Latest / Send & Grow by SparkLoop / Building a Newsletter People Love with Matt Gross (Shut Up N' Eat)
Transcript
- Hunter Kallay (00:05) Hey there. Welcome to the first edition of Send and Grow 2.0. This is where we explore the personalities and strategy behind the most successful and interesting newsletters in the world. My name's Hunter Kallay, and I'm the Publisher Partnership's lead at Spark Loop. And I also run a daily AI newsletter called Fry AI with over 50,000 readers. Today I'm joined by Matt Gross, longtime food connoisseur and writer, published author. Former columnist at the New York Times and now helps run a media company called Shut Up and Eat. So today we're gonna be talking about food, getting to know Matt a little bit, and of course discussing newsletters and media. So in particular, we're going to cover how newsletters, podcasts, and e commerce all fit together. Are you ready to go, Matt? Matt (00:51) always ready. Hunter Kallay (00:51) Cool. So we're talking about shut up and eat, very interesting name, right? And the first thing that comes Matt (00:56) Hope so. Hunter Kallay (00:57) to mind for me is like food, right? So you spend decades writing about food and travel. So I have to ask you, what's the best meal you've ever eaten? Matt (01:07) I don't even know a way to answer that. I mean, I've had tons and tons of epic once-in-a-lifetime meals. I as you know, it's was it's the easiest thing to say, but there was one meal at Noma, the high end new Nordic restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark. I went there in twenty fourteen and that was three or four hour lunch of Dish after dish after dish that was just incredible. I remember eating a hundred-year-old mahogany clam and just the things that you would never even imagine that you could put together in a single dish. and that's sort of the easy one to pinpoint. But in general, what I try to do with my eating with my life is not to focus on singular meals that are the greatest things of all time. But To try and eat generally really well all of the time. And to make sure that whether it's a quick lunch in the middle of the day or a meal I'm making for my family, that everything is actually really pretty good. If not A plus, I don't need to be A plus every single day. That would kill me and it would kill everybody that I eat with because it drives you insane. So I Hunter Kallay (02:11) So I'm gonna I'm gonna bring up a picture here. Matt (02:14) Calypso chicken. Hunter Kallay (02:15) this is something I saw on the Shut Up and Eat newsletter recently, Matt, that you shared. Matt (02:19) no. Yes. Hunter Kallay (02:21) if you're listening to the audio, I'm pulling up a picture of what looks like is this a chicken leg? What where is this? And what is this? Matt (02:29) Yeah, it's a chicken leg. Yeah. So that is my god, what's the restaurant called? you're killing me here. Give me one second to Google this thing so that I can actually remember where I ate, 'cause I do remember eating. Hunter Kallay (02:39) We gotta give credit where credit is due. Matt (02:41) Yeah. it is not it made me think of the Calypso chicken at Kabawa, which is this really great Caribbean restaurant in New York. But I was super interested in eating this chicken with its foot attached because I feel like that's kind of a new thing that's going on in New York these days is that you get chickens with the feet attached and sometimes the head attached. And that's like a I don't know, it didn't used to happen like that five, ten years ago. So, let me find this. I'm just I'm looking at a Google map in another frame right now. You're gonna have to edit this a little bit. Got that junk out. Hunter Kallay (03:12) Yeah, yeah. No problem. Matt (03:14) Where is that? You really you sprung that on me, and I should know that one. Hunter Kallay (03:18) I sprung it on you. And we can we can just put it in the comments or something too if we if we need to. But this stuck out to me. This is the kind of stuff like if you subscribe to like shut up and eat, you start like reading these newsletters and then and then I like, I don't know, for dinner. I I I don't know, this isn't doesn't sound like you, Matt, but like I'm eating chicken and rice for dinner and I'm just like I'm like it's nothing Matt (03:38) Chicken and rice is fantastic. Why would what would be wrong with that? I love chicken and rice. Hunter Kallay (03:42) Wrong with that, but like when you see these pictures, I'm just like, okay, we I gotta up my game now. Like my food game has gotta be Matt (03:49) So the thing is I remember the dish, right? Like I all of a sudden the the name of the restaurant is escaping me. But this is like that was this great urban citrus marinated and grilled chicken leg. And it's sticky and juicy and crunchy, and has that slightly charred thing from the grill, and it had this habanero sauce. That was a great thing. It was fantastic. It was like an excellent, excellent lunch dish. Hunter Kallay (04:10) Cool. Yeah, looks good. So all right. So we talked about our food. We had to. I had I had to get something in there about food. I mean, it's shut up and eat. Matt (04:17) Let's do it. Hunter Kallay (04:18) Speak out of talk about it. But I want to talk about you a little bit and then and then Matt (04:21) Yeah. Hunter Kallay (04:22) talk about like shut up and eat, what's going on with the newsletter, your strategy, that sort of thing. but I wanna I wanna hear about you. Okay. So like one thing people do is they often read newsletters. but they like people will read shut up and eat for years. And they'll never know the people behind the newsletter, right? Like I know you get a podcast and that sort of thing, but like that happens. Like and it's not just Shut Up and Eat, it's other things. So like, I want to get to know you a little bit. And your readers might want to get to know you a little bit also. So you have a unique experience. Like you've written columns before, you're an author, but ultimately what do you think makes newsletters different than other mediums like this? Matt (05:00) I mean, there's so much more personal. they the best newsletters read like an email from one person to another person, not from one person to a million people or to a a huge audience. They feel intimate, they feel like they connect one person's experiences and ideas and words, to a reader's and that still feels special. Even, you know, amid all of the other