Episode 153

B2B lessons for B2C

Sean Griffey, until recently the CEO of Industry Dive, joined me on The Rebooting Show to discuss the big things Industry Dive, and by extension a lot of B2B, got right. 

Sean was rarely mentioned in the collection of digital media CEOs of the recent decade. Yet Industry Dive achieved one of the standout exits of the category. He led the B2B publishing company to a $525 million exit to Informa. At the end of 2024, Sean left his role at Informa TechTarget to enjoy “semi-retirement.” 

I’ve found over the recent years that the worlds of consumer and business publishing are coming together. It used to be they spoke differently and had different priorities. Now, you have publishers like Punchbowl and Puck executing B2B strategies. Semafor relies on events as the bulwark of its revenue model. Publishers are more likely to talk up their newsletters than ComScore numbers.

Some of the lesions we discussed:

Focus on a specific audience. Industry Dive would turn off ads if it had a story picked up by Reddit that led to a flood of viral traffic. That’s because the people arriving weren’t the “right people.” B2B isn’t about reaching everyone. 

Know who you’re writing for. A trick of B2B that narrows the focus: Write for a specific job title. Media properties nowadays can be messy, but they need to have a person in mind (and know enough similar people exist).

Get receipts. Industry Dive focused its business model on marketing services and lead generation. In B2B, budgets are far greater for demand generation than branding or thought leadership. 

Do more with less. Industry Dive operated dozens of publications in verticals like wast management, retail, marketing and Tk. But it operated a single platform. That allowed it to quickly move to create new brands, even if it sacrificed unique branding elements.

Go direct. Media companies have three core areas: creation, distribution and monetization. Sean criticizes consumer publishers for relinquishing control over distribution by chasing search and social traffic and monetization by relying on programmatic advertising middlemen. B2B media markets have developed differently, allowing companies to avoid those kinds of dependencies. 


Transcript
Brian:

Welcome to the rebooting show.

Brian:

I am Brian Morrissey.

Brian:

Before I get to this week's show, quick message about an upcoming online forum the rebooting is holding.

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It is tomorrow, Wednesday, February, 26th.

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It's going to be at 1 p. m. Eastern.

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I will be joined by True Anthem CEO and founder Chris Hart.

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As well as Valnett's director of marketing for gaming, James Koser, for an interactive session.

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It's like a webinar focused on how Valnett's brands and entertainment, gaming and tech, use Facebook, TikTok

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and X, you know, social media is still an important channel, for traffic.

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We're going to talk about everything from the job social platforms do now.

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why optimizing to engagement on Facebook is critical, versus traffic, gaining efficiency, in a time of fragmentation,

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embracing platform volatility, as a reality and also an opportunity and

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also just, you know, what's working and what's not, across various, platforms.

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So I'll leave a, link to it in the show notes.

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you can also find it on the bootaid.

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com, but please do join us for this discussion.

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This week I had a conversation with Sean Griffey, the co founder and now ex CEO of Industry Dive, a network

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of B2B publications that emerged as something of the antidote to a lot of the disappointing outcomes in the scale era.

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It was purchased by Informa for 525 million back in 2012.

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It was a massive win.

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and I think it opened up a lot of people's eyes to how, you know, for all the doom and gloom around B2C publishing, B2B

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publishing has continued to be A really kind of healthy and, lucrative sector.

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Sean departed, TechTarget at the end of 2024.

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So I wanted to have him back on to get his view of the landscape.

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we discuss a range of issues, including the dangers of building a publishing business on Substack,

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why peer level communities have Sean's interest at the moment, and of course, the enduring power of email.

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I hope you enjoy the conversation, and if you do, please, leave the show a rating and review wherever you listen to it.

Brian:

Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Brian:

I think this is our third or fourth.

Brian:

You're up there.

Sean:

I'm honored to be called back.

Sean:

So,

Brian:

Yeah, exactly.

Sean:

says something about your judgment, but thank you for

Brian:

I mean, you know, I, I admire you're a retiree and, you know, I spent

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some time in Miami, so I'm comfortable around, around your, your people.

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so you just wrapped up like an amazing run.

Brian:

is it 13?

Brian:

No, 12 years at,

Sean:

13.

Brian:

13 years building industry dive, amazing accidents, 2022 to inform a, five, I think it was 525 million.

Brian:

and, and now, you know, you're out for those who don't know the industry dive story.

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I think it, you know, I, I've always thought about it as kind of the antidote to a lot of the doom and

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gloom that existed from the B2C side of publishing with a lot of the quote unquote scaled publishers that got

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Built up a lot of venture capital money, obviously didn't work out all of them.

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I think at this point we can say, industry dive different, different outcome.

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And I think it's symbolized how, you know, the media industry obviously

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has rewarded depth over breadth and, and niche also let's face it B2B.

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B2B has come out, like, as, as one of the few winners, I guess, in this, in this, landscape.

Brian:

Is that fair?

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

But I think what it's actually, valued is, audiences, right.

Sean:

audiences that you can define audiences that care about you and, at a real deep level.

Sean:

I mean, the, the niche, you know, one of the great things about B2B

Sean:

is that We've been writing towards job titles the whole time, right?

Sean:

And when you, you know, not just an industry, but towards specific roles within those industries.

Sean:

And when you can get that granular, you can really provide value.

Sean:

And it turns out the market, you know, recognizes value.

Brian:

Yeah, that's a great point about, like, writing to job titles, right?

Brian:

Because I think a lot of people don't truly know who their audience is, right?

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And when you write to a job title, you know, you, you know, specifically, right?

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And you have to be that lifeline when they get up in the morning.

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And that's why emails is tremendous.

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Yes.

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you know, got that was not only does it give you a ton of data, right?

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And that's incredibly important.

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But, you know, it is, it is that direct connection that if you can create, the must have information

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that they have when they get up in the morning, you got a good shot.

Brian:

I mean, there's, it's all an execution game, but like you gotta get, you gotta nail that part.

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

But I mean, we, you know, it's, it is, can you provide that value?

Sean:

And then do you recognize that everything else isn't valuable, right?

Sean:

So when we set up analytics at industry dive, we set up, you know, using our tech

Sean:

stack set up, we're only going to track behaviors for our targeted audience.

Sean:

And we're not going to care about how many page views we.

Sean:

Got, you know, and in fact, every now and then we have a story go viral and we have to turn off the ads, you

Sean:

know, so virality like Reddit, you know, finding one of our stories.

Sean:

I'm using actually hurt us more than helped us.

Sean:

And I think that's sort of the difference of what we did is, you know, we said,

Sean:

here's the here's the audience is really valuable at a job title level.

Sean:

We're, you know, as a company, we're only going to watch these people.

Sean:

and, and certainly we looked at, you know, other metrics.

Sean:

I don't want to say we never looked at the total traffic and the rest.

