clear opportunity and is a, you know, you know, it's a relatively low barrier to entry to get started. What's your advice if you were to go back in time and tell yourself, like, hey, I want to start a media company. Short form content's on the rise. This is such an opportunity. Like, what have you guys learned from short form content? But also dealing and working with these massive companies? From an advertising perspective, I can jump into this.

First, figure out, if you're just getting started and you're trying to figure out what medium you want to pursue, figure out if it's actually like, you can monetize the content that you want to make. That's like priority number one. And then I would say priority number two, which is a bit contradictory, is don't focus on monetizing it right off the bat. I Feel like you should focus on finding the content that you're most interested in. You can do over a consistent long period of time and grow for a long period of time before you try to monetize it. So figure out, I guess like, my takeaway here is figure out if you can monetize it, but then once you learn that, focus on growing it as big as you can. And the reason being is that something we even learned is we were having so many ad deals come in and it was like, let's just grab all the money we possibly can. And this was like in the bull market of advertising, we, we had every crypto company and like small, big, some that no longer exists, reaching out, trying to spend money with us. And it no longer made sense with the content. Like, we were blasting these ads at people and they were like, guys, like, why the hell are you like shilling this stuff towards us? Like, this isn't like, it doesn't even align. So I would say, like, be consistent with the content you want to put out and then over time find the deals, find the money opportunities that actually make sense, sense in align with your overall strategy.

Yeah, and what I would say is. Yeah, what I would say is, like, views are never confirmed on short form. So these ads that you make for clients have to be really good. So, like, really try and like think of to the brand what's going to be the story or the, the bit or the skit that's really going to be like, entertaining and provide value to the sponsor. Because you're not getting any value to the sponsor if you're not giving value to the audience. With branded content, it's like, it's a bit of a dilemma.

Yeah.

Like with Morning Brew, they can throw a placement in the newsletter passively and 4 million people will still see it. Short form, you've got to balance creating a piece of content that still makes people happy, educated, entertained, whilst also giving value to the brand. So our bread and butter has always been, we're going to tell a valuable story and then plug the brand at the end. And that's been a formula that's worked really well for us.

And it's all about how you pitch yourselves because this is still a new space for your biggest advertisers out there, right? Your big blue chip, McDonald's, you know, Shopify's, whatever. And what made us so compelling is we always said we were a brand safe destination for advertisers. That was one of the most compelling parts to our pitch because they know it's somewhere they need to be on, but they don't know how, how to integrate or how they should approach it. And so that was something I thought really differentiated us in our pitches to big, big advertisers and clients.

Yeah, I mean, look, if you're a kid trying to get brand deals, like for one, don't shy away from fluffing your numbers. You're a kid and you're trying to build a business, like make the best sexiest pitch possible you can to these brands. They don't really understand TikTok and all that stuff. Like really push it. Like, yeah, we said we're the preeminent premium destination for business content. The way that we pitched it was irresistible to brands. So make yourself irresistible. Make, make yourself, give them FOMO about how sick your platform is and why it's changing the world.

Love that. No, you guys both speaking the truth here. Michael, you are seeing your content, the script writing process and like how, how you guys just hit the nail on the head, like really just find a way to just tell a great story. What if, what have you learned and how have you been, you know, been able to cultivate these like hard hitting scripts over and over and over again and how have you mastered that craft and what have you learned through that process?

I mean, what I've learned from the process is for one, like the first few seconds of a video matters the most. So you really have to rope the viewer into a really, really strong and provocative hook. Gets the people going. So yeah, I got, I got to find stories where it's, there's some mystique or magic or something nuts.

Right?

And that's the filter. So.

Yep.

I can't just cover a story of an entrepreneur that did X. Like it's gotta be, there's gotta be some other kind of magic that I mine. And all these stories come down to is like, maybe you like reverse engineer it. You're like, okay, I know this entrepreneur that's been successful. Like, this is just one way I go about it. I know of this founder that's successful. Everyone's talking about that in the news. How do I find that one magical piece of information that's going to anchor the entire story, right? So it's like, I'll give you an example. Like we wanted to make a video on Bernard Arnault because he's like the richest person in the world. And we found this nugget of this rivalry he had with this other French billionaire, Francois Pinault, who's also like the 20th richest guy. In the world. And we were able to cultivate a story about Bernard that hadn't been overplayed in the media. So it's all about finding unique angles and finding that kind of. That different perspective to take that's going to make your content exceed the value of just reading an insider, Forbes or Wall Street Journal piece. Right. Like what's really be nuts and that's that. That works for our format.

Short form.