crap of the internet, the The ads and the complicated technologies and the junk in your inbox and the pollution of social media. There's still a way of just sort of breaking through with a really good email that tells a story and communicates information and feels like you're reading the words of a human being. And that's that's kind of wonderful that this, in some ways, really ancient technology on the internet still functions the way it did, you know, 30 years ago when I first got online in nineteen ninety two and got an email address. sending an email and receiving an email were were events and it felt like you were creating connections that were brand new in the universe. And I mean we're a lot farther along than that, but every good newsletter still feels like it recreates that first connection. Hunter Kallay (06:09) Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it seemed like a lot of people, you know, when email was first coming out, and I'm not that old, so you know, this is like when I was younger, but like when email was first coming out, it's like, yeah, everybody messages, sends email, and then it turns to social media, everybody's on social media. And now the algorithms are kind of killing attention on social media. And so people are like, let's go back to this email thing, right? And so that's kind of interesting to me, a trend that I'm seeing. Matt (06:37) Yeah. I mean it's it's i if you i for people in the newsletter space there and people who've watched this thing over say the last five or ten years, there's always been this worry that we're sort of at peak email or that email is gonna go away and get replaced by Slack at work Hunter Kallay (06:51) Email is good, you know. Matt (06:52) and email is simultaneously rising to new heights and constantly in danger of completely disappearing. And I I don't really know which is true, but I know that email is still here and we're still sending emails and I'm still receiving emails and some of the best communications I receive on the internet come through email. Just you know, every once in a while you just get an email from a friend or from someone you know through work and it feels real in a way that a quick Instagram DM doesn't feel as thought through or or permanent or meaningful. Hunter Kallay (07:23) Right, yeah, totally agree. So like which like when you're starting to shut up and eat, you're thinking about newsletters, that sort of thing, is there any newsletter or publication that has influenced you and your work in the voice of shut up and eat most? Matt (07:37) I mean, I think for certain kind of media person, and I'm I'm definitely that kind of media person, having worked in a million different companies in a million different eras, Today in Tabs, by Rusty Foster, this sort of media observation newsletter, started over ten years ago. His voice and his understanding of what's going on in the world and how newsletters can be structured, his ability to play with the form of a newsletter. Where does it start? Where does it go? How do you write it? How does it get put together? What new ideas can you create in a newsletter? he's really one of the biggest influences possible. that is that's one where every time I get it, I read the whole thing from beginning to end. yeah. Today in tabs, Hunter Kallay (08:17) Awesome. Today in tabs. Awesome. Matt (08:19) it's great because you know, you don't read all the tabs that you have open on your on your browser. So he's there to summarise all the things that you missed. Hunter Kallay (08:27) Love it. That's awesome. Cool. Go check out Today and Tabs. Cool. Matt (08:29) Yeah. yeah, it's fantastic. Hunter Kallay (08:32) okay, so this might be one of the newsletters. You know, Today and Tabs might be one of these, but I was gonna ask you, you know, personally, like newsletter creators, like I'm a newsletter creator. Also, we're often subscribed to a few different newsletters or a bunch of newsletters, Matt (08:45) Mm. Hunter Kallay (08:46) right? some that we like, some that, you know, are friends of ours, so we feel obligated, even though their newsletters aren't very good. I have a few of those. I will not say who they are. but let's say you have to cut your inbox down, you can only subscribe to two newsletters for the rest of your life. What are the two that you're keeping? Besides shut up and eat, obviously. Matt (09:05) Well, I mean I read Shut Up and Eat. don't need to subscribe to it. I need other people to subscribe to it. If it if I can cut it out of my inbox and have it go to, you know, a hundred other people's Hunter Kallay (09:12) Yeah. Matt (09:13) inboxes, that's totally fine with me. I wrote it. I know what's in there already. what am I gonna keep? let's see. you know, f at my at my previous job at Cheddar, which is the sort of business, finance, and tech video site. We launched a newsletter, well, we relaunched a newsletter called Need to Know. and that again is sort of daily roundup of what's been going on in the world, especially in the business, finance, and tech world. And I didn't write it, but I was the editor of it. And it is a lively, funny, weird and cheeky roundup of every day's news. And although I don't work at that company anymore, I've continued to subscribe to it and I probably Will because I just like reading it. I mean that's the that's the thing that kind of gets you about a good newsletter is it feels like it's written by someone you want to spend time with. it's got great information, yes, and it's it makes you feel smarter. but it's also there's lots of in newsletters that are gonna make you feel smart, but is this a newsletter that's gonna make you feel loved? Feel that you're in the presence of someone who is making you smarter. So that's one of them. And another one in that vein is called international intrigue. So I am a traveler, I've been almost everywhere in the world and that goes back decades and decades. And international intrigue is a similar kind of news roundup of events around the world. written by a a group of former diplomats. So these are people who worked for the State Department and you know foreign affairs ministries and things like that for years and years before sort of splitting off and writing about this from a diplomat's perspective. So again, it encompasses the entire world and tells you what's going on kind of everywhere, especially things that you didn't know were happening. They look at a lot