Sean:

Like you, you do all of that, but what we really cared about this level.

Sean:

And then we actually had relationships with advertisers where we said, Okay, what is valuable about what we're doing to you?

Sean:

and it's, you know, a random flyby from Reddit.

Sean:

Turns out it's not valuable to anybody.

Sean:

and so don't charge them for that.

Brian:

yeah, that's interesting.

Brian:

I mean, it's also like, I mean, I think you guys, it's often like

Brian:

a B2B or you're really talking to marketers, not advertising.

Brian:

People use them like, interchangeably.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

But,

Sean:

No, you're right.

Brian:

you know, with advertising, I think that is the difference where, B2C, particularly in a lot of publishing,

Brian:

you know, they're, they look for, you know, impressions and they're,

Brian:

and they're looking for advertisers who want to get their message out.

Brian:

Whereas I feel like in B2B.

Brian:

It's always been very performance driven, they're marketers, right?

Brian:

And, you know, you need to, that's why lead gen is incredibly important in B2B.

Brian:

That's why in person becomes important because I say it, it gives you receipts, right?

Brian:

And I think all of, of the media industry is moving towards this, where you have to fulfill an economic function.

Brian:

And I think it's just, it's hard to do, but it's, it's a lot clearer, I think, in B2B about how you get there.

Sean:

you know, the big difference between B2B is we actually talk to our customers.

Sean:

You know, I, I think, everyone wants to, you know, online wants to poo poo the value of a MBA these days.

Sean:

But, you know, I've always said, and I, and I got an MBA.

Sean:

and if I walked into one of my strategy classes and said, Hey, I'm going to build, I'm going to build a new business,

Sean:

But key to it is I'm going to put a very opaque middleman between me and my customer and never talk to my customer

Sean:

again and have the opaque middleman who I don't really know, explain the value of my product and set pricing for it.

Sean:

Does this sound like a good idea?

Sean:

You'd be laughed out of the room, right?

Sean:

You'd be laughed out of the room.

Sean:

And that's what the media industry did.

Sean:

You know, 25 years ago is they put in an ad tech middleman in between

Sean:

them and the customer and they stopped talking to the customer.

Sean:

And when they did that, it becomes, you know, the next step is the audience doesn't become valuable anymore.

Sean:

It leads to the rise of traffic.

Sean:

and when that doesn't create values, you know, the media industry just became kind of crypto bros where we're just

Sean:

shooting shots in the dark, hoping that, you know, the next platform is going to be the savior of the rest.

Sean:

Like we're just gambling on things much like crypto investors are gambling on meme coins.

Sean:

and there's just a, it's, you know, to me, it started with

Sean:

this fundamental disconnect of we stopped talking to our customers.

Sean:

and.

Sean:

That's something that B2B never did, you know, fortunately, and that's something that you see the, you know, the, the media

Sean:

companies that are hot today are ones that aren't monetizing it with, you know, programmatic or not building around that

Sean:

they're, they look smaller, but it's, they're smaller because they're actually talking to people who write them checks.

Brian:

that's very true.

Brian:

although I would say, look, I mean, programmatic, the, the buy side drove a lot of that.

Brian:

I mean, all the, the early programmatic investment clearly went into the buy side.

Brian:

I feel like a lot of publishers.

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Sort of went, went along almost like kicking and screaming in some ways.

Brian:

This wasn't something that like they got up, like super excited about, like getting disintermediated from

Brian:

their customers or their customer was like, Oh yeah, we have a mandate.

Brian:

We have to just, you know, pour it all into programmatic.

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Forget about how that mandate came about.

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You know, they were left, okay, well, you know, we can't dictate how.

Brian:

They didn't have the leverage to dictate, you know, how people were going to buy.

Brian:

And, and also I think, you know, on, on a maybe more profound level, a lot of publishers were not that

Brian:

essential to both their partners and honestly to the audience itself.

Brian:

And you see that when, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people went out of business and there

Brian:

was a lot of, you know, rending of garments on, on, on then Twitter.

Brian:

but then like everyone kind of went on with their lives.

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And so there were a lot of flimsy brands that got built.

Brian:

What do you end up thinking when you see, you know, it used to be like, it's still like the morning brew of

Brian:

X, but I still, you know, people want to build the, the industry dive, you know, the, the next industry dive.

Brian:

It's like industry dive, but with creators, industry dive, maybe, but with more AI.

Sean:

I love it.

Sean:

You know, you, when you, when you start something, you always want people to say that they're, you know, you want

Sean:

to get to the point where they say they're going to copy you, and do it.

Sean:

And, and I hope someone does, you know, I think, I think there's some people doing really cool things.

Sean:

I do think it's easy to pick one or two of the things that, made us successful and miss all of the other ones.

Sean:

and so it's going to be interesting to see, you know, who, who can do it.

Sean:

And I think, you know, if you talk to Austin and you know, the morning brew

Sean:

guys, I think they'd say all the people who want to be morning brew of whatever.

Sean:

I think they would tell you, yeah, they're getting 70 percent of

Sean:

what we did, but the 30 percent is actually really hard and important.

Brian:

What's the 30%?

Brian:

I mean, because we know the sort of, you know, like a lot of people want to build, you guys went narrow and deep.

Brian:

I think I checked this morning.

Brian:

There was 33 publishers.

Brian:

There might be a couple of us, but like, you know, you went into specific sectors, you went narrow and deep, you bet on

Brian:

email and, and, and direct connections and therefore first party data.

Brian:

you, Bet on performance, I think, in a lot of ways.

Brian:

You weren't just selling like banner ads or anything like this.

Brian:

You stayed focused.

Brian:

You didn't go into, it was, it was kind of funny that an events company bought you because like, you were like,

Brian:

well, you're like the only B2B company that wasn't like, you know, an events company masquerading as something else.

Brian:

30%.

Sean:

but you're, I mean, you're right.

Sean:

We kept

Brian:

I mean, the 30 percent is like the executional details that nobody sees back in the kitchen, right?

Sean:

pretty much, I mean, I think there's, I mean, there's a lot within that 30%.

Sean:

I think some people do.

Sean:

The 30 percent that people miss differs between depending on who they

Sean:

are, you know, some people will pick up on one nuance and not the other.

Sean:

I mean, I think the one thing that we did, early on was we always said we were trying to build a platform, and not trying to

Sean:

build a portfolio of brands, which I think is very different, with what you see, you

Sean:

know, particularly some of the larger, you know, companies that are buying assets.

Sean:

to, to sort of build industry dive secondhand.

Sean:

I think they're building portfolios and they're not building platforms.

Sean:

And, we were very deliberate about, the technology underlying things.

Sean:

We were very deliberate that all of the teams we were building.

Sean:

We're horizontal across all of our properties, right?

