What's up, everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew.

Welcome back to Founders Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you the business builder,

the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business,

a team, or a new product. So, I need to share an update, and that is, for the next little while,

we're going to be republishing classic episodes of Founders Journal. Two reasons. One, because

these are really good episodes that I spend a lot of time on, and with so many new listeners

to the show, it's very likely you haven't heard some of these older episodes, and I think you'll

benefit from them. Second, I'm spending a ton of time thinking about how to evolve this show,

so that we can make it as good as humanly possible for the next generation of builders and entrepreneurs.

And with that, I would love your help as I dream up the future of this show. So once you've

listened, shoot me an email to Alex at Morning Brew.com, and don't hold back any feedback,

recommendations, ideas, I want to hear it all, and I want to have it help me inform where this show

is going. That's the update now time for the episode. In today's classic episode, originally

published on October 25th, 2021, I talk about how to think of startup ideas from scratch.

I have always loved thinking of business ideas. Literally since I was a kid,

I remember in second grade, I was in Mrs. Sax's class at Harrison Elementary,

and one day while writing in my black composition notebook, I had a brain blast.

I was spending so much time going from pen to highlighter that I said to myself,

why don't I just have one tool that does both of these things? I went home literally cut a pen

in half and a highlighter in half. I probably did it six times because I messed up the first five.

I taped them together and for about a day before literally all of the ink leaked out onto my pants,

I had a two-in-one pen and highlighter to use at school. And my brain has always been wired to

...