Erik Torenberg's Playbook: How to Bootstrap a Multi-Million Dollar Media Empire
Jan 5, 2024
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Guest Erik Torenberg discusses the rise of B2B creators, the potential of podcasts, choosing profitable niches, partnerships in podcasting, similarities between music business and VC, expanding reach through creator partnerships, growing expectations of VCs, and startup ideas for professional search engine and matchmaking service.
Creating a business that helps creators expand across platforms and share revenue can be a lucrative opportunity.
B2B creators focusing on specific verticals can build valuable media businesses and incubate other products.
Podcasts offer multiple monetization opportunities and can be turned into newsletters or other forms of media.
Deep dives
Opportunity to Build Audience-in-a-Box Business
There is a big opportunity to create a business that helps creators expand their audience across multiple platforms. By partnering with creators, providing support, and leveraging their existing audience, it is possible to help them grow on new platforms and share the revenue generated. This type of service could charge a premium or even co-own media properties.
The Rise of B2B Creators
B2B creators, who focus on specific verticals or business sectors, are on the rise. They create media in the form of podcasts, newsletters, or other formats that cater to niche audiences within these sectors. By targeting valuable business verticals, they can build a valuable media business and incubate other products or invest in businesses that cater to their niche audiences.
The Power of Podcasting
Podcasts are an underrated medium because they allow creators to create other forms of media from their podcast content. Podcasts can be turned into newsletters, videos, or even communities, providing multiple opportunities for monetization and audience building. The medium offers a higher chance of success in niche areas, and monetization can be improved by pairing podcasts with newsletters.
Unbundling of Media Businesses
There is a trend of unbundling media businesses, similar to the unbundling of Craigslist or Reddit. This involves focusing on specific niches within business media and creating specialized media properties for those niches. By providing valuable content to small subsets of people, these media businesses can attract attention, build valuable audiences, and offer targeted services or products to those audiences.
Under-Monetization of Media
Media businesses often under-monetize their offerings. They have the potential to provide valuable data, insights, or services to a small subset of people, but they fail to price discriminate and capitalize on this opportunity. By identifying valuable customer segments and providing tailored solutions, media businesses can unlock untapped revenue streams and potentially build highly valuable businesses.
I'm joined by Erik Torenberg, Co-Founder of Turpentine, a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more. We talk about why B2B creators are the next big thing, how to spot profitable niches and opportunities to monetize media businesses.
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