Absolutely. No, I love that. Something that I know we were jamming about over dm, Michael was just like post acquisition health. Right. Like putting emphasis on things that maybe you didn't prior to having just the added pressure or just the different type of thinking. For me, I'll gladly say the last six months of my life, I've never been more focused on health and it's completely just changed my, my mentality and just my, my day to day life and how I operate. How. How have you guys? How have you guys. And I'll start with you, Michael. How do you. A focus on health and what are some of your daily habits outside of business that just not only help you, but something that you are like your non negotiables.

Well, I've been, I was talking with my buddy Adam Silverman about like two days ago about Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Yep.

And for me, like my biggest need always was having a professional, professional platform to stand on. So like some success early on that can really anchor my personality because that's who I am.

Right.

Like that's what makes me happy. Like.

Yep.

Being successful, being in business, being an entrepreneur who's taking a big swing and doing things differently. So I got that with the acquisition, with the under 30 thing. Like I have that platform that's at the bottom of my pyramid. Right. And then from there it's like I, I also want to be like really, really fit.

Right.

Like I want to be like really healthy. So I've been on like cutting. I've been on a diet for the past three and a half weeks. Like my hands are literally falling off me. Like I've never been more, I've never been more incentivized.

That's.

So you look good as well as like, you know, so now like my second hierarchy of needs, right. Is like, you know, like feeling confident and looking the best that I possibly can. So I think from your perspective, you do all these like mindfulness shit. Like you're, you're increasing your dopamine by doing cold plunges and things like that. You're listening to Huberman And I think that's like my next step is getting to meditation, getting to, to doing some of those high discipline activities like cold showers. Because that's like the next step.

Right.

And in like mastering your body and your mind and then you have the other pieces. Like for me, like one of the other kind of things that I've always wanted is, you know, like access to like exclusive events and always having kind of a good social regimen. And the acquisition is open up so many opportunities to get to do speaking engagements or get to go to cool events, like going to a movie premiere on Monday. So it's things like that that I've always wanted as well. So you really just have to think about like what makes you happy and then work towards those goals.

Absolutely.

And my goal is to have all the needs met in a hierarchy. Right. Like what I'm going for.

Love that. What about for you, Zimmy?

I would say I've come to realize post acquisition that it's a momentum game. It really is. And that momentum is transferable into all parts of your life. And so what I've come to realize is that I always thought, let me get the business side figured out and let me get the career side figured out and then I'll worry about the health stuff. Like I can always do that later. Let me just go make as much money as possible. And now what I've come to realize is that if I had just focused and my intention now is focusing on my health, I think that that discipline and adding in making those conscious decisions to just be healthier will also help me in my business ambitions because I think that discipline will make me much more clear minded. It will make me less tired when I'm working and it will just make me more confident like Michael was describing. And I can now also go use this when I'm in sales meetings and stuff. And I feel more energized about the work I'm doing and I feel more passionate. And so I haven't necessarily implemented as much like exercise stuff, but right now it's more. Let me just cut back from a dietary standpoint and then like take it day by day and then like try to wrap in those benefits to other aspects of my life.

But Casey, your shit, your regimen, like you're running more than ever.

Yeah, totally.

Oh my God.

Clearly on the kick. You're clearly on the kick. Like this guy's for sure. Like a photo, edges reading a book in a fucking Iceland.

Dude. It's great.

I have to store that.

