Acquired podcast started to fill a gap in quality content, evolving based on audience feedback.
Community success is driven by empowering channel leaders and ensuring scalability for sustainable engagement.
Deep dives
The Founding Story of Acquired Podcast
The podcast creators, Ben and David, started Acquired over drinks before the first episode aired. Their decision to launch the podcast in late 2015 was influenced by the relatively small pool of quality podcasts available at the time. Ben pitched the idea as a way to highlight billion-dollar innovations, aiming to fill a gap in the podcast market. They focused on acquisitions initially but evolved the content based on audience feedback to include various business stories, reflecting on their audience's preferences.
Community Building and Audience Engagement
The success of Acquired's community was attributed to empowering channel leaders within the platform. By delegating responsibilities to passionate members, like Austin, who managed the digital assets channel discussing crypto and timely insights, the community thrived. Ben and David emphasized avoiding approaches that heavily relied on themselves for all content creation, recognizing the importance of scalability and decentralization in sustaining community engagement.
Revenue Generation and Business Growth
Acquired initially operated for three years without revenue through sponsorships. Over time, they established a Washington State LLC and gradually ramped up revenue generation, aligning with their focus on creating valuable sponsorships and building long-term relationships. By consistently doubling their audience every year for seven years, they achieved significant subscriber growth and episode downloads, showcasing steady and sustainable business scaling.
Insights on Startup Growth and Competitive Advantage
Through their podcast experience, Ben and David evolved their perspectives on startups, recognizing the importance of sustainable differentiation and strategic growth. They emphasized the fleeting nature of competitive advantages, stressing the need for ongoing value creation and identifying unique paths to enduring customer value. The increasing competition in the SaaS landscape highlighted the significance of continuous innovation and lasting customer impact as key drivers of success in the startup ecosystem.
We dropped by Vanta's all-hands in SF a few weeks ago for Christina to interview us for a change! We decided to turn the mics on and record it as an ACQ2 episode.
We discussed lessons learned from building Acquired, the shape of the show's growth trajectory, how we think about the business, and dive into our own origin story.