We got Alex Konrad coming into the Temple of Technology. Welcome to the show. Congratulations. Let us know what you're announcing, what you're doing. Break it down.
Yeah, thank you guys. I'm so excited to announce my new startup today called Upstarts Media. Cool. Upstarts Media is a new tech media publication focused on the startup ecosystem.
Fantastic. What's the angle? What are you doing differently? What are you leveraging? And will there be a list of the best and more importantly the worst venture capital lists dropping soon?
I know, I know that I have a customer for that for sure. We need this. I'll think about that. You know, I actually did 25 audience calls ahead of time and I should have asked that specific question: should I launch an anti-list? But yeah, for your audience who don't know me, I spent 12 years at Forbes covering venture capital and startups. I really lived in that world. I wrote a bunch of cover stories about folks like Melanie Perkins at Canva, the Cison brothers at... I wrote one about a SoftBank report at Wiz, which has been in the news a lot. I really enjoyed writing about startups and the VCs who fund them. I felt like we were in a moment where so much traditional tech media coverage is focused on big tech, politics, tech people in the White House, big policy debates, not so much on the startups that I really love writing about. I just heard from so many people that it was hard to get those founder journeys, startup storytelling out there right now. So I'm hoping to do my small part to just tell those stories.
How do you think about the different products that are offered in the media ecosystem? I mean, most people just think it's a news article, but once you dive in, you realize there's investigative journalism, breaking news, profiles, op-eds, editorial, all this different stuff. How do you think about the landscape and what interests you the most?
Well, first off, these tech bros showed up and they completely created a size make event for us in media. No, but seriously, jokes aside, I think you guys and a lot of these new brands that have been the most interesting in tech journalism and media right now have kind of come from these adjacent spaces. They haven't been traditional journalists. We have seen some people go independent and try to get more direct. We keep hearing 'go direct' from certain founders and PR folks, and I think that's great for certain people. But my hope is that there's still room for curated storytelling from journalists like me who can help especially those founders who maybe don't have the platform to go direct, and also can connect the dots in ways that you wouldn't get from some of these awesome podcasts and shows like your own. I really do agree with you. We were talking to Lulu about this yesterday, just the idea that yes, you should go direct and post your own news, but then you should also talk to new media like you and us, and then you should also talk to the Wall Street Journal if they call. It's really an ensemble strategy to build this cinematic universe around you and what you're doing if it's important.
How do you think about... Funny timing. We talked about this last week about TechCrunch selling. It was unclear what they were going to do. I think TechCrunch had created this thing they did well: make people's parents proud. You wanted to get into TechCrunch. It was this moment in every founder's journey: you go there to announce a round or a product launch. They sell to private equity, which people were like, 'Oh great, private equity is just going to come in.' Nobody knew what they were going to do. Then the first TechCrunch headline I see is this hit piece on 11x. Whether or not it's fair, TechCrunch is in a very weird position. They're trying to do investigative journalism but still want to be the place where you launch your startup. Are you trying to pick a lane and say, 'We are pro-founder, we are pro-tech, we know this is hard, but we want to tell your story in an authentic way'? Are you looking to develop trust with these founders and cover them across their entire career? What is that? I'm trying to hone in on your specific angle because I think the temptation is that somebody starts out writing tech-positive, then eventually they get some crazy scoop and they're like, 'Oh, this is going to get so many subscribers. Controversy! I'm just going to publish this fund's returns.'
I have three different responses for that, but I can try to keep them short. It's a really important debate. First, I would say our ideology is that Upstarts was founded on the belief that startups are at their best when they punch above their weight, challenge the status quo, and try to improve the world in some way. At that core, I believe that technology is great for the planet and great for our daily lives, and I want to write about that. At the same time, I am going to be a journalist. I am going to be independent, so I'm not a cheerleader. Just because a lot of my Midas VC pals might be subscribing today doesn't mean I'm going to suddenly write about their portfolio company. I want to keep a really impartial and fair view. That's what I tried to build in the last 15 years writing about startups: that sense of trust that you can expect me to be fair, to have the good of the ecosystem at heart. So if I do something that doesn't feel super comfortable, I say that's actually a good thing because you can get that from an amazing VC podcast or a beautiful marketing video. I might ask questions that push you a little bit, but I am in the ecosystem. I do consider myself a founder of a startup here, and I have that empathy. I'm going to be only punching up really carefully. I'm not going to be punching down. I never want to get out of bed and be like, 'What startup am I messing with today?' No Gawker 2.0.
I want to talk about the instantiation of the work that you do. Obviously you're a writer first and foremost, and most people experience your work through Forbes.com. But have you thought about where that lives? Are you targeting the email inbox? Will there be a printed version? I'd love a coffee table book of the Konrad list this year. I think that would sell really well. Every VC firm would probably pay $1,000 for the Konrad printed coffee table book. Are we going to get videos, podcasts? What are you thinking?
Yeah, it's a little crazy because I am bootstrapping this business at first to control my outcomes and test product-market fit. But I kind of want to do everything you said, maybe not the coffee table book just yet. That could be a year two goal. I'm going to be launching a live video series of monthly interviews, very different from what you guys do, but just a quick fun interview with a CEO next week. I'm doing that through my newsletter on Substack, who have been a great partner. I'm working closely with them and going to be publishing twice a week. I also got a shout out... This might be controversial on this show, but I am going to be working with partners to make sure that one edition of my newsletter is free each week. I want to prove this can be a sustainable business but also be inclusive to folks who are early career, students, founders who are cutting their burn and want to get high quality news but don't want to pay yet. I actually signed a launch partner in Brex. Always happy to work with others down the road. But yeah, that's basically the way I'm thinking about this: multiple streams, a newsletter. I'd love to do a podcast eventually, but I'm going to be building in public. I'm going to be screwing up a lot. I think that'll be authentic with this audience. You guys will see that.
