“I think I do my best work when I can really see whatever passion or expertise someone has in their creative field. That really inspires me to do things as well as I can.” – Dan Frommer 

Dan Frommer (@fromedome) is Founder and Editor in Chief of The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their money. Dan has written for Forbes, The Atlantic and Recode from Vox Media, and he helped create Business Insider as its second team member. Dan’s Consumer TrendsReport in collaboration with Coefficient Capital is a fascinating look into recent spending trends.

Chapters

  • Dan’s daily habits and writing routines
  • Tools Dan uses for daily work and focus, including the ReMarkable tablet and the Earnings Calls app
  • Dan’s superpowers and struggles
  • Dan's influences and inspirations, including Daring Fireball, Stratechery, and Anthony Bourdain
  • On favorite failures and the definition of success

Dan's Favorite Books

Key Takeaway

Time is our most valuable resource, and being able to use that time as we choose is Dan’s definition of success.

For me, success, luxury, everything is just about: how do you get to spend your time? Our time is finite. It's limited. The last year and a half has taught us that unexpected things can happen on a global scale—that you could catch a novel virus and die, or be severely incapacitated, even at a young age. You can't take your time on this planet for granted. Part of my life is that I get to spend my time building The New Consumer, writing, researching, learning, doing it on my terms and on my pace. And I don't take that for granted. I appreciate every day that I don't have to log into some awful Slack at some company I don't like because that's what I have to do. I'm so grateful for my paying members and for this model that allows me to spend my time and my life doing things that I want to do, how I want to do it. And it doesn't get better than that.

Transcript

Daniel Scrivner:

Okay. We're back with Dan Frommer of The New Consumer for just a quick interview in this second bonus portion, we always go a little bit behind the scenes and we try to uncover a little bit of whether it's habits, tools, influences, books that have just been a big influence in your life. So again, thanks for the time Dan and excited to dig into these questions with you.

Dan Frommer:

Thank you.

Daniel Scrivner:

So the first one that we always ask, and I know we talked about this before, kind of leading up to this interview. And I'm excited to chat about this with you because you have an interesting take, is just around habits routines. So I'd love it if you can share your take on that, your struggles with that, how that shows up in your life.

Dan Frommer:

Yeah. I'm not the most regimented habit person. There are some things that I do every day. I make myself an ice latte every morning with an espresso machine. I make myself a full breakfast every morning with scrambled eggs and some salad and usually some toasts, something like that. But I'm not like the kind of person who has this really detailed regime of things I do every day. I aspire to. Maybe the ticket here is that I've always wanted to be more of a routine person, wanting to be more of a very regimented, organized person. And sometimes I study those people and I think about, "Oh, maybe I should pick up meditation or something like that." But it has not dictated my life so far. Perhaps some day it will. I don't know. I listen to Jerry Seinfeld on a podcast and he talked about how transcendental meditation and weightlifting have changed his life, and I was like, "Oh, I better order a kettle bell." But I haven't used it yet.

Daniel Scrivner:

TBD on that one. I'm curious, is that also show up is it that that's true in most of your life, but when it comes to writing, it's more disciplined, or maybe is it just you're wired for more serendipity, which is something I often struggle with myself. Just to share, I think I've struggled with habits and routines for a really long time. Over time, I have finally conquered that by just dropping the bar to the floor and making it almost impossible for me not to be able to do some things. But serendipity is a big thing, so I'm just curious for your take on that. And are you more disciplined in the kind of writing specific areas?

Dan Frommer:

I think serendipity is a good word for it. I also like just in time operations or whatever, just in time manufacturing. Look, what I do is a mixture of creative output and academic or intellectual research and thinking and analysis. And I do spend a lot of time thinking about things in advance, but really what gets created is what gets created when you're creating it. As much as I try to think otherwise, it's going to happen while it's happening. So I try to create an environment where I can be productive and I take notes, I record interviews, I relisten to them. I try to listen to other conversations on a topic that I'm writing about or really immerse myself in something.

Dan Frommer:

I also spent a lot of time just doing random research. I love looking at just Google maps of a city I've never been to, or a city I have been to a bunch of times and I want to see what's going on in a neighborhood or explore something new. I don't know if that directly turns into work necessarily, but it kind of feeds my broader curiosity. Still my favorite thing is just to spend time with someone who's an expert or a master in their craft and really watch her or him do it and kind of learn from them. And that to me is when I'm the most inspired and also I think when I do my best work, when I can really see whatever passionate is or expertise someone has in doing their creative field and then task, it really inspires me to do things as well as I can.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. Those experiences for me are always a good, you're reminded of what the bar is of just someone loving something, someone just in the zone with it, someone that's mastered it, which is really special to witness.

