Morning Brew co-founder Alex Lieberman on his "Coachella of Content" festival

Welcome to Spark, a weekly newsletter from Vivace Content. We compile news signals from across the business, financial, and cultural landscape, and spark ideas to help you and your business jump on something new to talk about. Send tips and feedback to [email protected].

Hey everyone,

This week we have yet another edition of Spark first and a sneak preview as we continue to explore new ways of bringing you the best insights from Vivace’s ever-expanding network of brilliant thinkers and doers. We’re excited to share the following excerpt of an interview with one of the media and content world's entrepreneurial luminaries.

A few days ago, I was thrilled to sit down with a world-class media entrepreneur I’ve followed for a long time, Alex Lieberman (@businessbarista). Alex is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew, which started as a newsletter that many of us at Vivace have read for many years, that under his leadership grew into a media company with over 2 million subscribers (currently 4m). More recently, he’s the co-founder of a new content agency, storyarb – ‘the modern brand’s full-stack content subscription.’

Storyarb recently launched the ‘Coachella of Content’ CommaCon, a digital event series that is a conference, community builder, content funnel, and product launcher all rolled into one. Alex and I discussed the inspiration behind their innovative product-drop model, CommaCon growth plans, the power of in-person vs. virtual events, and much more.

If you’re interested in the future of content marketing and practical, actionable strategies you can use to take your marketing strategy to the next level, this is a must–read. Stay tuned for the release of our full interview, which will kick off Season 3 of Connection Request in a few weeks!

-joel

P.S. Connection Request is a podcast about creative entrepreneurship, big ideas, current affairs, and the future of work. You can find Season 1 and 2 on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I particularly loved this interview with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s education advisor Dale Whittaker.

In conversation with Alex Lieberman (Morning Brew, storyarb)

Joel Leeman: So you and storyarb, literally this week, as we're recording this, you have what's been positioned as the Coachella of Content. And so first, give me the overview and pitch of what CommaCon is, and who it's for.

Alex Lieberman: So going back to Tyler (Denk) from Beehiiv, something I've always admired about what they're building is the way in which they do marketing and organic marketing. And the way I've always described it is they've taken drop culture that was kind of made famous in the sneaker world, and they brought that to software. So basically, every two weeks since Beehiiv launched, they have a blitz package, and that blitz package is they release a new product feature, which includes an animated video. Tyler talks about it, his investors retweet it, his team does. There's all this noise around this artificial schedule they created to keep Beehiiv top of mind. And I thought: it's genius – and I'm surprised that more companies don't do this.

Even if you weren't a traditional software company that had a quarter long roadmap – create one just for the purpose of marketing.

JL: It's literally like agile software development meets product marketing. And like you said, it's a pretty simple concept, but no one really does it.

AL: And so basically, I watched this and I just had this observation in my head, which was like, ‘whenever I launch my next company, I'm going to draw inspiration from this’. And so then with storyarb, something that I thought about was: what does our blitz package look like? And how can I take it to the next level? And so what I basically thought about was what if we think of storyarb and all of the content that we offer to our customers? And what if we, on a monthly basis, drop a new content type that we offer to our customers? And what if we actually create a whole event around that specific content type that we are dropping?

So two things happen: One is people find out that we are dropping a new product. Two, we're creating an entire event where everyone who's attending that event clearly cares about how to create that product really well. And three, it actually opens up a new way to monetize outside of our core asset, which is event sponsorships. The whole idea with CommaCon is that this is going to be a monthly content festival. We started with newsletters and we have it planned for basically the next twelve months. Every month is a different content format, whether it's executive social, whether it's company social, whether it's blog and SEO, whether it's every type of content format.

And the idea is, bring the smartest people in that format to talk about the tools and tactics they use to succeed in it and use it as amazing top of funnel content to bring people into our ecosystem. And I think ultimately there's two ways we plan to bring people into our ecosystem: one is the very simple way of these people become potential leads who sign up for storyarb. So we can help them write their newsletters or whatever their content format is. But ultimately, I see a place where we end up creating a community for content and content marketing. And all of the people that attend CommaCon would likely be interested in being part of this community.

JL: Well, I think that's a very good pitch and has my wheels turning. I think it's really a smart approach and totally makes sense. Part of the reason that I reached out is when you were – when did you start tweeting about CommaCon before it had a name? How long ago is that?

AL: I want to say a month.

JL: Okay. So back then, I think I probably missed where it said digital, and I was passing it around too, because I'm in the content world, right? My friends are in the content world; copywriters, strategists. The core business that I have is a global agency. So we’re all, ‘this sounds amazing! We're gonna get together!’ So I think I probably missed a beat. And then when I was like – ‘oh, it's virtual’. Like – what? It's a webinar. No offense to you, because obviously what you're doing is way different than a webinar.