of overlooked spots in the world. and it's written with n veteran diplomats level of insight. So they tell you not just what's going on, but Hunter Kallay (11:01) Yeah. Matt (11:01) what they know or suspect is going on behind the scenes that have brought us there. They have little elements in the newsletter that are like, here's how to sound smart talking about this, and then here's how to sound even smarter Hunter Kallay (11:12) Yeah. Matt (11:13) talking about this. So they're really just sort of excellent at presenting the information and then a perspective on it and then another perspective on it in a way that feels useful and and fun. I mean they're taking the world of sort of international diplomacy and making it enjoyable. Hunter Kallay (11:28) That's awesome. Yeah, I love those newsletters that are from people who are on the inside telling you the little secrets of the game. that's always awesome. Cool. Matt (11:38) Especially when they have great little stories to tell, you know, about drunken ambassadors and, you know, escape Hunter Kallay (11:42) Yeah. Matt (11:44) narrowly escaping a coup d'etat and things like that. Those are those are the inside stories I wanna hear. Hunter Kallay (11:49) Yeah, that's what I want to hear. That's what I want to hear. Absolutely. Cool. so let's transition into a little bit of shut up and eat. so tell me, you know, so I let me start off here for a second. Shut up and eat's not just a newsletter, right? Like we're talking about newsletters here. It's a full media brand. You have a podcast, you have an online shop. And so, like, before we get into like your whole story. You know, secret to the sauce, what's going on behind the scenes, maybe, I don't know. I gotta know about this. Matt (12:18) Ha ha ha. Hunter Kallay (12:19) I for those of you who are just listening to the audio, I've got up on here what's called the Dumpling onesie. twenty-five dollars on the shut up and eat seems like a steal, in my opinion. What inspired the dumpling onesie? Like what what's going on here? Who came up with this idea? Matt (12:35) Well Hunter Kallay (12:35) Who's responsible? Matt (12:36) I mean this is this is when we started creating Showed Up and Eat we knew we wanted to have a very distinctive visual style. We wanted it to be fun and cute and weird. So a lot of the design revolves around our little green gremlin, who is we have on lots of different t shirts and hats and things, holding croissants or a slice of pizza or drowning in a martini glass. and at one point he was jumping, bouncing off of a dumpling. And then we took the dumpling and we put it on a onesie. Because it's cute and it's food. And we thought that, hey, you know, if you what could be better than a onesie that says shut up and eat? I feel like any parent who's had a child with eating issues, which all children do at one point or another. needs to have a onesie that says shut up and eat and it's just it's a cute dumpling. We're trying to have fun with this thing. and it doesn't Hunter Kallay (13:27) Yeah. Matt (13:28) have to go much deeper than that. Hunter Kallay (13:29) Yeah, and sometimes you don't need an explanation, right? Like it's what other explanation do you need? It's a it's a dumpling onesie, you're gonna buy it like I I don't like Matt (13:37) It's a d it's a onesie with a cute dumpling illustration on it. And like this is I mean so this is so much of what we just want to do with Shut Up and Eat is just have it be fun. there's a lot of food media out there right now. there's a lot of food media newsletters right now. There's Caper, there's Ravenous, there's Gourmet, there's probably a bunch of other ones that I don't know about yet that are bubbling up. and I like them all, but in some ways there's a section of food media that isn't just enjoyable, that isn't just out there to relish the the joy of getting to eat and write and talk about food, which is, you know, there's a lot of serious issues, sure, but at its base level, at its first level, food is fun. And so we want to reflect that in what we do with dumpling onesies. Hunter Kallay (14:25) You know what? I that that deserves Matt (14:25) Ha ha ha. Hunter Kallay (14:27) a little bit of a a clapping there. Food food is food Matt (14:30) thank you. I didn't realize that it was a very inspirational speech right there. Hunter Kallay (14:34) food is fun. I love that. Yeah. Very inspirational. Cool. Yeah, and you know what? Like I I've faced this with my own newsletter too. So I write newsletter Fry AI and I have a little you know, there's a lot of AI newsletters, tech newsletters out there. Honestly, I don't care because I enjoy I enjoy writing about AI and I like that stuff. So like but I try to make it fun too. So like I get it. I put a little I have a little mascot, a little fry robot mascot and stuff. And you know, if if there's a story about like you know, there's an there's a new like robot teacher in a New York school district that they're trying out, like a literal robot teacher. And so like I made like, you know, put the little mascot in the classroom, you know, the little image, Matt (15:14) Yeah. Hunter Kallay (15:15) you know. I think people enjoy this. Like it's like I get comments all the time where people are like, I love the robot character. Like so like I get that. And and so like one thing I'll ask off of that is what have you found about balancing that, you know, creating a revenue stream, making a the brand sustainable, but also making it something that is fun and enjoyable. Have you found that there's challenges there, opportunities there, and how do you maintain that balance? Matt (15:43) Well, I don't know if we're, you know, fully sustainable yet, except that, you know, w we're Hunter Kallay (15:47) Yeah. Matt (15:48) still new, right? We've only been around for two months. we're doing Hunter Kallay (15:50) Yeah. Matt (15:50) okay. Ask me in a year if it's truly sustainable. Hunter Kallay (15:54) Yeah. Matt (15:55) but you know, I I I think the idea is if we look like we're having fun, if we look like we're enjoying the things we're eating and we are excited to be telling you about what you can eat and where you can eat and how you can eat, That can only attract an audience of people who want to know what and where and how they can eat. and with any luck, they will become paid subscribers and they will buy a t-shirt or click on an ad or listen to the podcast or do all of those things