Sean:

There wasn't, there wasn't audience development team for our utility pub.

Sean:

That was different than the audience development team for our bio pharma one, right?

Sean:

Like, like, everything was across platform.

Sean:

The sales teams were the same way.

Sean:

And, the data structure was the same way.

Sean:

So at the, at the end, it's hard in the beginning, but you sort of pick up steam along the way, you know, and, and

Sean:

when we were really humming, all of that sort of network effect built on itself.

Brian:

Yeah, I mean that's yeah, because you get efficiencies with I mean that I think I feel like in publishing a

Brian:

lot of times like the the trade off is Okay, and I've been in these mean I mean we went down this path like it

Brian:

did today is Okay, well this won't feel this will feel like stamped out Right.

Brian:

Like, and it feels, it feels like Yahoo's, you know, portal approach.

Brian:

It was like, okay, Yahoo jobs.

Brian:

Yahoo, I guess it was Yahoo classifieds, Yahoo finance, Yahoo sports, Yahoo this.

Brian:

And I think a lot of people end up gravitating towards.

Brian:

A house of brands approach,

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

Um, I mean, you're, you're right.

Sean:

Like you lose something.

Sean:

And I think if we're going to be honest, right, there's always, you know, people always said who's industry dive's

Sean:

competitor and it's like, well, we had a, we have a million competitors in each of the different industries,

Sean:

but we didn't have someone that competed across all of the industries.

Sean:

And I think there were really great.

Sean:

companies and publications within some of the industry.

Sean:

Some of them could go much deeper in the industries or do unique things specific to that industry that we couldn't do.

Sean:

and so maybe ours felt stamped out, but it mostly felt stamped out to people like you who watched all of it, right?

Sean:

If you're in the utility industry, you you're not seeing biopharma and you're

Sean:

not realizing that it's stamped out, you know, that there is a template

Brian:

didn't say, I didn't mean that it was stamped out.

Brian:

I

Sean:

Well, no, but I, but I understand, I mean, like, I understand what you're saying, right?

Sean:

You know, I totally understand what you're saying.

Sean:

Like, you know, if, if you go house of brands, you can create unique things and, and we would have people,

Sean:

you know, particularly editorial people, you know, within our teams that would want to create something.

Sean:

If we said, can we do it 34 times more?

Sean:

And if we said no, then we're like, sorry, we're not going to put any engineering or design time behind this.

Sean:

You know, it had to work in every industry.

Brian:

so when you look at like, I want to, I'm going to this newsletter conference later this week.

Brian:

I don't think I've ever been to a newsletter conference.

Brian:

It's a first for me.

Brian:

there's a lot of them now, which is like sort of telling, right?

Brian:

what do you think of, what do you think of newsletters as a business?

Brian:

And by that I mean, like, there's been an explosion of newsletters.

Brian:

obviously, you know, Substack started in newsletters.

Brian:

I don't know what Substack is now.

Brian:

We'll, we'll talk about that in a bit.

Brian:

Beehive, Full disclosure, I'm an angel investor in VR.

Brian:

It's my only angel investment.

Brian:

Tyler's done an amazing job.

Brian:

but I'm also given pause by the sort of mania that existed in, in newsletters.

Brian:

There was a lot of manias that existed in like, particularly in that 2020, 2021 Zerp era.

Brian:

And, I mean, crypto is in there.

Brian:

And, I don't know.

Brian:

It's hard for me to really make it because I really believe in newsletters, like as a, a way to get, and I think you probably

Brian:

agree, but like as a way to get data, it's amazing to have like data about people, you know, you know, who's in your

Brian:

audience, you know, you enrich it and you can find out exactly who they are.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And that's like incredibly valuable, for, for people.

Brian:

Business purposes.

Brian:

And just like for what you're going to make purposes, love the direct connection.

Brian:

Nothing is perfect.

Brian:

You're going to be disintermediated by technology in some way, shape, or form.

Brian:

Look at the competitive set.

Brian:

What are you going to do?

Brian:

Like just load stuff up on a Tik TOK.

Brian:

at the same time, like I think about it as just like a little bit of a limited distribution vehicle.

Brian:

And a lot of people seem to be looking to, a lot of, a lot of the

Brian:

businesses here feel like arbitrage businesses, to be honest with you.

Sean:

I think you're right about the arbitrage.

Sean:

I mean, you know, I, I still love email, for the reasons you said.

Sean:

I mean, I think the other one that, we talk about is it's a push platform, right?

Sean:

Like we send it into the inbox.

Sean:

in some ways, podcasts are the same way, right?

Sean:

Which is the other thing that's really taken off.

Sean:

Like, you know, I opened my podcast app and new podcasts are there.

Sean:

I don't have to go remember to go to a podcast I've subscribed to.

Sean:

It shows up on my phone.

Sean:

and, you know, push notifications.

Sean:

Those are the three things we have as a tool in terms of push versus pull, going in.

Sean:

So that's incredibly valuable.

Brian:

If you include texting in there, text, texting's in

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

Texting too.

Sean:

I guess I had texting as a push notifications, but yeah, if you can get, get them, that's great.

Sean:

But, but it's, it's the one that has the most personally identifiable analytics behind it.

Sean:

Right.

Sean:

And so, you know, what you talked about, I mean, that's the, that's like the key to this is like, we, we can learn a lot about

Sean:

what people care about in their behaviors because an email address is unique.

Sean:

unless you're like, you know, some parents I know that share an email

Sean:

address between the mom and dad, but, they're usually unique, unique between

Brian:

I didn't think people still did that.

Sean:

I don't know.

Sean:

There's one or two, out there.

Sean:

I think that's generational.

Sean:

so, I mean, there's a ton of value to the, to a media company.

Sean:

But I think the thing that I worry about with all these newsletter

Sean:

conferences and you're right is, it feels like the newest arbitrage, right?

Sean:

Like it feels like the newest, we're going to game Facebook to get audiences.

Sean:

Now, we're going to game audience and we're going to arbitrage 30 cent subscribers to make a dollar on top of it.

Sean:

And I think that'll work for a while until it won't.

Sean:

but I think the people who are actually building audience and,

Sean:

and then taking that audience and building community off of it.

Sean:

with email for a long time.

Sean:

I, I don't, you know, I mean, I've been, you know, the first time I got into

Sean:

media and it was a company that was, you know, heavily into newsletters was 2005.

Sean:

And we've been talking about email dying for 20 years, since then, but somehow it hasn't.

Brian:

yeah.

Brian:

so what are some like newsletter centric businesses that you think are promising in that, in that realm?

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

Because I think a lot of people look, there's like so many newsletters now.

Brian:

I mean, like, you know, so many people have created newsletters, and.

Brian:

You know, some people are going to make it and, you know, it's like anything, there's a power law.

