Our guest today is Adam Ryan, the founder of Workweek. At Colossus, we're big fans of Workweek. We've hosted the Wolf of Franchises for an excellent Business Breakdown on Orangetheory and I'm an avid reader of Adam's Perpetual newsletter. For this conversation, we discuss the ongoing shift towards individuals over institutions, how media companies might solve the business model challenge that currently plagues the industry, and where we are in the niche media cycle. Everyone seems to love B2B media, but is that really everyone? Please enjoy my conversation with Adam and then stay tuned for my debrief with Dom.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.

-----

This episode is brought to you by Scribe. Scribe is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Making Media and the magic behind the Colossus transcripts. One of the best decisions we made at Colossus was transcribing all of our audio into a searchable transcript library. We had been using another provider up until the summer of 2022 but we were constantly having issues with accuracy if our audio was just the slightest bit impaired. Whether it's training sessions, internal Q&As, or for media purposes, the value of transcripts is huge. And we are not alone. Scribe is the transcription service that powers all of S&P Global - like CapIQ - and the client list includes our friends at Tegus. Go to joincolossus.com/scribe to unlock 150 minutes of free transcription and test their capabilities.

-----

Making Media is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Making Media, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.

Show Notes

(00:01:08) - (First question) - Institution building allows scale and market expansion while preserving individual influence

(00:04:45) - Workweek focuses on individual brands to enhance recognition and attract talent

(00:06:18) - Prioritizing fair pay, early creator partnerships, and career stability

(00:11:03) - Identifying talent requires gauging industry fit, expertise, and ambition

(00:15:22) - Guiding creators in audience growth and amplifying their strengths

(00:19:24) - Influence and market valuation gap is due to business model issues in media

(00:22:28) - Disrupting the media industry by sharing net margins with talent

(00:25:14) - Expanding with talent search and franchise financial planning platforms

(00:27:35) - Creating shared entities with tailored cap structures for long-term alignment

(00:28:54) - Substack has simplified content creation, but their business model has flaws

(00:31:12) - Incentivized growth can lead to misleading metrics and detrimental ecosystem effects

(00:34:55) - Niche media is still in its early innings with high barriers to entry

(00:39:34) - Rising tide lifts all boats in the content industry, not winner take all

(00:42:40) - Newsletters drive intention, podcasts engage

(00:43:25) - Companies that stand out to him moving forward

(00:45:42) - The optionality of building complementary businesses exists for those with audience retention

(00:48:10) - Debrief

How to create 100+ content ideas in 90 minutes or less