because we're creating hopefully a world that they want to participate in, right? We don't wanna just be sitting you know, in an office somewhere sending these missives out into an uncaring world and not responding to anything that people want. We want to engage with what they're looking for and have a bit of back and forth. Hunter Kallay (16:39) Yeah, that's awesome. so let's talk about like this whole like I don't know what you wanna call it, a triangle. I don't know, do you have like an ecosystem? Yeah, I'm thinking Matt (16:47) Ecosystem. It's the ecosystem. Yeah. Hunter Kallay (16:50) like you know like you know in like Christian theology there's like the Holy Trinity Matt (16:55) The Holy Trinity, yeah. Hunter Kallay (16:56) I'm thinking like the triangle with the circle around it between like podcast online shop, newsletter and they're all connected. that's what I'm thinking in my head when I think about this. So I don't know, maybe that's a good way to think about it. But yeah. Matt (17:12) I mean sure, so like we've got the newsletter, we've got the podcast, we've got the e commerce shop. I think those fit together pretty decently. I partly in the sense that at least the newsletter and the podcast are based on words, right? We're not a TikTok channel and a newsletter. Those things I mean, it'd be great if you could make those fit together really well, but I'm not sure that they do. I feel like People who listen to podcasts are also people who listen who read newsletters and vice versa. So I like to think that those things work together, although that doesn't mean that there's an easy overlap. anybody who's, you know we we've tried on the podcast to get people to go and vote for something on the newsletter. And they do, but maybe not as much as we'd like. It's a tough Hunter Kallay (17:51) Yeah. Matt (17:52) thing. Telling people to go from one platform to another platform is a tricky thing. Right. back in the day, this is god fifteen years ago, I went to a BuzzFeed conference and they were talking about the new the new worlds of social media and how you had to treat all these different social media platforms as very distinct from one another. And remember they said that they were talking about the difference between Twitter and Pinterest, and they said, Pinners don't tweet. That these two things don't really cross over. And so that is I mean that that was true about social media then. I think that's true about a lot of platforms now, is it's difficult to get people from one to another. From a newsletter to a podcast, from podcast to a newsletter. It's a challenge, but I think they w at least fit together in terms of what we're trying to accomplish, what we're trying to produce, those make more sense. And then e-commerce is, you know, it's an easy thing to set up, right? We want to have revenue streams, we want to have people be able to get involved with what Shut Up and Eat is in a way that Hunter Kallay (18:47) Yeah. Matt (18:47) they can wear on their hats and their backs. Hunter Kallay (18:50) Yeah. Matt (18:51) and then I guess you know the thing that also ties all this together is in some ways, I'm really trying to test out what what Beehive is capable of. So Hunter Kallay (18:58) Mm-hmm. Matt (18:59) Beehive is the newsletter platform that we're running everything on. And They are our podcast host. They're our newsletter host. they just launched a community feature, so we're gonna see if we can make that work as well. I like Beehive, and they have a lot of neat features that they keep adding to and improving all the time. And I'm trying to see how well I can make use of all of those. And I'm really Hunter Kallay (19:19) Okay. Matt (19:19) hoping that they will plug into Shopify as well pretty soon so that our our e-commerce shop can be. directly connected into what Beehive is doing as well. Hunter Kallay (19:27) Yeah, it seems like Beehive i i is really a great place to be for especially for somebody who is running a different like these different facets of your brand. Like you have a newsletter, you have a podcast, you have an online shop, and you know, you want to have a community also. Like that sounds interesting for Shut Up and Eat and for a lot of other creators. Yeah, it's great that you can have one unified platform so you're not jumping back and forth from hey, go s because then you're asking your your audience, you know, that's the big obstacle is you're asking your audience, hey, go sign up for this separate thing that's way over here and create a new login and all this stuff, and then go sign up for this thing and to keep it all in one place is is definitely a huge advantage. Matt (20:09) Yeah, and I mean, you know, you were t you're asking about sustainability before, and this is kind of the thing that lets us be sustainable. We just have everything in one place. Well, two places if you count Shopify. But Shopify is an easy setup. It's an easy back end thing to manage. it does not take, you know, an army of coders to build a Shopify site, and it doesn't take an army of coders to set up a beehive newsletter and podcast. So This is really the test of the sustainability aspect. We can keep this going, we can make this work because our sort of production environment for everything is really easy and simple. and you know, the money we make on top of that is easy, right? Like you don't have to suddenly realise, well, we've got to start paying all these multiple different hosting service bills. I mean You know, we gotta pay for Riverside and a couple of other things, but in general it's like w we pay for the thing we send the newsletter out with and we pay for Shopify and you know, beyond that it's you know, th the costs are pretty minimal. The infrastructure is is sophisticated and modern and easy and affordable. Hunter Kallay (21:10) How do you think like that transition has made like small creators, like has made it easier for small creators to really blow up or be successful in the newsletter space and elsewhere? Because this like if you rewind even five years ago, ten years ago, like This just wasn't available. You didn't have like a kit or a beehive or, you know, any of these like platforms that make it so easy now to create newsletters, send, manage lists, integrate. Like what kind of opportunities do you think there are now for like smaller creators there? Matt (21:41) I think I mean it gets it gets so much of the junk out of the