It's so it's so funny. Like I, I never grew up a runner. Like I genuinely hated running. I grew up playing sports, hockey, lacrosse, football. But just like long distance was like never found it interesting at all and then really just slowly caught the bug a year ago where. And I can like get very specific from a mileage perspective. Like just over a year and a half ago, the longest I've ever ran was probably three miles and then five miles and I was like, oh, wow, that, that doesn't, that's not fun. But as soon as I started like wanting to push it, like, oh, I, I set out on this random day, I was like, oh, I just want to run 10 miles today and let's see if I can do that. It was such a slow pace. I ran it here in Santa Monica and I remember like around mile six to eight and those were times where I really wasn't listening to music when I was running. I just wanted to like kind of just think and talk to myself and just kind of listen to my thoughts. Right around like six to eight on the mile, that's when people say, oh, like a runner's high. And for me, that's really when it hit me. And I just became obsessed with like that simple feeling of just zoning out and having that time to, to think and to just be with my, my own thoughts and just to be creative. And it just never slowed down. It went from like running 10 miles and then one wanting to do a half marathon to then kind of getting injured late last year to then just kind of listening to all these people online and just pushing the limit where, you know, I ran my first marathon in December. If you would have told me that a year and a half ago, I'd be like, never. Like I don't have any desire or ambition, not for me, but everything, like you're bringing up cold plunge, all this stuff. I think it's, it's a very two sided perspective on one end. It's like, you know, you see, I love like the meme videos, like this guy Trevor Wallace, like guys on Instagram and they're cold plunged. Such a funny aspect. And I think about it too, like I'm, I'm from the east coast. My, my family's like, what the hell are you doing? Right? And I totally get the perspective. But on the flip side of like actually having just the, the mental discipline to do hard things as cliched as, as it is like a 3 minute, 5 minute gold plunge, it has not necessarily changed my life, but just when things come up that are challenging, that I, that I view as difficult. It's just rewired my perspective on like getting through it, right? Like being able to sit in a cold plunge for five minutes and to quote unquote, get through it. It's rewired my approach and my thinking there for sure. Like even just running the marathon and doing a cold plunge in parallel of like learning that discipline. I knew the same way, I think on, you know, minute four out of five in a cold plunge at 33 degrees was very similar to the way I was thinking on mile 22 out of mile 26. And the same way that, you know, in a business dealer acquisition and like understanding the timeline, managing expectations and just getting through it, I think has never been more clear and that rewiring has been great. But I say all that to say, right, the health aspect of it's one thing, but the mental game of it is truly just different. And when like I got my wisdom teeth out last week and there was like a seven day period where I couldn't work out and I just had to, you know, not do anything physical activity and just not doing a cold plunge or not working out now feels so just off. And I feel like I'm lacking something like, oh, you don't feel like you're hydrated because you don't drink enough water? It's how I feel just due to the consistency and the, you know, like the small little habits. But I mean, I'm not perfect, right? Like, I don't meditate often. I don't, I'm. I'm now doing this fitness program 70 not fitness program. I was programmed 75 hard, which I guess with it, I literally, I'm on day four right now and I did it in 2020 and I've never thought to do it again. But I just, I like doing things when they don't feel right. I'm like, oh, wow, like 75 days of this. That'll bring me to May 6th is when I'll finish now. And it just completely shifts and changes your day to day life in a moment. And I don't think unless you do programs like that, like, it's one thing to be self disciplined, but if you commit to something like a marathon or 75 hard, it will instantly change your life and the way you do things. Because if you don't make those changes, you're just gonna set yourself up for failure. But, you know, it's all a learning curve for me. And this is still so all new, but it has definitely Improved my life in many aspects.

Yeah, it's insane, right? I think for the runner side, like, that's what we're doing program. Like, we were chasing big game and we needed the dopamine boost to keep going, Right?

Yeah.

Chasing the woolly mammoth or trying to, like, you know, get it off, you could throw a rock down it. But I think, like, as media's proliferated with these guys like Huberman and Jocko and Rogan, they're really, like, kind of espousing this model for like, the highest performing male. And it's a really, really interesting thing that I'm, you know, definitely trying to get more interested into is how do you truly master your mind and your body? And again, it really is life changing to have a win early on in life so you can focus on these things before. He also really has the bandwidth too. It really is just so totally changing to have that base level of like, okay, like, I worked really hard and, like, I was a little undisciplined in that process. Now's my opportunity to become more disciplined. And it's. It's a really, really just so liberating and so grateful that I'm able to be in this frame of mind. Really great.

Absolutely. I think we can all agree on that, right? Like, getting that, that win and using that as the foundation just gives you that perspective. And, you know, it helps you reprioritize what's important to you into the next venture, into the next process and journey or whatever that may lead to for sure. Just a couple more questions before we wrap up. For both of you individually, what has been just the biggest lesson you've learned over the past 12 months from not only going through the acquisition, but now being post acquisition about yourself and how you live? And, you know, you can take this in a business context or just more of a personal context, but what has been your biggest lesson, business life, over the last 12 months, when you have experienced a lot of this growth professionally and personally?

For me, it would be you can only plan so much, right? Like, you can only be as strategic.

And.

Whatnot as you. As you possibly can. But in some aspect, you have to be able to adjust. You have to be super flexible. And that was a big learning for me. I think for us, it was like we had this grand plan. It was like, we're gonna go beat the next Wall Street Journal and we're gonna go do this and this and this. And like, that was what we had envisioned as what success looked like. And now what I've realized is you can't control all these other factors that play into it. So just control what you can control and almost take it day by day, which is just like, work as hard as you can, try to chip away a little bit more than you did yesterday. And if you do that long enough, good things will come and you'll end up in a spot that you couldn't even have imagined that was even better for you in the grand scheme of things.

Love that.

