Making Media
Episode 25 Building the Disney of B2B
Making Media

Episode 25: Building the Disney of B2B

Making Media

Episode 25

Building the Disney of B2B

Adam Ryan is the founder of Workweek. We cover the ongoing shift towards individuals over institutions, how Workweek is solving the business model challenge that plagues media, and where we are in the niche creator cycle.

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(00:03:03) - (First question) - Institution building allows scale and market expansion while preserving individual influence 

(00:06:40) - Workweek focuses on individual brands to enhance recognition and attract talent

(00:08:13) - Prioritizing fair pay, early creator partnerships, and career stability

(00:12:58) - Identifying talent requires gauging industry fit, expertise, and ambition

(00:17:17) - Guiding creators in audience growth, and amplifying their strengths

(00:21:19) - Influence and market valuation gap is due to business model issues in media

(00:24:23) - Disrupting the media industry by sharing net margins with talent for top attraction

(00:27:09) - Expanding with talent search and franchise financial planning platforms

(00:29:30) - Creating shared entities with tailored cap structures for long-term alignment

(00:30:49) - Substack has simplified content creation, but their business model has flaws

(00:33:07) - Incentivized growth can lead to misleading metrics and detrimental ecosystem effects

(00:36:50) - Niche media is still in its early innings with high barriers to entry

(00:41:29) - Rising tide lifts all boats in the content industry, not winner take all

(00:44:35) - Newsletters drive intention, podcasts engage

(00:45:20) - Companies that stand out to him moving forward

(00:47:37) - The optionality of building complimentary businesses exists for those with audience retention
(00:50:05) - Debrief

Building the Disney of B2B

Introduction

Matt
Welcome back to Making Media. Our guest today is Adam Ryan, founder of Workweek. At Colossus, we're big fans of Workweek. We have 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 hit on some of the themes that Adam frequently writes about. 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.

Matt
All right, Adam, so what you're building over at Workweek has some similarities to what we're doing at Colossus. And what that means is you're often writing or speaking about topics that I'm thinking about quite a bit, all the dynamics of building a media business in 2023. So I thought we could just jump around on those themes today and consider this one big Asking for a Friend conversation. So that's going to how I'm going to approach this one.

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