way. You know, all the stuff that you had to do, all the tweaking, all of the expense and time that you had to use before to make things happen is mostly gone. And so you actually get to focus on making content, writing and making podcasts and doing whatever Hunter Kallay (21:58) Fine stuff. Matt (21:59) and like the actual fun stuff instead of spending hours tweaking settings and trying to figure out why something broke. So that is really just amazing. And you know, Beehiiv has made that possible, and ghost and outpost are doing that. And what's that what's that big newsletter thing that starts with the letter S Hunter Kallay (22:17) Yeah, I can't think about it. Spark spark? Spark something? Yeah, spark. Matt (22:18) What if I Yeah, something like that. Yeah. The that one. They you know, look, I mean, we we give them a lot of crap, but Substack has done a lot for this world of making it Hunter Kallay (22:30) Substack, yeah. Yeah. Matt (22:31) making it easy to just start doing this stuff without you know, all the technical aspects getting in the way. So I mean it's great. I'm really curious to see what it's like ten years from now. whether we'll still be on the same platforms or whether even newer, even more sophisticated things are gonna come along that are gonna make it a million times easier and make today look like, God, can you believe all the stuff we had to slog through back in twenty twenty six just to get a newsletter out? Maybe ten years from now it's gonna be an even Hunter Kallay (22:58) yeah. Matt (22:58) breezier and more magical process. Hunter Kallay (23:00) Yeah, I can't imagine. It's really cool to think about. Yeah, I mean yeah, people and it's interesting like how people choose different platforms too. Like between you know we talk about Substack. Seems like there's a lot of like social media type creators using Substack and using it very well. I mean, for all the crap that we give. Like, yeah, I mean if it takes a lot of heat in the newsletter world. people were like, it's not a real newsletter platform. But it's great for people who are creators, you know, who have like already have audiences, like that kind of social feel. You got Beehive, it seems great for people who have like you know, brands where they're trying to do multiple things, juggle things, kits great for people who are, you know. We have like different people are really fitting into these different newsletter ecosystems. It's really cool to see. and yeah, one thing that I'll say is I remember Maybe this was, I don't know, was it about 10 years ago, building a website, I thought like it was the coolest thing that I could build a website and it was like on Wix or something like that. And I'm like, I can build a website. Yeah, Squarespace. Matt (24:03) Or square space. Yeah. Hunter Kallay (24:05) I'm like, I can build a website, this is awesome. And I thought the technology was amazing then. And like that's kind of the similar feeling I have now about like the newsletter ecosystem. I'm like, wow, there's like It's so cool we can like track these newsletters and it's like, yeah, I can't even imagine what's gonna come in the future here with with a lot of these platforms and the way these platforms continue to release stuff. I mean, seems like every platform is continuing to release stuff like every single day, every single week, I see something new, a new feature. and that's really exciting. And I'm I I mean, I know you're probably this way. I'm a nerd about that stuff. As soon as some new feature comes out, I've gotta go try it. Matt (24:43) yeah, absolutely. I mean that stuff is it's fun. I mean I mean this is in some ways a a a bind that we get ourselves into, right? Like I want a newsletter platform that's like super smooth and simple and easy to use where I don't have to spend all my time tweaking it. And then new stuff comes out and like, I'm gonna spend two hours tweaking stuff and seeing how it works. Hunter Kallay (25:01) Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Matt (25:05) But you know, but that's because I get off on, you know, I I like doing the infrastructure kind of stuff. I like setting things up and and f trying to figure out how to make things work really easily. you know, there's the there's that side of the personality and then there's the other side of the personality, which is I wanna go travel and eat and write about that stuff. So that's also a a tough balancing act. I wanna do all of those. Hunter Kallay (25:26) Yeah. So what do you think's like when you're managing these three pieces together, online shop, podcast, newsletter, some people are also managing, like it sounds like you might in the future, community, you know, social media presence maybe also. how do you think these you talked about a little bit, but maybe just a little bit in in more detail, what do you think's like the biggest opportunity? of have like when you have multiple channels together. Matt (25:53) So w when we when we started, long ago, two whole months ago when we started, I I yeah, way back then, Hunter Kallay (25:58) Yeah, way way back at the beginning. Matt (26:01) I had thought that the newsletter and the podcast were going to track each other really closely, right? Like we put a new episode of the podcast out and the next newsletter would be, Hey, here's like all about that podcast. And then the next week, Hunter Kallay (26:15) Yeah. Matt (26:16) because we're doing the podcast every two weeks. the newsletter every week. We thought like the off weeks on the newsletter would be like, Hey, here's something we didn't put in the podcast about this restaurant or this chef. And instead, they're actually they're diverging a bit, right? The podcast comes out and the podcast is what it is. a great exploration usually of a restaurant and the chefs behind it. Stories Hunter Kallay (26:40) Yeah. Matt (26:40) about you know, how the food came to be, how the restaurant came to be. And then the newsletter that comes out usually a day after the podcast will pick up on some small facet of what was in the podcast and then run with it in whatever direction we feel like. And so they start to diverge pretty quickly. And then also because the newsletter can contain a lot of different things very easily. You know, maybe the main section of the newsletter is building off this one tiny little detail from the podcast. And then the next section is about something that my podcast partner, Kathy