The Business of Content with Simon Owens

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   David Stein had an innovative marketing hack for growing his investing podcast called Money for the Rest of Us. He put the names of other popular finance podcasts in his metadata, and Apple’s unsophisticated search algorithm would surface his show whenever people were searching for his competitors.   By the time Apple eventually eliminated that functionality, Money for the Rest of Us had built up a loyal audience that’s since downloaded the show over 20 million times. His audience is so loyal, in fact, that it sustains a high-priced membership community that charges $450 a year and generates well into the six figures in revenue.   In a recent interview, David walked me through how he developed his investing expertise, what he offers to paying members, and why he launched his own premium investing app.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   In 2017, Ben Cohen was living the dream. His politics news site The Daily Banter was generating over 6 million visits a month and enough advertising revenue to support him and a small stable of writers. But then the floor fell out from under him virtually overnight; Facebook pivoted away from news and sent his traffic plummeting. Without traffic, his advertising revenue crumbled.   So in an act of desperation, Ben pivoted his entire business model into paid subscriptions. Doing so forced him to slow down his publishing schedule and focus on serving his core audience. Slowly but surely, he built up a new revenue base, and in the last few months he passed the threshold of 1,000 paid subscribers.   In a recent interview, Ben explained how he executed on his pivot and why he’s determined to never rely on a single large tech platform ever again.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   Like a lot of journalists=turned-media–entrepreneurs, Eric Newcomer decided to launch a paid newsletter after leaving his job at Bloomberg in 2020. That model yielded 2,500 subscribers who collectively pay over $400,000 a year to access his newsletter about startups, but that’s no longer the biggest part of his business.   Today, Eric generates over $1.5 million a year from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit, a twice-a-year conference that he monetizes through a mixture of ticket sales and premium sponsorships. In a recent interview, he explained the conference’s origin story, how he attracts the right mix of startup founders and VC investors, and why he thinks he can replicate its format across multiple tech industry niches.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   The last few years have been pretty good to the Kansas City Chiefs, what with its multiple Super Bowl championships and a close association with the biggest pop star in the world, but BJ Kissel remembers what it was like to be a fan of the team long before it started regularly winning games. Back in the early 2010s, he began blogging for SB Nation, and he used his success there to eventually land a job as the Kansas City Chiefs in-house reporter. In that role, he did everything from writing web articles to serving as a sidelines correspondent for live game broadcasts.   In 2021, he struck off on his own and co-founded the KC Sports Network, a group of podcasts and YouTube channels that cover Kansas City Sports. Today, puts out 10 different shows and is monetized through a mixture of local and national advertisers.   In a recent interview, BJ explained why he left his job at the Chiefs, how he convinced local businesses to sponsor his shows, where he sees new opportunities for growth.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   Lon Seidman doesn’t operate the largest gadget YouTube channel in the world, but he doesn’t need to in order to run a successful media business. That’s because he remains hyper focused on reviewing non-sexy products that sell in extremely high volumes. This has allowed him to build a highly lucrative affiliate business, not only on YouTube, but also on Amazon Video.   In a recent interview, Lon explained his methodology for picking products to review, how he optimizes his affiliate links, and why he’s spending more time posting his content to decentralized platforms.  

In this engaging discussion, Kathleen Schmidt, a seasoned book marketing expert with nearly two decades of experience, shares her insights on the evolving landscape of book promotion. She highlights the crucial role of social media, especially TikTok, in connecting authors with their audiences. Kathaleen discusses effective strategies for book cover design, influencer collaborations, and the importance of navigating a crowded market. She also touches on the challenges and opportunities faced by both traditional and self-published authors in this digital age.

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   When people sign up for the Alts.co newsletter, they’re looking to read its deep dives into alternative investments like art, baseball cards, and rare books. But the most serious investors in its audience want access to actual deal flow, and to gain that access they sign up for Altea, a high-priced membership community that actually vets potential deals and allows them to invest. Not only does Alts.co generate revenue through the annual membership, but it also charges for management fees and carried interest. In essence, Alts.co is a media company that monetizes via an investment firm.   In a recent interview, co-founder Stefan von Imhof explained why his company settled on this model, how it sources deals, and why he eventually wants to stop selling sponsorships within the newsletter.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   Eric Siu has a pretty massive audience; his YouTube channel boasts 161,000 subscribers and his two podcasts – Marketing School and Leveling Up – have generated tens of millions of downloads.    But Eric doesn’t bother with traditional media monetization models like advertising or subscriptions. Instead, he leverages his influence to drive clients to Single Grain, a marketing agency he owns. As that business grew, he was able to acquire more agencies and add to Single Grain’s capabilities, and it now works with some of the world’s largest brands.   In a recent interview, Eric explained how he met his co-host, where he found his audience, and why he chose to monetize his content with a services business.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   When Keith Pepper bought a chain of print newspapers back in 2020, he received an email from a columnist at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that basically asked if he was crazy. But Keith had a plan for taking a company that generated 98% of its revenue from print advertising and converting it into a digital-first media company.   And he’s done just that. Today, Rough Draft Atlanta generates 27% of its revenue from digital ads, and it managed this feat without seeing a significant decline in print advertising. This has allowed Keith to reinvest in the business by hiring more journalists, and it’s now stronger than ever.   In a recent interview, Ketih explained how he consolidated all the newspapers under a single brand, his strategy for attracting online ads, and why he’s avoided placing his content behind a paywall.  

My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/   Layoffs in the local news sector are, sadly, a regular occurrence, but the founders of Block Club Chicago decided they weren’t going down without a fight.   In November 2017, the news startup DNA Info laid off its entire staff, and it was only a few months later that three of its editors launched a Kickstarter that raised over $183,000;  they used that capital to launch Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit that seeks to put a journalist in each of the city’s neighborhoods.   Flash forward six years, and Block Club has a robust news gathering operation that’s funded by 20,000 paying subscribers, foundation support, and a growing advertising business. In a recent interview, co-founder Stephanie Lulay walked me through the site’s launch strategy, its unique approach to neighborhood-based reporting, and why she thinks Block Club’s model can be replicated all across the US.