Dan Frommer:

But I'm also the guy who's tried probably six different to do techniques in the last year and currently uses none of them.

Daniel Scrivner:

So just switching then to tools. I know that you are really big with tools and we talked about one yesterday, which is this device you use that's kind of disconnected from the internet to read PDFs, talk a little bit about that and some of the other tools that you use that you really rely on and enjoy.

Dan Frommer:

I mean the most basic tool is the internet and a Mac and an iPhone. It's just really incredible what digital technology enables in creativity and productivity. The fact that I can do my work from pretty much anywhere with very few tools, I don't need a printing press, I no longer need a dial up modem to do my internet work. Pretty amazing. The fact that I was able to start this publication while we were living in Paris for three months, just working at coffee shops really allows people to just create things in a way that they never could before. So the internet of course is also a horrible place if you're easily distracted, which I am. And specifically, I've always wanted to find a way to read articles, long articles, in depth research in a way that I was not pausing every five seconds to look at Twitter and have found this tool, and I thought, "Okay, the iPad will be perfect for that." But it really wasn't because Twitter is always one click away and email is one click away.

Dan Frommer:

I saw an ad for this thing called the Remarkable tablet, I think over a year ago, and purchased one. And it's really interesting. It's basically an e-ink touchscreen tablet and frustratingly limited in its capabilities, but in a way that's kind of perfect because I just load it up with PDFs of New Yorker articles I want to read or WallStreet Research reports. I just downloaded some journal article about the raw chicken industry in Japan, people eating raw chicken in Japan. Random stuff that I want to read and learn more about. And there is no Twitter on it. There's no email. So I'm able to focus in a way that I just have a hard time doing on a computer or even on my phone. So it's been really nice. I would say it's definitely a luxury, it's not a cheap device and I do use it for note-taking as well. And I'm not going to pretend that I use it constantly all day, every day, but it has served its purpose and I am learning things and reading things in a focused way and in a comfortable way. And I don't feel like I have a bright back-lit screen shining in my eyes, and I really like it.

Daniel Scrivner:

And someone who's always aspiring to read more and more, I feel like any device that helps unlock That is pretty powerful.

Dan Frommer:

Yeah. There's some cool software out there too. This sounds really dumb, but there's an app for the iPhone that's just earnings calls. So when I'm on a long walk or something like that, sometimes instead of listening to a podcast, I'll just pop-on an earnings call for some random company and learn what's going on with Shake Shack or McCormick spices or Campbell Soup, I don't know, stuff like that where it's like, "Wow, that company ... Hey, that's a public company. That's funny and weird. I wonder what's going on in their view of the world. Let's listen to it, Delta airlines or something like that." And that's a fun tool as well.

Daniel Scrivner:

I follow a Twitter account called The Transcript. I'm guessing it's not that, but it sounds very similar. They basically tweet out select quotes from transcripts of earnings calls so you can go on there. Do you know what the name of that app is? Because I would definitely download that.

Dan Frommer:

I'm going to look it up. I think it's just called Earnings Calls. That's what the app title is. I think the official name is ... It's just called Earnings Calls.

Daniel Scrivner:

Okay. We'll add a link to that in the show notes and I'll make sure we find that. It's super fascinating. There's two questions that we always ask that are kind of the inverse of each other and one is what are your superpowers? So as someone that's been writing for a very long time and a lot of different styles for a lot of different publications, maybe it's writing specific, maybe it's more around curiosity or exploration, but on your best day when you're like, "Man, I am just really good at X, Y, or Z." What do you feel like your super powers are?

Dan Frommer:

I think it's being able to zoom out and see the bigger picture for a lot of things. It's very easy to describe what's happening. It's harder and I think requires just a level of, I'm not going to say talent, but just interest in zooming out and maybe not even interest, just like prioritizing that. Trying to figure out, "Okay, what is actually happening here?" Yes, we know the details of this one thing that's happening, I will try to find out why and how those are the things I try to specialize in. But then step back 2, 3, 4 steps and go, "Aha, what is actually the bigger picture here? What does this shift mean? What does it say? What does it suggest is going to happen next?" Again, not pretending I'm a special person, but just being able to do that, and I think wanting to do that and forcing myself to do that regularly is something that I think I do better than others.