Brian:

And some people are going to build real, you know, media businesses.

Brian:

Some will remain, you know, just, you know, passion projects or just, you know, really small, like a creator businesses.

Brian:

But are there any of that sort of stand out to you as having a

Brian:

lot of, you know, promise from just looking from the outside?

Sean:

Well, the, the, the companies I like, I don't know

Sean:

if they define themselves as newsletter businesses, right?

Sean:

Like, I think it's really limiting to say you're a newsletter businesses.

Sean:

I think the, the ones that say we're a media company, are

Brian:

I said newsletter centric,

Sean:

yeah, newsletter centric, uh, you know, um , gosh, I don't know.

Sean:

I mean, I, I, I tend to like, some of the folks like payload in the space, you know, industry that, that certainly.

Sean:

Are driven by a newsletter, but, but you know, they certainly are doing events and the rest, you know, the,

Sean:

the, you know, time will tell what happens with the 1440s and the flyovers

Sean:

and the rest, I mean, I think there's smart people, working on those.

Sean:

and at times I think there's utility to them, you know, and that I appreciate them and then other times, I don't

Sean:

think there's depth enough to get me what I want, I don't know, you know, but I certainly, I certainly think

Sean:

that if they can push past just over a newsletter, there's something there.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

so what, how do you, evaluate like creator businesses, right?

Brian:

Because like, there's clearly been a decentralization of the overall, media ecosystem, right?

Brian:

And if there is, if there's an area that's growing fastest, it's around individuals.

Brian:

and we saw that in the election, et cetera.

Brian:

And I think the growth of newsletters and podcasts in some ways are part of this in a large way.

Brian:

because there's just so many more individual voices out there.

Brian:

There's a, maybe like an overvaluation right now placed on authenticity.

Brian:

And it's just harder to do that, I feel like, as an institutional brand than it is as an individual.

Brian:

Obviously not necessarily, personalities are not a new thing.

Brian:

This is not like something that just, that just arrived.

Brian:

however, the scale of it feels different.

Sean:

there's, there's more of them, certainly.

Sean:

but I, I think, you know, Kiplinger had a newsletter over 100 years ago in the finance space, right?

Sean:

when people say newsletters are new, it's like, no, we've been doing newsletters for hundreds of years.

Sean:

We just mail them.

Sean:

I, you know.

Sean:

I, I try to have someone tell me the difference between Oprah and Mr.

Sean:

Beast in terms of, you know, dominating one platform and then expanding off of it, you know, I mean, was Oprah

Sean:

creator, we would call, we probably would call her one today, but we

Sean:

didn't, I mean, I think there's, I think there's more creators covering.

Sean:

Serious stuff, you know, like politics and stuff that we had in the early nineties, but I think the creators were

Sean:

there, in, in terms of how I evaluate, I mean, well, by the way, I mean, I think the interesting thing for me

Sean:

when I look at this is how does legacy media tap into that, or how do you build a platform tapped into creators?

Sean:

And I, you know, I would argue that's what Axios did, right?

Sean:

They, they use brand names.

Sean:

To, you know, as an audience hack.

Sean:

and they, they managed to take sort of what people that could have been creators or could have gone to some

Sean:

stack, you know, and brought audiences and they put them under a platform and they built a brand around it.

Sean:

I think puck's doing a good job of that right now too.

Sean:

Right.

Sean:

Which is like, how do we have our cake and eat it too?

Sean:

in all of those instances though, I mean, the, the, you know, the thing

Sean:

to me is It's like how they monetize the creators within those platforms.

Sean:

They're not monetizing it like legacy media is, they're monetizing it with, more direct relationships as I talked about,

Sean:

you know, and it's, it's, it's, you know, the, the thing that I always spend a lot of time with, with industry dive was.

Sean:

If we're doing something like how do we do something that's small and valuable multiple times?

Sean:

And I think, you know, from a creator standpoint, the Pucks and, you know, the Axioses have done a really good job.

Sean:

I think where, you know, some people are getting sidetracked is they're saying creators means Voice centric and we're

Sean:

going to take someone and try to build a creator, which is like, you know, a legacy company shouldn't try to build creators.

Sean:

You're paying for someone to utilize your platform.

Sean:

That's what we've always done.

Sean:

you, you need, like, if you're going to build creators, you need people like bringing creators, you need to, They

Sean:

need to bring an audience or they need to bring something that is a hack for you.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

Explain a little bit of that difference.

Brian:

I mean, so I mean, cause usually like media companies, I mean, the essential job is to sort of bring in talent.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

You have like a brand and you have distribution and you're going to provide them that they're

Brian:

going to provide, provide their, their labors and their talents.

Brian:

And they, you know, the, the relationship is, is such that, you know, the individual didn't have the distribution, right.

Brian:

They didn't have all of the things that the company has.

Brian:

That's the platform you're talking about.

Sean:

Yeah, but, but you, you know, and historically though you, you

Sean:

grew individuals, like you grew brands, you made them popular.

Sean:

I think, I, I, I think there's some people and, and You know, Axios went and got, you know, creators like

Sean:

quote creators that had big audiences that would follow them, right?

Sean:

Dan Primack brought it in.

Sean:

I think where some people are saying we're going to take a 25 year old

Sean:

and make them a creator and you're paying to build the audience for them.

Sean:

and if you're going to be creator centric.

Sean:

Like you can't, like the crew you have, you can't grow your own creators.

Sean:

You have to buy creators if you're going to be a media company.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And that's totally different, right?

Brian:

Then I mean, like a lot of models are premised on it depends, but like, you know, bringing on people earlier

Brian:

on in their careers, and you know that the idea is like, they can.

Brian:

It's the same reason, you know, MBA teams want to draft like.

Brian:

19 year olds is like, cause they've got more upside if they're, you know, that's just reality.

Brian:

And, you know, depending on where you are in the market, maybe they go on to like a more quote unquote

Brian:

prominent place that used to be it, but now those places are shrinking.

Brian:

So you've got a, an advantage there.

Brian:

but, you know, the test of a place was, you know, can you, can you bring people into your platform?

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And.

Brian:

And have them basically grow into being prominent voices, and, and

Brian:

faster than they could like on their own or at a different place.

Brian:

but now you kind of need someone who has already achieved a little bit of, or a lot of, you know, success already, I

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

I mean, I, I mean, I think like if you're the New York times, you're gonna have to do both, right.

Sean:

you're gonna have to grow talent and you're gonna have to find it.

Sean:

I think just more of the, I think some of these companies are hiring, hiring people in a, in a creator lens.

Sean:

That don't actually have the distribution, you know, a name creator would be.

Sean:

And I think that's all I'm trying to say is there's a risk to say, I'm, I'm going to hire someone who has a voice, but if

Sean:

they don't have their own audience coming with them, it's just the old model.