AL: That feeling of ‘someone needs to do what aioli did for mayonnaise’ – someone needs to do that for webinars.

JL: I like that. And that's a really good model. And I think what I like about the format and part of it, you've been very open about this, is you spent less than $1,000 on the event.

AL: It actually may be a little bit more than $1,000 now. We spent on our design. And then the design agency we use – they're in Minnesota also, shout out! – and they're amazing. They're the ones who did the storyarb site. Also cool. And then the only other cost was literally, like, upgrading our Zoom and upgrading our HubSpot. And that was it.

JL: Yeah, well, when you pitch it like that, it makes sense. So here's sort of my push slash challenge slash hope slash dream…

AL: Doing this in person at some point. Just – there it is.

JL: I think to me, obviously you're sort of bootstrapping this business. But I think I was like, ‘oh, wow, Alex Lieberman is putting together a festival! Yeah, let's do it!’ And I think I bought into the…however long away that vision is, instead of paying attention to the details of: oh, this is digital. So I think that's my only friendly feedback. So I attended the event today, and then our Head of Media attended yesterday. Like, you're putting together some of my favorite people. So the fact that I get to learn from them is amazing.

I think for me, as a person who went through Covid and we had to pivot everything to digital. And then after that, I think everybody sort of came out of that. Actually, I think part of the series we're going to run in our newsletter is about the power of in-person community and events, right? Whether that's spending money on travel costs and your teams being in person or events. I think I'm in a period of my life where both for my clients that we're talking to as well as for my business, because we're a global business, we're craving in-person connection. And so I think count me up as signing up to maybe be a sponsor if we grow big enough by that time.

AL: I definitely want to do it in person. Honestly, I can't think of an amazing in-person content conference. The only one I can think about is VidCon for creators. Do you know any? I'm curious because I want to learn more.

JL: Well, I was going to say, actually there's a great opportunity because for my money, one of the best content strategy conferences that ended up turning into content design and UX and all sorts of things was called Confab and it was usually hosted in Minnesota and then they had others, but they brought it to an end a few years ago. So to me you have a real opportunity to fill the space that they had. And then I guess beyond that, you know, there's like content marketing conferences. Basically – I think you have a real opportunity and space to fill. And I think obviously just because of who you are and your profile and the team you have and the relationships and the network effect, right.

I think you have a real opportunity to…I think you could do this in person very soon, but I don't know much about your business. Does that make sense?

AL: As soon as it is fiscally responsible for us to do it in person, I promise you we will do it in person.

JL: Well, as Vivace, our business, grows; sign us up to, you know, help you get it done in whatever way possible. I do think Minnesota would be a great place for you to host it. Or Michigan.

📝 COMMACON RECAP: NEWSLETTER STRATEGY

Vivace Head of Media, Mimi Hayton, attended CommaCon’s kick-off session; a panel on Newsletter Strategy with Alex Lieberman and Tyler Denk, hosted by Story Arb’s Jeanine Suah. Tyler Denk is the CEO of Beehiiv (the platform that brings you Spark!) and was previously a Product and Growth Lead/Engineer at Morning Brew.

1. Write to an imagined audience of one – write as if you’re writing to your single most important recipient or customer, articulate their exact content needs and then serve them

2. Deliverability is key – cull your lists and don’t chase vanity metrics like subscriber numbers, instead look at opens, clicks and replies (n.b. opens are no longer a reliable metric because of Apple operating system changes)

3. Encourage direct replies – engagement through email responses sends a positive signal to Google

4. Cultivate a recognizable voice — people should be able to identify your newsletter even if the title, sender and branding were removed

5. Maintain a constant feedback loop – would you read this?

6. True thought leadership is golden – deep expertise, analysis and voice are hard to emulate and key to many of the most successful newsletters today

7. Newsletters are their own destination – run your newsletter like it’s own business; if you’re treating it as a content stepping stone, it’s not going to work

8. Promote before and after – share what you’re going to write about on social beforehand, summarize and promote after, and email gate all the content

9. Growth is a long road – Newsletters and owned audiences take a long time to grow (and it’s linear growth)

10. Read Tyler’s ‘0 to 8000 Subscribers in 2 Months - The full step by step playbook’ in his newsletter Big Desk Energy

Please let me know if you enjoyed this issue by emailing [email protected] or commenting on LinkedIn. Also if you’d like to see your name added to the illustrious and growing roster of Spark contributors – commentary, opinions, analysis and think-pieces are always welcome 😁 

Spark is a production of Vivace Content, where we help our clients around the world navigate what to say and how to say it every single day. Get in touch if you’d like to have a no-hassle consultation about how we can help you too. Have a great week ahead, and see you next week.