Dan Frommer:

And also just this weird group of skills that I got from being an early internet designer. I started making websites in the mid '90s when I was in middle school. So I know how to use every graphics tool and every desktop publishing tool. And I know HTML and I can read an edit PHP, but I can also do an interview. The term is one-man band. I can build a website, choose the fonts, install them, set up the CDN, build a website, make the WordPress template, write the articles, send the newsletter. I can do all of that myself, which allows me to run this business literally alone. Yes, I have an accountant, and if I need a lawyer, I have a lawyer. But that kind of group of skills and talents is rare I think, and has made me perhaps the perfect person to be running an independent online publication these days because I not only can do all of it, but I actually really enjoy doing all of it. I like building the website and I like choosing the fonts and making the charts look the way I want them to look.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. You have the skills to take that idea in your head or whatever you're after and actually manifest that and create it, which is really powerful. The inverse of that question is what do you struggle with and how have you worked on those things over time? And these can be things you [inaudible 01:08:03] against in your writing work. These can just be kind of meta things that you struggle with in terms of whether it's prioritization, but just anything there that you struggle with and how you've worked to improve that over time.

Dan Frommer:

I forgot who said this, but to poorly misquote someone, "I hate writing, I love having written". It's always a struggle to get the first words out, sometimes I start at the end, sometimes I start in the middle. But a lot of times, I'm just starting at the beginning and I'm just really obsessed with the exact language I'm using. So fortunately there are things called deadlines and back in the day, breaking news, I don't really deal with breaking news anymore because I'm publishing on a more mindful cadence. But back in the day when I was blogging at Alley Insider, we were supposed to get the article up in minutes, if not seconds. So the pressure of the real-time web, as we called it back then, really kind of helps solve that problem.

Dan Frommer:

What do I struggle with? I would say probably like all creative people, everything that I make is a little different than I thought it would be, and sometimes it's better, sometimes I feel like it's not better. Of course, no one actually knows what I thought I was going to be making, so this is all internal. But just kind of getting over that and realizing that it's going to be what I can make it. And I can always hope to have more time and put more cycles into something, but that's impossible. There's no actual unlimited amount of time and resources that you can put into anything. So just got to get over that.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. I relate to that in a huge, huge way.

Dan Frommer:

By the way, the beauty of podcasting, because when it's over, it's over, you can't go back and-

Daniel Scrivner:

It's very true. You can't rerecord.

Dan Frommer:

I suppose you could edit it. And now we have AI tools where you could simulate me. Hopefully you're not going to do that. But the beauty of radio is that when you're on, you're on. And in fact there's a great analogy, the founder of Business Insider, Henry Blodget, who was my second boss basically said, "Think of this as talk radio. You're not writing articles as much as you're just kind of pinging ideas out there. You're on the clock. You're talking to your audience, they're commenting, they're responding. You're on the air and then you're done. And then you go home and do it again the next day." Or more that night. But it was a really helpful analogy. And I think actually radio and audio are interesting in that regard because when you're on the air, you're on the air and when you're not, you're not.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. And I think it gets you, you just by nature of that reality, you have to get comfortable in your own skin, knowing that you're going to make mistakes, it's more about a realtime exchange than perfection. One thing that you talked on super early on in your interview was about Ben Thompson and Stratechery and that being a really big influence. And one question we always ask people is what people have had a profound impact on you, is he on that list? Are there other writers that have had a really profound impact on you, have shaped the way that you write? And can you share a little context there?

Dan Frommer:

So many people have, John Gruber writes a site called Daring Fireball, which was pretty much the first professional indie publishing experiment I stumbled onto and luckily have gotten to know him personally and got on his show a few times over the years. A hero of mine, Ben Thompson for figuring out the subscription newsletter pattern. Thank you Ben.

Daniel Scrivner:

And just prolifically writing and covering interesting ideas.

Dan Frommer:

People like Anthony Bourdain had a huge impact on me. I was always into travel, it was kind of my thing. And just the way that he turned his exploration of the world into something that people could enjoy and could consume, kind of inspires me to do that. I'm no Anthony Bourdain, but I try to use my time as an explorer and not just as a writer or a researcher. I try to really understand something through first-person exploration. And I think that's another thing that the digital publishing world allows to do uniquely. I've read a lot of business books over the years. Some are really great, Piloting Palm was one of the first ones, I read about the Piloting Palm. The Theranos book was really good. I'm reading a great book about WeWork right now, co-written by one of my former colleagues, Maureen Farrell. There's a lot of great business books, Hatching Twitter, all that kind of stuff that has had an influence on me.

Dan Frommer:

But actually I think the thing that has had the most profound impact on me over the last few years has been a podcast episode between David Chang, the chef, and the founder of Momofuku and The New York Magazine art critic named Jerry Saltz. And he actually wrote a book too recently. It was a really inspiring conversation. They since had a second one, but it's the first one that they did in early 2019. It's the first podcast episode I've listened to four or five times where it really just helps me get out of any creative rut, really just get inspired to create and really realize as he says, "You've got to make it the way you're going to make it because no one else can do that. And that's going to be the best thing that you can do. And that's what you have to really focus on." It really gets to this idea that there are a lot of abstract ideas out there, there's so much to learn, there's so much to process, but you're only going to be able to do what you can do and it might be terrible, it might be awesome, but it's the only way that you can create.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah. I love that approach. I can't wait to listen to that episode. So I'll find that and make sure we link to that in the show notes. This is a little bit of a shot in the dark. You've already kind of referenced a few articles that are super interesting that I'm going to try to find as well and link in the show notes. But you talked about some of the books that you've read, so maybe to go more short form, just thinking about that reMarkable device and some of the things you might be adding there, are there any shorter form things you've read recently that just struck you or you thought were profound or really interesting?