Sean:

If you want the new model, which is we're going to hire creators and be a Creator centric, you actually have to

Sean:

have people who have real followings and real communities and real importance in where they are and Trying to like get

Sean:

someone who has fashioned themselves as a creator But has only you know been middling success is gonna be is a mistake.

Sean:

I'm seeing people make

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

So do you think like the, the, the phenomenon of in, in B2C media of a

Brian:

lot of influence, and audience has like leaked to the edges, right?

Brian:

Like it's, it's gone from institutional media.

Brian:

It doesn't mean institutional media is gone.

Brian:

It's not going anywhere, but look, it's, it's a lot of its influence has, has, you know, has, you know, It's not a

Brian:

lot of it, but like portions of it to alternative media, individual voices, whether that's podcasters, YouTubers,

Brian:

newsletter, people, independent, publishers, do you see something similar?

Brian:

coming for B2B, I mean, because I feel like in the quote unquote extinction

Brian:

event, you know, B2B was just kind of like hanging out for the most part.

Brian:

It's like, no, we're good.

Brian:

It's like, fine.

Brian:

We've got, we've got different models here.

Brian:

I don't remember reading about all the B2B companies going out of business.

Brian:

They're like, we're doing our events.

Brian:

It's all good.

Brian:

Like it's no big deal.

Brian:

I don't care about this algorithm change.

Sean:

Yeah,

Brian:

But I'm wondering if those dynamics end up coming to a lot of, of B2B.

Sean:

I think some of it will I don't know if I see all of it coming.

Sean:

I think, I think certainly, B2B companies have to think about, you

Sean:

know, the, you know, you talked about authenticity and tone, and the rest.

Sean:

And I think that'll be a norm that people have to adapt to, right?

Sean:

Like how do we speak to people and, and, and where, and I certainly think there are experts out there.

Sean:

In B2B that are going to have their own platforms.

Sean:

and that there, you know, there are going to be individuals that can, You know,

Sean:

can create their own newsletter and or create their own podcast or do the rest.

Sean:

I think that'll come.

Sean:

I don't know if it's going to be, as widespread as some of the consumer, ones are, you know, the, the 1 thing I do

Sean:

know, though, is, you don't have to be the 1st 1 to solve this problem, right?

Sean:

You know, I, I, 1 of the things that, you know, I always wanted to do what industry dive was to be a fast follower, and not

Sean:

be the first one to go and say, Hey, we, we need to get on TikTok for B2B.

Sean:

'cause that's where 19 year olds who are soon gonna be 25 year olds who are then gonna be 35 year olds, are

Sean:

gonna be, I'm like, ah, I'll just wait until someone else is proven that this is important for me to go do that.

Sean:

You know?

Sean:

And so.

Sean:

I, I think, you know, people's appetites and how they want to be spoken to and maybe where they want to be spoken to,

Sean:

that'll change some, but we don't have to chase it, you know, we can just be there and have good content when the time comes.

Brian:

yeah, what is, what is your opinion on the outlook for, for something like sub stack?

Brian:

I mean, obviously it's been incredibly influential platform, more influence.

Brian:

I mean, it's actually a perfect media platform because it's like influence is far bigger than its business.

Brian:

and media, media, particularly in B2C, like media businesses were

Brian:

always, their reputation was far larger than the actual business.

Brian:

I think about the New Yorker's reputation versus the New Yorker as a business.

Brian:

And it's.

Brian:

It's an okay business, but it's not like it's some massive business.

Brian:

and that's the case across most of B2C.

Brian:

and Substack has yet to become a massive business.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

But it's had, I think, a really, really big impact.

Sean:

I've been wrong about it because I thought we'd be past the subset phase by now, to be honest.

Sean:

and I, I mean, I'd love,

Brian:

did you think, why, why, why did you think that?

Sean:

cause I, I think my, my view was that the self selection

Sean:

of the successful people would be the people who don't need it.

Sean:

and so that the.

Sean:

You know, the, the biggest people would get off of Substack, the fastest,

Sean:

and it would be left with the tier C's and B newsletter companies.

Sean:

because why would anyone give a cut of their revenue to these guys, if you were super successful?

Sean:

I thought, you know, that would, that would take it away.

Sean:

I, you know, I, I guess the audience.

Sean:

You know, I guess a nurse is a powerful thing for people not wanting to leave.

Sean:

You know, the folks that had guaranteed, guaranteed income with them, certainly powerful.

Sean:

And now maybe there is some sort of audience hack among them.

Sean:

But I, I'm, you know, the, the thing about audience hacks is they always,

Sean:

you know, they work and they work for a while and then they don't work.

Sean:

There's not been an audience hack that has withstood decades, right?

Sean:

Because as soon as it becomes a hack, everyone uses it and then we destroy it.

Sean:

and so the, the, I'm like skeptical of the sub stack audience hack is like, we're going to provide value and driving

Sean:

audience to them, long term, but I'm, I think it's working for folks right now.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

I mean, they've got, they've got a, they've got a few lock ins with the

Brian:

recommendations being, you know, distribution hack, if you will.

Brian:

Like you don't have to like, it, it, it works.

Brian:

It's a, it's, it's a bit of a flywheel.

Brian:

and then the biggest is they got, they got all those credit cards, you

Sean:

Well, and that,

Brian:

convert so many more people when they don't have to actually enter their credit card.

Brian:

Like it's kind of simple, but Yeah,

Sean:

is like, how, how much, how many new audience members are they have a sub stack as a platform bringing in right?

Sean:

Because at some points, it becomes this closed garden of the same people being passed around.

Sean:

and the rest, but, you know,

Brian:

that's, that's the risk for beehive and all of these, you know, cause they're, they're moving in

Brian:

the direction of being platforms to, to a greater or lesser degree.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

Like, I mean, I don't know, like, you know, the subset can talk about how you own your audience and I'm

Brian:

like, okay, but you email my audience then like what, like you email on my behalf to recommend different things.

Brian:

Like, how is that?

Brian:

I mean, I left subset like a year ago, but like, that's yeah.

Brian:

To me was.

Brian:

You know, essentially you have to make a decision.

Brian:

Are you going to build a business on a platform or are you going to build a platform around a business?

Brian:

and you know, you, you, there's trade offs to, to, to both at the

Sean:

yep.

Sean:

I, at the end of the day, if you believe your data is valuable, I, I personally would get off those platforms.

Sean:

you know, I, I get off, you know, I think Ivy Beehive more as like a great ESP for small.

Sean:

Publishers.

Sean:

you know, maybe it's a platform.

Sean:

I know they're trying to do stuff with ad networks and the rest, but, I think

Sean:

it's a, it's a drop simple ESP for people who are launching newsletters, with

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Substack is definitely different.