Yeah, I'd say, like the biggest learning for me throughout this journey is like, for better or for worse, they kind of just have to deal with who you are. And for me, like a level with myself, like, I'm an extremely momentum driven person. Right. So when things are going well, I'm on top of the world, I'm exercising more, I'm happier, I build better relationships. And when things. When I find myself in a little bit of a lull or like a middle ground between one place and another, I kind of. I'm deflated in a sense. So for me, it's important to acknowledge that and then just design my life around it. Right. Like, if I'm a momentum driven person, then I need to create momentum in my life. I can't just expect it to come to me. And that's kind of what I'm shooting for.

Right.

Always working towards the next thing that's going to give me energy because I know when I get to that next thing, it's going to unlock more energy and more momentum for the next thing. So really just, you know, might see me on a treadmill or a Ferris wheel or whatever. Maybe this is something I have to work on in terms of mindfulness and becoming one with myself. But as long as you acknowledge, like, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, just build and design your life around them. And that's what exactly what I'm doing.

I love that. Very well said. Last question before we wrap up. What are you guys most excited about? Right, like you guys are post acquisition, you, you are moving back to Austin. What excites you over the next 612 months? Again, this could be personally, professionally. I'll start with you, Simeon.

I would say it's having the exposure to a bunch of different things that I couldn't focus on when we were building this company. Right. Like this. While we do have our day jobs here at Morning Brew, there's never been more of an opportunity to go learn and expose ourselves to new industries and meeting new people and having conversations in spaces where we just wouldn't have had before, right. We were in such a mindset where we wanted to build a gigantic media company. So we were trying to learn from other media people. And now it's like we get to see what else is out there. And that's super exciting to me. It's like, maybe there's even another industry or another business idea that we can be exposed to that we may say, man, we thought we were media guys through and through, but actually like this industry is something I think I could see myself building in and this is what I want to go do next. And that really comes to, you know, just like having an opportunity to talk to other interesting people. Also something that I'm interested in is as I get this exposure to other industries, what are learnings that I can transfer over to things I'm doing now. What I've come to realize and learn is that some of the best operators out there look to look to other industries. I'll give you an example. I was trying to close a sales deal with, with a healthcare company and I was talking to one of their C suite executives and we just kind of went down this rabbit hole of like how he thinks about finance and spend across his entire business. And he says to me, simi, you know, I spend a lot of time studying the toilet paper industry. And I was like, what? Why? And he's like, it's because they have razor thin margins. And so the fact that he uses the insights from another industry and applies it to his own business I think is fascinating. So those are the kind of things that I'm really interested in.

Yeah, I agree with those sentiments. I know, like what Sam, like my mentor Tim Parr has said, like in his first six months after acquisition, he was like, I'm just gonna let my mind run free. Like I'm gonna go down the rabbit holes that interest me the most. I'm gonna like do all this stuff. I think what I'm most excited about is now that we have more clout and more access, we're gonna get into higher quality rooms. And I'm excited to learn from those people that previously kind of were cordoned off to me. So expanding and building and expounding upon my network is something I'm really, really excited about. To be at these events and be at these parties and such, to meet other kind of like to meet some world class people and obviously the other benefits, right. Like focusing on health and fitness and social life. Right. And, and strengthening my friendships and strengthening my bonds with my family and investing more in my dating life, obviously with the more kind of liberating nature of not having to focus on running a business like I see you and Jacqueline, absolute power couple, by the way.

Oh, my God.

At least, you know, on camera. Very much built for. For one another.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

So, yeah, finding. Finding someone that I can really grow with and spend time with, I think is another priority for me. On top of, you know, just enjoying the. The life that I'm afforded now, being able to travel more. Me and Sim are going to take our first vacation the next six to eight months.

Epic.

Which is something we didn't have access and wouldn't have been able to do before. Right. So that's just something I'm excited about.

Love that, guys. Well, I just want to say thank you so much for, for coming on today. This has been something that I've been looking forward to just, you know, making the show happen, diving into the story of. Of what not only what you guys built, but what you learned in the process. Right. And we can all learn from one another. So moving forward, where is the best place for everyone to follow both of you to learn more about our future, to just to stay up to date with everything you guys have going on?

Yeah, for me, it's definitely Twitter and ig, so at Michael Sakand on both Michael, Sik, Andy, both platforms will find some. Some juicy stuff.

Yeah, Twitter for me would be underscore. Simi. Underscore. I know I should take the underscores out, but for now, we're just going to stick with it. And then on ig, it's I'm epic.

I'll make sure to link all that down below, guys. But again, thank you so much for, for coming on the show today. Both of you, congrats again. I learned a lot here today. And everyone that's listening or watching, make sure you go follow our future. Follow Michael and Simi and I'll make sure to link it all below. Thanks so much, dude.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you. Thank you so much, brother.