Dan Frommer:

I mean, Twitter is just a non-stop. For all the horrible things about Twitter, it really is just a really great way to learn and to experience the world. I can't think of anything exactly specific recently, but I'll actually tell you, one of the articles that inspired me the most over the years, and I think it's actually either gone from the internet or really hard to find and probably nowhere near the form that it originally took. But to me, one of the most exciting and interesting things about digital publishing and the internet is that the article does not have to be a blob of 700 words of text. I find myself falling into that habit more than I should. I never thought I'd be in the business of writing 1500 word essays about online grocery, but here I am. But one of the most inspiring articles in my life has actually been, I think it was a Valleywag article and I think it was by Nick Douglas, but I don't remember specifically. I think it was the day that Apple announced the Apple TV in 2007 or early 2007, or maybe even late 2006. And it was basically a two-by-two matrix comparing the Apple TV to like an S-video cord or something like that.

Dan Frommer:

It was perfect. It felt a lot like front of the book magazine style stuff, where it had as much physical humor to it as intellectual content and thinking. But it was a really great example of just getting out of what you think is the pattern that you're supposed to be following and just going on a whole different direction. And that's something when I worked at Quartz, the business publication, which used to be owned by The Atlantic and it's now an independent startup. We tried to do that a lot, we tried to tweak the format a lot and I think I need to be constantly reinspired to do that, but it really is you can publish in any way you want and you should be, more often I'd say.

Daniel Scrivner:

Yeah, it is really delightful when you find somebody that has just a really interesting novel take on something that [inaudible 01:15:10] gotten tired. You almost don't even ... I think with stuff like that, it's not that in your head, every time you see an article, you're like, "Ah, God, same old pattern." But when you see something new, it's just like a breath of fresh air and it's so much more engaging and interesting and it kind of shakes you. We always ask the same two closing questions. And the first one is, if you can share a favorite failure. That nature of what we're trying to get at is something novel, something that is a failure in that maybe it didn't succeed, it didn't take off, it didn't match your expectations, but it's not a failure because you learned something from it or just as a really special memory.

Dan Frommer:

Well, there are a lot of failures, but I talked earlier about how I love being able to be the person who can not only do the research and write the article, but also set up the website and build the template and even run the server. And in the earliest days of Business Insider, I actually did do that. I was not only during the day a writer and editor, but at nighttime, I was also tweaking our movable type template and actually running our server. And we started just getting so much traffic that whatever horrible template language I set up, was breaking the site. And it was embarrassing.

Dan Frommer:

And since then, I've probably 10 or 15 times thought through, "Oh, I think I now know what the bug was that I built in 2007 that kept crashing our server." But of course I can never go back and fix it, but it taught me that at some point, you know what? You got to get out of the way. And we actually became the first MongoDB database users in the world because that was one of our sister companies. And we had a professional engineer make us a CMS and a website that was much more stable and faster loading than the one that I had been writing over the years or over the months, I guess, since we first launched. So it was embarrassing in a way, but also allowed us to thrive and build what is now one of the biggest digital publications in the world, no thanks to my bad pearl script.

Daniel Scrivner:

I don't know. Maybe you were the impetus for that big ... You needed to crash in order for you guys to make those changes. We always ask the same closing question, which is really just your definition of success. And you can take that any direction you want.

Dan Frommer:

I mean, time, time is everything. And for me, success, luxury, everything is just about how do you get to spend your time? Our time is finite, it's limited. The last year and a half has taught us that unexpected things can happen on a global scale that you could catch a novel virus and die or be severely incapacitated even at a young age. And you can't take your time on this planet for granted. So to me, the greatest part of my life is that I get to spend my time building The New Consumer, writing, researching, learning, doing it on my terms and on my pace. And I don't take that for granted. I appreciate it every day that I don't have to log into some awful slack at some company I don't like because that's what I have to do. I'm so grateful for my paying members and just for this model that allows me to spend my time and my life doing things that not only what I want to do, but how I want to do it. And it doesn't get better than that.

Daniel Scrivner:

That's an incredible note to end on. This has been an awesome set of conversations, so thank you so much again, Dan.

Dan Frommer:

Thank you. My pleasure.‍