Brian:

I mean, with, with how much they're going into video, I mean, they'd already added podcasts, but now with video, they're

Brian:

trying to attract and with notes being a social network at the end of the day.

Brian:

it's much more fraught to me, the, the Substack model.

Brian:

but again, it works for a lot of people.

Brian:

There's a lot of people making a lot of money on Substack and not having to worry

Brian:

one bit about like email deliverability or any of the like, you know,

Sean:

know about that.

Sean:

I don't, I'm not, I mean, Just because you don't have to worry about it doesn't mean they're doing a good job with it.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

No, I know.

Brian:

But like all the product stuff taking off, taking, taking all of that stuff off your plate has, is, is very attractive

Brian:

to a lot of, if you're operating like an individual size business, like that is,

Sean:

If you're a one, two, three person shop, you know, I can see the value of it.

Sean:

I think if you're going to be a media company, you quickly go look at the, you know, you, you grow into the

Sean:

Omidas and the other people that have sort of audience centric platforms, you know, and those are the, that's

Sean:

sort of the evolution, but, but I think they do a great job for.

Sean:

You know, the smaller people,

Brian:

So I remember when, when BuzzFeed went public, you, you were like, I'm buying, I'm long BuzzFeed.

Brian:

I mean, I've given you your laurels about like how forward thinking you are, Sean.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

Right.

Sean:

okay, a little

Brian:

94 percent since I remember reading that tweet.

Brian:

Maybe that's why you're not on Twitter much anymore.

Brian:

I'm keeping receipts.

Sean:

um, what you didn't know is I kept buying on the way down.

Sean:

So I, I ultimately got out of my BuzzFeed position, up a little bit, you know,

Sean:

but, I'm just convinced that there was a first party data play there.

Sean:

And, I'm still convinced that.

Sean:

You know, Buzzfeed and, and I, you know, I have no idea what this new social

Sean:

network's gonna be or the rest, you know, I, I have questions of Buzzfeeds.

Sean:

I, you know, I know Jonah was on your podcast, the other day and he talked about, you know, The audiences and do

Sean:

you, you know, you had a great, you had a great point, which was that it felt like BuzzFeed was part of the millennial

Sean:

internet and now it's a different internet, you know, and and what I couldn't understand from Jonah's response

Sean:

was, are they trying to age with their audience or are they trying to stay in the same age demographic and attract new ones?

Sean:

And I don't really know.

Sean:

That's like one of my problems

Brian:

gotta age with it.

Brian:

They gotta age with

Sean:

I guess so.

Brian:

it's too millennial

Sean:

But it doesn't seem that way now.

Sean:

And I think the other thing that's kind of, you know, for me, I know they have

Sean:

newsletters there, but they should be like, it's they're not obnoxious about it.

Sean:

Like, if BuzzFeed had so much traffic, if they had been collecting emails and

Sean:

creating everything around something that was registered and first party data.

Sean:

They would have this massive set now and it's, it's kind of, there's like a sign in, you know, link when

Sean:

you go to BuzzFeed, but there's nothing like I would have five

Sean:

places to collect an email address on every single one of those pages.

Sean:

And I would be doing things that would convert that to my own audience and trying to build, build brands around it.

Sean:

and they just, you know, I'm a little disappointed they never did that, but.

Sean:

But I, you know, it's also, you know, you see the nails like that's the hammer.

Sean:

I have, you know, first party data emails and the rest.

Sean:

And I was like, there was so much opportunity there that they just kind of didn't work about worry about.

Brian:

So let me ask you this then.

Brian:

So, I mean, that, those are sort of your priors, right?

Brian:

so where would you be building right now?

Brian:

Like where, like, because, I mean, is it still, is email still the like most attractive starting point?

Brian:

For these kinds of businesses that, you know, the dynamics, you know, they work, email, as you said, has, proclaimed to

Brian:

be on its way to dying or dead, like, repeatedly over the last 30 years.

Brian:

And somehow we get up and we check our emails.

Brian:

I don't know.

Brian:

Where do you see the actual opportunities now?

Sean:

so, I mean, listen, I think email is a component of it.

Sean:

I actually think, real peer communities on a scaled level is something that's really interesting to me, right?

Sean:

And you think of, you know, world 50, which has built this and maybe a lot of people don't know about it, but

Sean:

they built these massive sort of a community business and stamped it out.

Sean:

Like there's a world 54 CEOs.

Sean:

There's a world 50 for chief marketing officers.

Sean:

There's a world 50 and it's these peer communities.

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

Groups that go and, you know, you see chief, create communities,

Sean:

and vista create communities for different types of folks.

Sean:

I actually think, there is a real opportunity for, and this is my B2B hat on right, in the B2B

Sean:

space to create communities off of the publications that you have.

Sean:

At a job title level.

Sean:

and I think you can create sort of a platform around it, like, like industry dive did with, with

Sean:

media, you know, with, with, email, you can do that with peer to peer community and marry the two right now.

Sean:

And it's, um, something that I think only a few people are really trying to think about in a scaled way.

Sean:

but I think, I think that, that, you know, that community is, is one of the antidotes towards.

Sean:

Aggregation and sort of, you know, content proliferation and sort of slop out there

Sean:

is if you can marry those two things, you've got something really powerful,

Brian:

Yeah, I think that's right.

Brian:

I mean, cause a lot of, I should say in B2B, a lot of people, like they wave

Brian:

around community when they really mean events, like, and they're different.

Sean:

There's a total, there's total differences, but I think events is another leg of the stool and B2B, right?

Sean:

If you can do a true community with events, with, with content media, you've got something really powerful.

Brian:

But you can have a community business and not have events and not having an events business, but

Brian:

you can have an events business that's not a community business.

Brian:

I guess that's my point.

Brian:

Like, you know, I

Sean:

Correct.

Sean:

I know you're absolutely right.

Sean:

Absolutely right.

Brian:

there's a lot of different kinds of events and some of the best are just like, they're pure marketplaces.

Brian:

They're matching up a buy and a sell side.

Brian:

You can kind of claim it to be a hosted buyer forum, for instance, to be a community model.

Brian:

But You're kind of stretching it.

Brian:

I, I, I think I know what you're saying.

Brian:

It's like, do the people want to connect with each other directly?

Brian:

I mean, it's, it's a little bit different than like, you know, setting up a,

Sean:

Yep.

Sean:

And honestly, I think communities are paid, you know, I mean, they're, they're, they're paid to join, and

Sean:

they may not have vendors as a part of them, you know, now I think you can blend the vendors in there.

Sean:

But, but I do think, I mean,

Brian:

Chocolate and peanut butter.

Brian:

Sounds great.

Sean:

yeah, I do think the one thing you're talking about the events and the rest, like, there's a lot of high end

Sean:

event people, That I think don't realize that they're in lead generation too.

Sean:

Right.

