Minimal Media Funding

Sam Parr and the Morning Brew founders (Austin Rief and Alex Lieberman) reflect on their early fundraising decisions for their media companies, sharing regrets and lessons learned about raising capital.

• Minimal Funding for Media Ventures:

  • Sam: "If I were starting today I would not raise funding at all"
  • Austin: "For a media venture I don't think you should raise... you should raise as little as humanly possible"
  • Sam raised "a little bit of funding" but tried to raise more (fortunately unsuccessfully)
  • This ended up being "a blessing" as Sam "made a lot of money because I owned the majority of the company"

• Funding Should Match Business Needs:

  • Austin: "Raising funding is all about your business needs"
  • Morning Brew needed their $750,000 for cash flow purposes
  • Media companies face payment delays: "you might need thirty sixty ninety or one hundred and twenty days just to get paid"
  • Austin once nearly missed payroll, "literally two minutes away from missing payroll"

• Investor Management Challenges:

  • Alex: "We had 28 individual investors... if I was to do it again I would have way fewer"
  • Important to "try to suss out if these people are going to be difficult"
  • "There were some very difficult investors when we sold the business"

• Contrasting with Legacy Media Companies:

  • Austin criticized legacy media companies who "raise these live at sea a hundred million dollars of funding"
  • "What could you possibly do with a hundred million dollars of funding"
  • These companies "burned it on fire flushed it down the toilet and added no value"

• Underdog Mentality as an Alternative to Funding:

  • Morning Brew operated with core values including "underdog mentality"
  • "We came into work every day a group of misfits... who had no idea what they were doing in the media industry"
  • This approach helped them "kick the shit out of all these legacy media companies"