Chuck Moroze

Building the "Grammarly" of content creation | Co-founder @addictd (raised $800K pre-seed)

The ATTENTN talk show host

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

At 16 I was working for MrBeast.

How?

In high school I ran a philanthropy organization that aimed to get students away from volunteering just for the hours, and raise money for local organizations through fun, event style fundraisers. 10k in fundraising later, I sent a cold email to the Chief Executive of Beast Philanthropy: Darren Margolias. I don't exactly know why he chose to respond, but I think I stood out because I was 15 doing something other people my age weren't, and that got my foot in the door. I am extremely passionate about what I do. Philanthropy has always been important to me and will always be a pillar of my life goals.

Long story short, I ended up getting the licensing rights to use their logo for a Walk-A-Thon event. We hosted a decently successful fundraiser, got my hometown councilman to pull up, and got a few extra thousand to the charity. Nothing crazy, but a feat most 15 year olds never attempt.

My passion for creating a better world and building for a better future was finally getting realized into actionable opportunities. Admittedly I was nothing short of lucky to be extended the opportunity to move to NC and join the Beast team: but I had to make it count. I joined Beast Philanthropy in 2023 and I starting working as many hours as I could, helped out at the warehouse as early as 6am, and volunteered for every opportunity out there. I wanted to help as many people as I could, and really prove to myself that I could make an impact if given the chance. I even started hanging out at the production studios and company gym which helped me build my network and expand my education in the creator economy. At 17 I returned after leaving high school early: and continued to meet insanely talented people and scale my learnings.

At 18 I was debating between joining FT, or going to college. I was waitlisted by almost every university, but after fighting off the University of Chicago's waitlist, I decided the opportunity was hard to forego. After all, prestige is enticing: and UChicago boasts one of the most profound economics programs in the world: something I knew could prove lucrative for my own career, no matter what I did.

But... UChicago had drawbacks. The prestige extends perfectly into the corporate ladder. The Goldman Sachs recruiters and flashy corporate events started to become overwhelmingly attractive. I poured my entire soul into building the perfect resume for finance recruiting. I started waking up at 5am to commute from Hyde Park Chicago to downtown to work at a private equity startup, and even worked a second job from 5pm-9pm at my school's alumni call center (where I was really just harvesting phone numbers of traders and bankers).

It worked. By sophomore year I landed my "dream" internship on Morgan Stanley's elite institutional equities trading desk in NYC: a multiple 6-figure paying role straight out of college. Immediately after getting this security, I immediately felt demotivated and depressed. Something I had sacrificed literally everything for, a day later, didn't feel so enticing. The reality onset, far before I ever stepped foot into the role: this wasn't MY DREAM. My dream is to build, to help people, to create for the future.

That's when I met my rockstar co-founder, an absolute unit in almost every programming language you can name: and yet a great people person and manager: Alexander Sabat. Sabat was working on the MVP of what we're making today, something that could predict the bad moments in your videos. As someone who had worked at MrBeast, I thought this was a fascinating technology and wanted to become a part of it. This was the second stroke of luck in my life: Alex invited me to become 50/50 partners, I'd handle distribution, he'd handle product and fundraising.

And that's exactly what happened. 600k+ in funding started pouring in from SSG accelerator, the founders of Seamless, Nathan Yu, and a bunch of other private angels. The raise wasn't easy, like everything in life, but that's a story for another post.

We moved FAST. And that's exactly why I dropped out of UChicago and left it all behind. Without much thinking, I reneged on my finance internships and dove head first into the startup space: 0 security in mind. Am I scared, realistically I should say of course, but I'm also delusional. I am too hungry, driven, and passionate about the content realm and the future of this world that I'm loving every stressful moment because I know the learning will be so valuable.

Got a sickkk content/hacker house in Miami, Florida, and a killer engineering and marketing team. We're building https://t.co/evzyGvfnDB, and for the first time: I'm coming in front of the camera, and making the world know who we are!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@Jayyanginspires Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel it’s a banger

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

Yes of course, part of our whole thesis is that you need authentic audiences and great branding lens to actually convert off attention. We shot with Dillon Latham and this was a huge part of our discussion around wide funnel virality actually being brand dilutive in many cases and not equating to more dollars through the door.

At the same time, I'd argue Jake Paul isn't necessarily super trusted but he's been able to convert his insane attention grabbing abilities into real deal cash. There's levels to it imo but lmk what you think

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

I just officially lost my Morgan Stanley internship. I also cannot go back to UChicago.

We're all-in. Scary? Of course, I'm terrified.

But I'll be long gone before I quit on my goals.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@Oussamalmfitt I liked the background of the last thumbnail, but not the cartoon looking aesthetic, whereas the face closeup is more compelling.

Also Reta correlates with weight loss and it's hard to see why you should beware. Need to know the title to know more I guess.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@lhilwick @TTrimoreau Love this point. People always complain about optionality or competitors popping up.

It's what makes business fun and keeps you on your toes.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@StayKazed Congrats though, crazy numbers keep it up!

RPMs aren't even the value in content it's what you can do with the attention.

Don't chase RPMs, chase promotional power and authentic audiences.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

W quote. Being dumb is often a blessing since you can move fast and just break things on the way and figure it out as you go.

Sometimes this cooks people though. Always two sides to the coin and survivorship bias dominates the public media, but there are plenty of cases of people being very analytical and tactical and putting a ton of prep time into something leading to incredible results.

But very much in favor of move fast, break things, and learn as you go! What do you think?

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@rshkshjain Makes you think it's a new video!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@vivianpsd Love the thumbnail concept and congrats! Color scheme, text placement, all really interesting to learn from.

Love the artistic vibe of it too. Is there a reason you decided to add a glitch effect to win and sort of to the ca in can't but not "he"?

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

Sure, but if nobody clicks nobody watches.

I sat-in with the ideation teams behind literally every single large YouTuber you can name.

The thumbnail and title are priority #1. Obviously every little detail about the video matters including production quality, audio quality, cut timing, song choice, the amount of zoom-ins. Literally every detail is a contributor.

But the first principle is that if nobody clicks, nobody watches. And thumbnails are so valuable because of it.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@danvsI LETS GOO, keep it up Daniel the Bs will roll-in soon enough

[Nate Curtiss @natecurtiss_yt]

creativity on social media is not about inventing something from nothing.

the best ideas are proven formats pulled from other niches and twisted into something new.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@markproduct Celcius is my blood now

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

Building isn't a skill gap anymore ...

But attention is. And that comes from knowing how to control it.

Our first mistake was trying to have a technical moat. The moat is in the attention itself.

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

Sneak peak into design changes of our page.

Sometimes you got to hire real artists to make the impact!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@israel_odetoyin @FlangoTheEditor Appreciate the support for our team + show edit! Check it out it's called ATTENTN on YouTube!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@KingVFX__ @FlangoTheEditor Thx goat, check out the ATTENTN show on YouTube. Appreciate the support for our team!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@heyiamlloyd @FlangoTheEditor Check out our show too! ATTENTN on YouTube. Appreciate the support for our team!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@LuqmanSham31319 @FlangoTheEditor W, yeah man check out the ATTENTN pod we just launched our show!

[Chuck Moroze @chuckmoroze]

@vfxqwazz @FlangoTheEditor Yessir, check it out on the ATTENTN pod brotha. Appreciate you supporting!