Sean:

And that the, they're like, Oh no, no, we, we, our events bring C level folks and you know, sponsors want to do whatever.

Sean:

I'm like, yeah, it only works if you bring the C level folks there because, you know, there's someone that,

Sean:

that wants to talk to them, even if it's not hosted buyer, you're like.

Sean:

You know, a marketer who bought that sponsorship is going back and saying, here's what we got out of it.

Sean:

And it

Brian:

I mean, that is the sort of the key to a lot, particularly in B2B events.

Brian:

I mean, they, they, they call them like sponsor driven really at the end of the day.

Brian:

most.

Brian:

Most events, and I think this is very risky when people try to get a hybrid

Brian:

model, because you want to be greedy, but you can't be too greedy, right?

Brian:

And everyone wants both.

Brian:

It's like, I want, I want the ticket sales.

Brian:

I want the sponsorship.

Brian:

I want it all.

Brian:

I want to, I want to sell the key card, you know, Wi Fi sponsorship.

Brian:

We got a sponsor teeny going on.

Brian:

And I love that.

Brian:

Like I love monetization, but at the same time, you're kind of working against it.

Brian:

Self in some ways, because if the value is who is in the room and your basic job, your economic function is really

Brian:

connecting the people in the room to each other and to your partners.

Brian:

you're giving up in a tremendous lever.

Brian:

If you can't control who's in the room.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

If you're selling, if you're selling tickets, it's, you're

Brian:

working against yourself because you're going to be selling tickets.

Brian:

First of all, it creates conflict, with your sponsorship packages.

Brian:

And, you're gonna, you're gonna screw up, you know, the ratio, if you will.

Brian:

I mean, you can, you're always going to claim it's 50, 50 buyers and sellers.

Brian:

And it might be 70, but you know.

Sean:

Everyone's buying something.

Brian:

What do you mean by marketer?

Brian:

yeah, no, I've been, I've been in that.

Brian:

They're like, are you sure about those ratios?

Brian:

I'm like, I think so.

Brian:

Like I'll have to, I'll have to check with the team on that.

Brian:

but yeah, no, I think that that is like, cause you know, events do an essential

Brian:

economic function of, of matching up a buy and a sell side, a lot of events.

Brian:

And I think what I see is a lot of,

Sean:

do you think like a punch bowl views it the same way?

Brian:

I don't think they view it the same way, but I think that they.

Brian:

I think that they, it acts in, in, in a very similar way.

Brian:

I mean, they do different types of events.

Brian:

I feel like Washington DC is home.

Brian:

First of all, they do breakfast there.

Brian:

They do dinners in New York.

Brian:

It's, it's really unusual.

Brian:

I want to, I'm doing breakfast now because I'm pivoting away from dinners.

Brian:

I don't think people want to go do

Sean:

Get on with your day.

Sean:

Yeah.

Sean:

I

Brian:

Yeah, exactly.

Brian:

Like, let's, let's do this is business.

Brian:

but, no, I mean, I think that there's, there's a lot of similar, that's like

Brian:

those Washington DC publications to me are just a different version of B2B.

Sean:

they are too.

Sean:

and I just don't know if they, If they realize it, you know, or they want to realize it, you know, that, that there's,

Sean:

you know, you can say political playbook selling influence in their newsletter.

Sean:

Right.

Sean:

You know, or that the, you know, punch bowl events are, you know, high end sort of sponsorships, but

Sean:

I think they're measured based on the same exact things of each end.

Sean:

Demand gen person's going to measure it as well.

Brian:

all end up on a spreadsheet.

Brian:

You might not want it, but you're going to end up there.

Brian:

So you might as well like prepare for that because otherwise, I mean, that's why I think a lot of people

Brian:

make mistakes in B2C when they go into events into like the business realm

Brian:

of not really thinking in, they don't use words like demand gen and stuff.

Brian:

They're like, Ooh, that's, you know, this is about live.

Brian:

This is our live journalism and stuff.

Brian:

And it's like, All right, I get it.

Brian:

I love like a great, you know, conference session as much as the next person.

Brian:

But the reality is for most of those events, you're not going to be judged based on how great your sessions were.

Brian:

They are a means to an end.

Brian:

They're a means to like creating an atmosphere that people find, you know, valuable and rewarding.

Brian:

But really, and I would say this at Digitech, and they were particular type of events.

Brian:

I was like, getting the cocktail party right is probably more important than most of what's going on in the stage.

Brian:

And you have to think holistically about that.

Brian:

You can't, that can't be an afterthought if you're going to be in that business.

Sean:

Totally agree.

Brian:

because people are gonna, they're gonna judge you based on like how many connections they

Brian:

made, whether it drove business, whether those are the right people.

Brian:

and they're all tracking that.

Brian:

And so, you're gonna have to.

Brian:

You're going to have to perform, I guess.

Brian:

That's what we all have to perform.

Sean:

Everyone's accountable at some point.

Brian:

and also I think like, if you look at really what like Puck is doing

Brian:

to me, it's like high end B2B at the end, you know, at the end of the day.

Brian:

I mean, they can call it like influencer industries, but a lot of what, a lot of their business ultimately, you

Brian:

know, comes down to, to B2B anytime you're in like a professional realm.

Sean:

Yep.

Sean:

I agree.

Sean:

and they're monetizing it more like a B2B than they are a consumer media.

Sean:

So I'm a fan, you know, I've become a fan of puck.

Sean:

I find myself reading about industries and things that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Sean:

So I'll give them a, you know, that, that's another one where I'm not sure.

Sean:

I, I saw puck being important to me four years ago.

Sean:

but I actually, like, I'll read about, you know, art galleries and fashion now in ways that I never did before.

Sean:

So good for them.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

You're getting into the art section.

Brian:

Uh oh.

Brian:

We got to, we got to get you your next gig.

Brian:

You're not going to start to collect art, are you?

Brian:

You could become a watch guy too.

Sean:

think

Brian:

how do you, what, how do you evaluate semaphore a couple of years into?

Brian:

They're like four years in, I guess.

Sean:

the last time we, we had this podcast, you asked me to companies I liked.

Sean:

And I said semaphore.

Sean:

And I thought your eyebrow raised up.

Sean:

I feel like I was early on the video.

Sean:

I like what Semaphore is doing, train compared to a lot of folks.

Sean:

I mean, I think, a, I wouldn't, I wouldn't bet against Justin, launching something right.

Sean:

Like, I mean, he's, he's someone that made the Atlantic, incredibly

Sean:

profitable and then he leaves and it goes into a tailspin, right.

Sean:

And he did a tremendous job, at Bloomberg.

Sean:

And so I think, You know, I think the team there is incredibly good operators.

Sean:

I think they're trying to be thoughtful on, you know, what they cover in a way that's, that's a little bit more unique.

