In #23, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about Kenan Saleh who built a rooftop advertising startup for rideshare fleets and sold it to Lyft within 7 months of starting it at age 21. Kenan spent the next few years turning Lyft Media into a meaningful revenue division and if its any indicator, Uber aims for its rideshare ads business to do $1B next year. The boys also explore a number of other fascinating adtech startups that carved their slice of the attention eco...
Dec 13, 2023•33 min•Ep. 23
In #22, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about Rory and Kieran O'Reily, the sibling duo behind several massive internet projects and now co-founders of a new fintech backed by American Express. The brothers dropped out of Harvard and became Thiel Fellows to pursue the mania around GIFs by building a GIF creator website called Gifs.com. Despite being used by huge companies like Netflix, the brothers struggled to monetize it, and pivoted into crypto. Their Ethereum...
Dec 06, 2023•33 min•Ep. 22
In #21, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about Jack Settleman, the 27-year-old founder of Snapback Sports, a sports media brand and community generating seven figures a year in revenue. For this episode, the boys play around with a new format and focus on tactical takeaways for building in media and beyond. 0:00 Intro 1:55 What is Jack's Company? 2:31 How Jack Makes Money 3:57 Discussion: Quality of Revenue 6:37 Jack's Origin Story 7:41 Do Things That Don't Scale...
Nov 29, 2023•27 min•Ep. 21
In #19, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) chat with Sam Rattner (@samrattner), Co-Founder of Vigtory, a sports betting app he sold for $40M to FuboTV in 2021 at age 23. Sam is a college dropout who built a snow removal empire as a Chicago teenager before he pivoted to capitalize on the legalization of U.S. sports betting. More recently, Sam became the Co-Founder and CEO of Showroom, a B2C fashion search engine startup that he thinks can beat Google at its own game. 01:...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 19
In #18, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) chat with Mike Fata (@themikefata), Founder of Manitoba Harvest. Mike dropped 100 lbs while sticking to a no fat diet, but it was his discovery of hemp seeds, that prompted him to realize that healthy fat diets were the future. It took him 20 years, but Mike scaled Manitoba's signature hemp heart packets (seeds) into a popular food supplement embraced by mindful eaters across the U.S. and Canada. By 2019, Manitoba had achieved ...
Nov 08, 2023•52 min•Ep. 18
In #17, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu chop it up with 30-year-old millionaire Daniel Snow. He's sold 7+ multi-million dollar businesses in his twenties, spanning agencies, media brands, and ecommerce products. Daniel's most prolific business is RapTV, one of Instagram's biggest media companies (and the launching ground for new rap talent) with 45M+ combined followers across its properties. Last year, RapTV brought in over $4.5M through partnerships with top artists and companies like Spotify....
Nov 01, 2023•46 min•Ep. 17
In #16, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu discuss the story of Jake Karls from Mid-Day Squares and David Riggs from Pneuma. Now age 30, Jake has spent the past 6 years building a retail-first chocolate square company with his sister and brother-in-law that aims to disrupt industry giants like Mondelez and Hershey's with functional, nutritious ingredients. It has surpassed $28M in sales and sells its products in over 20,000 retailers. Next up is 25-year-old David Riggs, whose agency, Pneuma, tops ...
Oct 25, 2023•30 min•Ep. 16
In #15, Simran Sandhu and Michael Sikand dive into the story of Anirudh Singla, the 24-year-old co-founder and CEO of Pepper. Singla's software platform is productizing the world of content marketing and has notched $10M/yr in revenue helping big companies produce written content at scale. Next up is Sheridan Clayborne, the 24-year-old co-founder of LendTable, a fintech company helping Americans take advantage of their 401K plans. The startup has already helped its users save over $10M and has a...
Oct 18, 2023•36 min•Ep. 15
In #14, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu unpack the stories of Jake Lewin and Allan Maman. Aged 21-year-old, Jake co-founded Tabs with Oliver Brocato, a sex chocolate brand that pioneered UGC TikTok marketing and has many millions of sales to show for it. Now he's dabbling in more vices–finding niche opportunties in retail environments–like liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries. Next, the guys discuss Allan Maman, the 24-year-old CEO and co-founder of Bloom, an app that lets teens invest in th...
Oct 04, 2023•33 min•Ep. 14
In #13, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu discuss the stories of Griffin Spolansky and Taylor Hersom. Griffin got his start peddling his grandma's salad dressing to local stores as a teenager. Now he's 26 and owns a snack bar brand called Mezcla that's in Whole Foods stores nationwide and generating $5M/yr in revenue because Americans love "the crunch". Next up is Taylor Hersom, the founder of Eden Data, who turned his small UpWork hustle into a bustling cybersecurity consulting firm that will do...
Sep 27, 2023•36 min•Ep. 13
In #12, Simmy and Michael unpack the stories of Kadama and Crossnet. Founded by University of Washington students who originally hoped to connect students with tutors on campus, Amin and Dani Shaykho, and Marwan El-Rukby pivoted that idea into app-based service when COVID hit. Using a genius TikTok marketing strategy that has produced billions of views and recruited over 2M users, Kadama will do $5M in revenue this year. The next company covered is Crossnet, a new sport invented by brothers Greg...
