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. We're doing things a little bit differently this week,

or dropping another mini-series, which means you're getting two episodes today,

two episodes Wednesday, and two episodes Friday. You're listening to episode two in the series,

be sure to check out today's classic episode as well. This week's theme for the mini-series is

how to start building. We're going to talk about everything from idea formation to the mindset

and skills you must hone as you work to get your business off the ground. Today, I am talking about

how to think of startup ideas. Let's hop into it.

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

I remember in second grade, I was in Mrs. Sachs' 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

think creatively and find interesting opportunities like this. This was definitely an interesting

opportunity. And while some people, like me, were born with this muscle, built up, it is a muscle

that can be trained and learned by anyone. So that's what I want to spend the rest of this

episode talking about, because being able to think of startup ideas is super important.

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