Sean:

I mean, a little bit like puck, right?

Sean:

I, I read more international news with semaphore than I read with anyone else.

Sean:

and I find that valuable to me.

Sean:

I mean, I, I do think.

Sean:

The, you know, the events are incredibly popular, you know, important to them, not popular, but incredibly important to them.

Brian:

Oh, yeah.

Sean:

yeah, I mean, they're,

Brian:

like over half their revenue.

Sean:

they're, you know, so they're an event business and I think there's going to be.

Sean:

You know, a trick of, can we either double down on that and not double

Sean:

down in, we need more 000 events, but can they do some big events?

Sean:

Can they grow important enough to be big?

Sean:

Or can they branch out and actually, you know, grow the rest of their business?

Brian:

Yeah, they have a, they have a, they have a big one coming up, in Washington.

Brian:

the World Economy Summit.

Brian:

And like, to me, that is the, that's the question about whether they can pull it off.

Brian:

Because like, events are, you know, like the knock on, I guess the

Brian:

positive for events, like as, a bulwark of a media company, right?

Brian:

is they can generate cashflow ahead of you getting like a massive audience.

Brian:

Like that, that you can, if you're not going to raise a ton of money to like, you know, the old thing

Brian:

was like, you were going to start a publication and lose money on purpose for like three or four years.

Brian:

It's like, no, nobody wants to do that anymore.

Brian:

and events can like really bridge the gap and they're a great way to launch like a media company.

Brian:

You can generate, you know, revenue and, and if you do events.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

You know, they should be highly profitable.

Brian:

The margins should be really good on events.

Brian:

And the knock on them is they, they don't scale.

Brian:

Like you can't do a million events.

Brian:

Like, you know, there's that, that's just really hard to, to, to pull off depending on what your ambitions are.

Brian:

So I think for that business.

Brian:

You know, if it's not going to be like a side dish, if it's going to be your main

Brian:

dish, you got to knock the cover off the ball with like some Davos like event.

Brian:

if you look at Davos as a business, and I think that's probably in decline now, massive business.

Sean:

Yep.

Sean:

Well, if it's in decline, that means there's an opportunity for the next one, right?

Sean:

There's, there's gonna, you know, the Aspen Institute used to have like a massive one and then Davos kind of

Sean:

came and, you know, I mean, there may be a laying here for Semaphore to do

Sean:

it, but I also, I just think that, they're deliberate in their execution.

Sean:

You know, and I think, I think they've been, you know, they've been smart,

Sean:

you know, they've been ambitious, but smart in how they execute, in my mind.

Sean:

And so I think long term, I'm bullish on Semaphore for sure.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

So what other models are you optimistic about both companies, but also just like sectors?

Brian:

I mean, you've mentioned community based models.

Brian:

I think there is a lot going on there because I think a lot of times

Brian:

people don't think of these things as quote unquote media, right?

Brian:

But they are the end of the day.

Brian:

and, but what are, what are some other sectors that you think are, are very promising right now in for media?

Brian:

Okay.

Sean:

so, so yeah, I don't, that's a good question.

Sean:

And, and I'm, I'm like trying to find the right way to go.

Sean:

I mean, one of the things I've done since, I've, stopped working, you know, semi, semi retirement, let's

Sean:

say the retirement work, but I've been, I've been talking to a lot of.

Sean:

really early stage entrepreneurs, who are building out, you know, with AI, which I think is interesting, in there and, you

Sean:

know, it kind of dawned on me when, you know, over the last two years, industry dive has a sizable newsroom, right?

Sean:

And I just kind of.

Sean:

Kept my mouth shut about AI for the most part because, it can spook a newsroom, you know, you get 140 people there and you

Sean:

start saying AI and they think you just mean that AI is going to write the stories for them and it's going to mean something.

Sean:

But I, you know, I kind of realized like no one would No one would

Sean:

blink an eye, you know, as an accountant says they use Excel.

Sean:

you'd think they're crazy if they didn't, right?

Sean:

You know, it's like, oh, my CFO doesn't like Excel.

Sean:

you'd be like, well, that's a problem, you know?

Sean:

And I think that there's a, you know, there's an inflection point now that we've hit.

Sean:

Where it's like AI is the Excel for the newsrooms and for media companies and the rest and, and they're going.

Sean:

And so I think, you know, what, what I'm really interested in now is, you know, not necessarily sectors of business models

Sean:

and the rest, but, who are the people that are doing really interesting things that are going to allow them to cover things

Sean:

in ways that we haven't seen before, that's going to allow them to truly.

Sean:

You know, I think there's, there's a lot of businesses out there that are data businesses, right?

Sean:

That's like, I'm selling data.

Sean:

And then there's a lot of news businesses out there that says I'm selling stories, and content.

Sean:

And I think there might be a way now with AI for that to blend more and

Sean:

for the amount of data that comes into the news, you know, news process.

Sean:

to exponentially increase in a couple of years.

Sean:

and so I'm, I'm like excited and trying to chew on what that would mean for, for different businesses.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

So what, what is next for you?

Sean:

you know, I told myself to say no to everything for six months.

Sean:

cause I'm like one of those people that, as someone presents

Sean:

an opportunity and I think, I'll never get this opportunity again.

Sean:

I got to say yes to it.

Sean:

So I'm, I'm, I'm trying to, step back.

Sean:

I'm talking to a bunch of people.

Sean:

I'm serving on a couple boards, you know, in, in Formatech Target, which is, you know, where the industry portfolio is.

Sean:

I'm, I'm on, I've stayed on the board with that.

Sean:

So I'm not fully out of the business.

Sean:

and I'm on the board of a couple other businesses and, and we'll see.

Sean:

So,

Brian:

do you know if you want to operate another business, like start another business and operate another business?

Sean:

you know, I think the days of like.

Sean:

Truly starting a business like building desks, you know, and getting the

Brian:

You don't have to now.

Brian:

I

Sean:

you know Yeah, I know skip over that but I I don't know if I have the energy to start at square one I I don't think i'm

Sean:

gonna be the Operator again, but I think there's a lot of people who've said that

Sean:

and then they wake up six months later and say, I can't, I gotta get out of here.

Sean:

I gotta go back and do this, you know?

Sean:

And, and so I don't know what I'm, you know, if I'm being honest, I don't know what I am yet.

Sean:

but I'm, I'm not planning to be an operator, again.

Sean:

But we'll see how long that lasts.

Sean:

So I'll, I'll be begging, you know, I'll be back to begging you to get on the podcast so I can promote my next

Brian:

Not at all.

Sean:

my AI generated community company.

Brian:

I love it.

Brian:

I love it, Sean.

Brian:

Awesome.

Brian:

Well, thank you so much.

Brian:

I'm so glad, we got to do this.

Sean:

Thank you.

Sean:

Always fun.

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