Sep 20, 2023•34 min•Ep. 12
In #11, the boys are in a fintech frenzy, breaking down the strategies and tactics young founders used to break in to the most regulated industry. The first company discussed is Karat Financial, a buzzy fintech startup that's raised $100M+ to create the American Express of the creator economy. Karat offers a credit card for content creators with limits calculated by a proprietary algorithm that factors in non-conventional data like social following and revenue streams. Co-founders Will Kim and E...
Sep 13, 2023•34 min•Ep. 11
In #10, Michael and Simmy unpack two fascinating businesses: POSH and Upswing Sports. Started by two NYU college students, Avante Price (22) and Eli Taylor-Lemire (22), POSH is a next-gen events management platform that allows event hosts to organize paid events. If legacy ticketers like Eventbrite and Ticketmaster weren't paying attention, they are now–POSH has registered over 1M+ users and amassed a sizeable war chest of $5M in venture capital. Next up on the episode is Thomas Shields, Founder...
Sep 06, 2023•39 min•Ep. 10
In #9, Michael and Simmy dissect the stories of Aaron Spivak and Ritwik Pavan. Aaron is the co-founder of Hush Blankets, a sleep brand he started when capitalizing on the weighted blanket trend and sold a majority stake of in 2021 at a $50M valuation when he was 25. Ritwik is the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Krava, a company he hopes can help solve the affordable housing crisis. It's a a pre-fabricated construction startup that sells $30K ADU's (accessory dwelling units) to customers looking f...
Aug 30, 2023•35 min•Ep. 9
In #8, Simmy and Mike sit down with Ankur Nagpal who sold his course platform, Teachable, for $250M in 2020 at the age of 31. Prior to starting that business at age 24, Ankur made millions building Facebook apps. Now, he's building Ocho, a platform for business owners where personalized advice helps them optimize their taxes and save money with tools like their solo 401k product. Make sure to like, subscribe, or leave a review for Our Future Podcast, the entrepreneurship podcast for young people...
Aug 23, 2023•52 min•Ep. 8
In #7, Mike and Simmy are chopping it up from Morning Brew's NYC HQ and dive into the stories of FanFix and Social Snowball. FanFix, founded by Harry Gestetner, Simon Pompan, and social media star Cameron Dallas, is the leading monetization platform for Gen Z Creators. Think of it like OnlyFans with no nudity or Patreon but mobile-first. The company was acquired for $65M in 2022, less than 10 months after it launched, in a deal the co-founders say was the largest acquisition ever for college stu...
Aug 16, 2023•33 min•Ep. 7
In Ep. 6, Mike and Simmy dive into the story of Stephen Hakami, a 25-year-old college dropout who built Wiza: a SaaS tool that enriches Linkedin prospect lists with high-quality contact info so they can be targeted off-platform. He started the company only 3 years ago and today it's generating over $6M/yr in revenue! Then the guys put on their lab coats for a discussion about Kathryn Cross, the 24-year-old founder of Anja Health. Kathryn has created a DTC startup in the nascent industry of stem ...
Aug 09, 2023•32 min•Ep. 6
In Ep. 5, Michael and Simmy sit down with their long-time mentor Sam Parr. Sam founded daily email newsletter company, The Hustle, and sold it to HubSpot in 2020 for tens of millions of dollars. Part of that deal meant he'd continue co-hosting his acclaimed business podcast, "My First Million", which has recently exploded in popularity and has transformed Sam into something of a B-List celebrity. Recently, Sam announced his newest company, Hampton, a private membership community for high-growth ...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 5
In Episode 4, Mike and Simmy study the success of two fascinating startups built by young founders. The first is LineLeap. 25-year-olds Max Schauf, Patrick Skelly, and Nick Becker built an eight-figure business that digitizes America's nightlife industry with "line skipping passes", mobile payments, and drink ordering. Company #2 is Factored Quality. 25-year-old CEO Prince Ghosh raised $7M building a software platform in quality inspection, helping American DTC companies work with their overseas...
Jul 26, 2023•35 min•Ep. 4
In Ep. 3, Michael and Simmy explore two exciting martech companies built by Gen Z founders and discuss a few interesting business ideas after each segment. The first comes from 23-year-old Stanford dropout and Thiel Fellow: Akshaya Dinesh. Her startup Spellbound, a no-code SAAS platform, has partnered with the likes of Mr. Beast's Feastables and Ollipop. It's revolutionizing email newsletter engagement by allowing readers to purchase products, recover abandoned carts, and play interactive games ...
Jul 19, 2023•32 min•Ep. 3
In Ep. 2, the boys first cover Seamus Ruiz-Earle, who has built a multi-million dollar business in software implementation at age 23 and stumbled into his startup idea after cold-calling an investment bank at age 16 and getting a strange reply. Then they dive into the story of Bolun Li, a Chinese immigrant who arrived in America at age 13 unable to speak English. He overcame the odds to build a gamified financial literacy app which he sold for tens of millions at age 22. Our Future Podcast is th...
Jul 12, 2023•40 min•Ep. 2
Episode 1: Our Future Podcast is here! In the entrepreneurship podcast for young people, we highlight scrappy founders on the rise and the bold tactics underdogs need to win in business. Hosts Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu don’t just talk about the hustle, they live it – they sold their bootstrapped media startup to Morning Brew shortly after graduating college. Today, Michael and Simmy dive into the stories of 3 young entrepreneurs. Eric Zhu, who has raised $21M+ at 15-years-old from the str...
Jul 05, 2023•39 min•Ep. 1