Irway, ate at another restaurant or some experience with food that our third partner, Peter Cheng, had at a different restaurant. And all of a sudden the podcast the newsletter feels like a very different animal from the podcast. And I think that's fine because they're all sort of They're all still animated by the same f force of just this joy of food. So as long as that is the thing that binds them together, then the two things can be pretty separate. Hunter Kallay (27:43) I see. And like Matt (27:43) Yeah. Hunter Kallay (27:44) what you s what'd you say is the biggest challenge there for juggling that sort of thing? Is it keeping it all cons somewhat consistently on brand? Is it the management side of things? What's been your biggest challenge so far? Matt (27:55) keeping it on brand isn't hard. I think we all kind of get what the brand is supposed to be. It's really it's always just time. we all have other things to do. Shut up and eat, Hunter Kallay (28:02) Having up. Matt (28:03) I mean, you know, Cat Kathy's got a full time job. I'm juggling other freelance assignments, Peter's got his own things. I I know it's hard to believe that Shut Up and Eat is not yet a world dominating media empire that you know, provides us with millions of dollars a day to live on and we can devote all of our time to it. So it's really just you know, making time to get everything done the way we'd like it. and then also, you know, the eating and the travel that we want to do to maintain our level of knowledge of the world that we're talking about, right? For every, you know, ten restaurants that we eat at, we might only cover one of them. And that takes time and money and focus to be able to, you know, continually explore and report on the world that we love. but you're only seeing a small fraction of that stuff come out in the newsletter and the podcast. Hunter Kallay (28:50) Yeah. So how important is it to how do I say this? What advice would you give to somebody who is trying to start a newsletter or maybe has a newsletter, and they're trying to make it successful, they're trying to, you know, be consistent with it, but they're also juggling other other things because they've not yet made it. their full time job or or created that revenue yet. Like what advice would you give to them? Matt (29:14) I mean the consistency is important. Getting it out every week or every month or however you've chosen your cadence to be, that's important. Is consistency of cadence. But consistency of format? No, you don't have to be consistent at all. You should play around with what the newsletter is all the time to figure out what really works and what gets people into whatever it is you have to say. That could be You could be writing long one week, short the next. You could be putting a bunch of photos and comments on them in the next one. The amazing thing about newsletters is there's no fixed format. You know, it's not like the web where you have, you know, some elaborate twelve column design that is gonna take a whole bunch of effort to change from week to week. No, a newsletter is, you know, free form, and so people need to play with that. That is the thing that is going to help you figure out what the newsletter is supposed to be, what you like making, what your readers like reading, and where your audience might actually be. But still got to get it out regularly. Otherwise, people forget that it exists. Honestly, you know. I'm sure you've had this where some newsletter that you subscribed to, you know, years ago that used to come regularly stopped and then starts up again. You're like, right. I I get this thing. This thing comes in my inbox. I actually like it. Where did it where did it go? Hunter Kallay (30:28) Yeah. I forgot that I was subscribed, yeah. Matt (30:31) What happened to it? so that consistency is just really important, just for setting people's expectations. but you wanna set people's expectations for it coming in and then play with those expectations for what they're getting. Hunter Kallay (30:42) Yeah. Yeah, I think that's an underrated aspect of you know, newsletter growth and newsletter monetization, honestly, is people I like I my best advice also along with that, try some stuff out, right? Like, I mean throw a new product out there and see how it does, you know, if it flops, whatever. Now you learn, now you can tweak some things. Try some different formats. Put some sponsors at the top. You know, put them at the bottom. Put them in the middle. Try some different things and see what sticks. Because you'd be surprised that some of the things that would work. Some of the things that I've found in the newsletter space that work. I'm like, I don't understand why this works. It makes no sense to me why people like this. But I guess I'll stick with it because for some reason it's. It's working, right? Like I don't I don't understand it. So that's some of the some of the thing is just like trial and error, throwing some stuff around and and really just seeing what works. So just wanted to echo that. I thought that was some some thoughts. Yeah. Matt (31:34) Yeah, absolutely. experiment and you know, some of those things will work for a while and then they'll stop working. People love them for a while and then they get played out. And you can retire things. You can retire elements Hunter Kallay (31:47) Yeah. Matt (31:48) and add new ones. the newsletter's highly mutable, so take advantage of that. Hunter Kallay (31:53) Yeah, absolutely. so tell me like w you're in you're in a unique spot because some newsletter creators like they're like more like news oriented newsletters, right? Like they're like for me, like for my newsletter, I have news that's coming out all the time. For you, it seems like you've gotta go and get the content, right? Like you've gotta go and get the content. you've got to go to these restaurants, you have to go travel, you have to come up with stuff. do you find that that's a challenge versus like a traditional news newsletter versus somebody who like creates their own content? Is it difficult to come up with stuff? Or how do you create a system that works for you where you continually have new content? Matt (32:32) There's a lot of questions there. I'm trying to figure out how to answer them first. Yeah. So no, Hunter Kallay (32:34) I asked you like six questions in one, so pick one. Matt (32:38) so I mean I think as we were as we were coming up with Shut Up