The AMO Show

Sam Parr is the co-founder, a highly vetted membership community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs. As he articulates it, Hampton has the ability to one day become a $100m+ business. In this episode, we talked about why he felt there was an opportunity here, how they admit new members and build the monthly core groups, and his advice for operators to charge more for their products.

Earlier this month, Tim Hartman, CEO of GovExec, and I took the stage at Omeda's Idea Exchange to do a live recording of the podcast. This is the outcome of that conversation. We talked about what it was like closing on the GovExec deal only days after the Covid-19 lockdowns had taken place. We also talked about how the company has acquired and integrated various other companies. Finally, we dug into the different aspects of GovExec's business model.

Chris Ferrell is the founder and CEO of Endeavor Business Media, a b2b media company growing unbelievably quickly. His original goal? Hit $100 million in revenue. When that happened years faster than anticipated, he set a new goal: hit $100m in EBITDA. In this episode, we talked about how they have grown through acquisition, how they force all acquired companies onto the same technology stack, and how he sees market research becoming as big a part of the business as media.

Alexis Grant is the founder of They Got Acquired, a recently launched publication that covers digital companies acquired in the $100k to $50m range. In this conversation, we dug into the early decisions Alexis made when launching, how sponsorships took the business by surprise, and how they are planning to really monetize the business.

Dan Runcie is the founder of Trapital, a publication dedicated to the business of hip hop. In this conversation, we discussed how he had to put his CEO hat on to make the decision to shut the paid subscription down versus listening to the emotional side, how he thinks about the brand evolving in connection with him, and where he sees the business growing from here.

Scott Gerber is the co-founder and CEO of Community.co, which partners with media companies to create high-priced professional communities. In this conversation, we discussed what goes into making a great community, why it has become such a big buzzword in the market today, and how people should think about growing.

Arsalan Arif is the co-founder and publisher of Endpoints News, a media company that covers the massive biopharma world. During this episode, we discussed the unique subscription they offer, the various events products they bring to market, and why his advice to media operators is not to get into media unless you really love it.

Adam Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of Workweek, a new media company that brings together creators in different industries. During this episode, we discussed how the business got started, the long-term vision for the business, why new entrants into the newsletters space will likely never be able to compete with Morning Brew or The Hustle and so much more.

Amanda Hesser is the co-founder and CEO of Food52, a media, and commerce brand dedicated to the wonderful world of food. With a blend of content and commerce, Food52 has become one of the most impactful brands in the food industry and is now growing to touch more parts of the home.

Naomi Shah is the founder and CEO of Meet Cute, an audio romcom media company. With a focus on creating consistent 15-minute episodes versus trying to aim for hits, Meet Cute is building a robust catalog of IP that the company could use in the future for exciting opportunities.During this episode, we talked about a lot, but a few things jumped out to me…On consistency vs. hitsFor many studios, the goal is to create a hit. They create a few big projects every year with the hope that when one is released, people will flock to it and it’ll be an economic success.That’s not Meet Cute’s approach. Instead, the team strives to consistently deliver on its proposition: a 15-minute romcom audio episode. It doesn’t deviate from consistently delivering that product to people.The benefit here is that the listener builds a relationship with the Meet Cute brand while the company is less dependent on any one piece of content being a savior of the business. I like the consistency over hits approach.On IP and monetizationThe easy road for monetizing would be throwing a quick ad in the beginning of an episode. But for a 15 minute show, a 30-60 second ad eats up a lot of time.Instead, they are looking at all the IP they’re creating as an opportunity to monetize down the line. Consider opportunities like merchandise tied to specific characters. As people fall in love with them, they’ll want to represent those characters.Another opportunity is taking these audio stories and turning them into videos. Could they take their IP and partner with Netflix to create a movie or limited series? When you own valuable IP, your means of monetization are endless.On using data to inform decisionsWhile there is definitely a limited amount of data in audio, some of what they look for is how far into an episode a user got, how many actually completed the full episode, and how many went on to additional episodes.With that limited data, they are able to push that back into their writing flywheel. For example, if they’ve found that cliffhangers often work, that might become part of their strategy going forward.