and Eat, which took well over a year to figure out what this was gonna be, we were looking at all the other food media out there. And there is a lot of really good food media about that is very news based. things like Grub Street from New York magazine and Eater. And now Caper, which is started by some people from newsletter started by some people from Grub Street and elsewhere. They're very news focused. They're very much about, hey, here's this restaurant that's opening, here's this chef who's moving from this place to this place, here's what is going on day to day, week to week in the restaurant world in New York or LA. and we looked at that and we didn't want to do that. Partly because Those guys do a great job of that already. partly because that takes an enormous amount of energy to cover news in the food world in a serious way. I mean, that is a full time reporting job to keep up on what is happening w with, you know, multimillion dollar restaurant empires and you know, five hundred dollar pop-ups that turn into ten thousand dollar pop-ups. Like that's crazy. We didn't want to do that. That is well done by other people and we can't really compete with that. but as far as, you know, looking at what's going on in the restaurant world, the places that we eat and what we do know is going on and finding stories in that, that's not too hard, honestly. I mean I think Kathy and I have been doing that, you know, for a combined, let's say, fifty years at this point. We know how Hunter Kallay (34:06) Yeah. Matt (34:06) to go eat at a restaurant, break down a dish, find the story, understand, Hunter Kallay (34:12) Yeah. Matt (34:12) you know, w what chefs are gonna have cool stories to tell. I think we've been we've been pretty lucky in our choices of restaurants to cover so far. we in our first batch of four podcasts we chose Kabawa which you know a week after we booked time with them. They became the number one restaurant on the New York Times Top One Hundred list. and then we talked to the people at a wine bar called Leh in Chinatown, that a month later won the best new restaurant in America award from the James Beard Award. So like we've had some good, you know, bets on cool chefs. and then, you know, you find a restaurant you like, you look at the food, you look at the chef, you figure out the stories And you go from there. you know, one of the things also I that is important when you're doing a newsletter and that you learn by doing newsletters is how to create a story on a deadline. We know this newsletter is going out every Tuesday. We're gonna get stories in that newsletter about something. whatever it's gonna be. Hunter Kallay (35:05) Yes. Somebody's gonna eat somebody's gonna eat somewhere and something's gonna happen, right? Matt (35:10) Yeah. Well, I mean the other thing is like you know you know, I've been I've been a a journalist for thirty years. Kathy's been doing this I think for roughly twenty years or so. We have a lot Hunter Kallay (35:19) Yeah. Yeah. Matt (35:21) of stuff to fall back on. So I can write a newsletter and talk about what was going on in the Chinatown restaurant scene in the late nineties and how we got from what the restaurants were like then to what the restaurants are like now and everything in between. So that, you know, perspective that that age that I don't want to say wisdom, but like that immersion in the food scene for a really long time really pays off when you're trying to figure out what kind of story to tell in a newsletter every week. Hunter Kallay (35:47) Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And that experience is really helpful also. And I think it's important to find s a niche that you're very passionate about. I mean, clearly you're passionate about food. I think that's very important, is like a lot of people pick newsletter niches that sell, but a lot of times that doesn't work out in the long term. I mean, it's great that it sells, but also something that you're passionate about. I mean, newsletters should be fun for the audience. But they should also be fun for the creator and it makes it easier to come up with that content if it's something that's actually you're passionate about or expert in. Matt (36:20) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've seen I see all these newsletter advice columns that seem really o geared towards, hey, start a newsletter, make a million dollars. And Hunter Kallay (36:30) Yeah. Matt (36:31) you know, I mean it's great. And there's definitely a place for that. But again, I wanna make something that I love and that, you know, my partners and I love to make and that the readers love to consume. So we're gonna do something that's gonna be you know, tasty from start to finish. Whether wha however things go, this is what we're gonna do. Hunter Kallay (36:48) One question I wanted to ask that I think is really important to people of all stages in their newsletter life. Whether you're a top brand who's been, you know, in the newsletter space for years, making millions of dollars a month, or whether you're someone who's just starting out, I think every single person in the newsletter space has some People or newsletters that they look up to and try to emulate in some ways. Like for me, when I was first starting out in my newsletter, it was like, okay, Milk Road and like the hustle and like the rundown. I was like, okay, I I want to emulate these types of newsletters. And of course, like I make it my own, but they're like, these are the guides, right? Like these are like my newsletter mentors, even though I didn't know anybody who worked there at the time, I was just like, These are the type of like this is the type of template that I'm shooting for, right? And so like with Shut Up and Eat, what have you found as like some good newsletter letter mentors or media brand mentors that you're like, these people are doing it really well. I kinda wanna emulate them or at least look to them for advice. Matt (37:53) it's hard to find that now. I think our our our first sort of inspiration was Vice's Munchies brand from about ten years ago, back when Vice was, you know, doing really well and they launched their food brand, Munchies, and that felt like this energetic freeform kind of thing. and we really wanted to be able to recreate that kind of energy in what we do. but now, I mean, I f sort of feel like our our what we're doing is a reaction against what we're seeing in a lot of the media. And that Hunter Kallay (38:23) interesting. Matt (38:24) I mean we we we're inspired by like we consume all of it. We like a lot of these other brands. All of our friends work for all of these other brands, all right? You know, we w Kathy and I and Peter have tons of friends who are all over the food and travel media industry. And so we love what they do, but we also don't want to do the same thing. So I don't I don't know that I really s see direct mentors in that same way. I feel like part of the reason we're doing this now is also that we wanna do it our own way. Yeah. Not just create something of our Hunter Kallay (38:54) Create something new. Yeah, yeah. Matt (38:57) own, but do it our own way. And I hope Hunter Kallay (38:59) Yeah. Matt (38:59) that hope that works. But Yeah. I mean look, I it for the seven years before we started Shut Up and Eat, I was working at a l you medium sized media company running their newsletters and a bunch of other things and saw some things done really well and other things done Hunter Kallay (39:12) Yeah. Matt (39:13) in ways that I would have done differently. And now it's my chance to take all the good things I learned and all the less good things that I want to rebel against and put Hunter Kallay (39:21) Yeah. Matt (39:22) them together and try and make it work this way. Hunter Kallay (39:23) That's cool. Yeah. So just taking elements of things that work and trying to, you know, gathering the bits and pieces along the way and trying to figure out how to make the best of the best that you've seen. So I love that. Cool. some final questions here. And one would just be like, what are you working on right now that you're most excited about? Matt (39:41) Let's see. I mean right now Hunter Kallay (39:42) excited about a lot with a with a new you know, new brand two months, you're probably excited about a lot of things that you're doing. Is there anything in particular that you're like, Yeah, we're working on this right now as a team or maybe just a personal thing. I'm working on this and I I I I think this would be this is something that's really cool. Matt (39:56) yeah, I mean so I mean, right now I'm in Taiwan with my wife and my kids visiting my wife's family. It's my first time back here in seven years and this is a fantastic place to eat and I am just going around and trying to revisit places I love and check out new ones and I think you can expect there's gonna be a lot of Taiwan material. in the newsletter and on the podcast over the next couple of weeks. And then I'm going to Japan for a little while and so there'll probably be some of that. So I you know, in some ways the most exciting thing for me and the most exciting thing for my partners is going and doing the eating, finding something that tastes unbelievable, and then getting to tell people about it. That's the most basic part of all of what we do. Hunter Kallay (40:38) Sounds like a really fun job, Matt. It sounds like a really fun job. Matt (40:42) It is. I wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't fun. This is this is the whole point is go out, eat, and tell people about it and get them excited, not just about eating in the same places that we've eaten, but enabling them to find places of their own, right? I wanna I always wanna convey the idea that what I do isn't necessarily that special. I'm just someone who goes out and tries a lot of food and I've done it long enough that I've got a good sense of where to go, what to look for. But really anybody can do this. You don't have to just follow my recommendations. You can I would rather just inspire you to go out and find stuff on your own. Like I I want people to like read the Taiwan newsletter, listen to the Taiwan podcast and be like, my God, this newsletter and this podcast Make me really excited to go to Argentina. Not because you know, they they're not interested in Taiwanese food, but because we've shown them that you can go out and eat like this, and discover things. Hunter Kallay (41:40) That's awesome. Matt (41:40) Yeah. I do have to say, Hunter Kallay (41:41) All right. Matt (41:42) before we go, I do name do know the name of that restaurant that that chicken, that grilled chicken with the foot on was at. That was Crown Shy. That was Crown Shy, that was a nice lunch. Hunter Kallay (41:46) Okay. Peep people have been waiting. Okay. Matt (41:51) Yeah. Crown Shy down in the financial district. Good place. Go there. Hunter Kallay (41:51) Cool. Round chai. All right, so you find yourself in the financial district. Check it out. Looks really good. Matt (41:57) Yeah, it's actually really excellent and good value lunch. Like it's that place is awesome. Hunter Kallay (42:02) Nice. Cool. All right, Matt, was there anything you'd like to shamelessly plug here at the end or where people should go read, listen, shop, follow everything you Matt (42:10) Yeah, man. Go to shutupandeat.com. That's shutupneat.com. Not shut up and eat, cause some schmuck already got the domain shut up and eat. So we are shutupneat.com and go check us out. Subscribe to the newsletter, go find the podcast wherever you consume your podcasts, mostly probably on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. We are in all of those places. And yeah, we're on Instagram at shut up and eat pod for the moment. Hunter Kallay (42:38) So if you're food lover, newsletter lover, or anything in between, fall, shut up, and eat. One of my Matt (42:42) Even a liker, even if you just like newsletters like yeah. Come and check us out. You'll like even more. Hunter Kallay (42:46) You should just like it. Yeah. If you eat if you've ever eaten food, you should go subscribe to Shut Up and Eve. one of my favourite names in the newsletter space. absolutely love it. Matt (42:56) Thank you, I appreciate that. I feel like there's like ten percent of people find that it's too aggressive. They're like, shut up and eat. What are you talking telling me to shut up? Yeah, it definitely gets your attention. So it's also Hunter Kallay (43:02) you're telling me to spot I think it gets your attention. I like that. Yeah. Cool. Matt (43:07) a really good sign off on a podcast. So Hunter. Shut up and eat, Hunter. Hunter Kallay (43:10) All right. Well, all right. Send and grow. So be sure to subscribe to Send and Grow also and shut up and eat. Thanks, Matt. Matt (43:19) Absolutely. All right. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.