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Quick hits

What happens when you're scrolling through TikTok and come across a viral video starring the guy who sits in the cubicle next to you? Given that many young Americans are pursuing social media side hustles, this is becoming an increasingly common occurrence. [WSJ]

With dating app fatigue setting in, relationship coaches are amassing millions of followers on social media by giving out advice on how to navigate an algorithm-optimized dating scene. One of the most popular coaches has tens of thousands of subscribers to her membership community paying $33 per month. That's at least $7.9 million in annual revenue. [Bustle]

"Female athletes boast a 14% higher social media following than men, according to a 2023 report from World Athletics. Female college athletes generate four times the total audience engagement of male athletes and seven times more engagement per deal, according to 2022 data from SponsorUnited." [Adweek]

As younger generations grow increasingly worried about global warming, climate scientists are seeing an explosion in following and engagement on platforms like TikTok. [LA Times]

It's amazing how much Hollywood production resembles the venture capital industry — a producer makes lots of bets on various projects, and then only a small portion of those end up being made into actual films and TV shows, with an even smaller portion of those turning into actual hits. Now, producers are finding it increasingly difficult to get by while waiting to see if any of these bets will pay off. [NYT]

It's also kind of amazing that Netflix not only triggered a market correction that cratered the stock prices of all its competitors, but that it also regained its footing and returned to growth as all of those same competitors floundered. It was basically a one-two punch that strengthened its grip on the entertainment industry. [Financial Times]

A former Apple executive completely bootstrapped a popular website and two YouTube channels focused on reviewing travel gear. He grew his team to five people and revenue to seven figures before selling the company in 2023. [They Got Acquired]

A lot of standup comedians are extremely stingy in choosing what video clips they put online since they don’t want to cannibalize viewership for their TV specials, but this Daily Show correspondent has seen enormous success from posting his routines almost immediately after performing them. On YouTube alone, he’s generated over 100 million views, mostly in the last year. [LA Times]

How Alex Halperin built WeedWeek, a B2B outlet that covers California's cannabis industry

When Alex Halperin launched WeedWeek in 2015, he was entering an industry that had nothing but growth ahead of it. But what he didn’t expect was that the fragmented legalization across states meant that it’d be difficult to build a national audience. So a few years ago he pivoted to just covering California’s weed industry, and WeedWeek has since built a robust business monetized through both sponsorships and subscriptions.

In a recent interview, Alex walked through what got him interested in the topic, why he built a customer publishing platform, and how he recently decided to team up with the LA Times on an investigative series:

Probably the biggest mistake I made was once I was in California, I hired somebody to do some more writing. Not that the person I hired was necessarily a mistake, but we were reporting on stories from around the country. So there wasn't enough focus to attract a reader because maybe something interesting was going on in the Maine market, but that wasn't really of too much interest to the Colorado market or the California market. Occasionally it was, but not, for example, certain federal court decisions or something like that. So the mistake I made was trying to go too broad, and also maybe trying to appeal to too many people, like having a little too much culture coverage, which isn't really my forte. And because that kind of stuff is consumed by consumers, there's just a huge amount of it. And it's very hard to stand out.

More quick hits

The next generation of huge media moguls will have gotten their starts as solo creators. Andrew Rea got his first lucky break when a pop culture-themed cooking video made it to the front page of Reddit, and now he's taking on a sizable VC investment to expand into new shows and bring his cooking products into stores. [Publish Press]

The Washington Post is now charging anywhere from $4 to $10 to access its website for an entire week. This will be one of our largest tests for whether consumers actually want a micropayments-like product that doesn't require a recurring subscription. [Nieman Lab]

The former social media editor at Bon Appetit launched a newsletter geared toward social media managers, and it now has over 70,000 subscribers and at least 1,000 paid subscribers. [Creator Spotlight]

A super niche podcast about how to install and repair HVAC systems is generating $400,000 a year. Not only that, but the show has upended the information ecosystem of the HVAC industry, which previously relied on corporate sales reps to understand how the equipment works. [WashPo]

Kind of ironic that the co-inventor of the most powerful information-gathering platform in the history of mankind has become a reclusive billionaire whose address isn't even known to federal investigators. [Business Insider]

Striking actors and writers forced some significant concessions from the major studios, but some are wondering whether the effort was worth it given that overall TV/film production is significantly down in the post-strike era. I wouldn't be surprised if the strikes accelerated the gains that YouTube and other Creator Economy platforms made in overall market share. [Business Insider]

The social media ecosystem is overflowing with travel recommendations that are often sponsored by the very companies being recommended. Now, consumers are increasingly turning to Google Docs that are obsessively curated and require a special invite to access. [Thrillist]

Here's something I didn't know: Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos got his start as a clerk at a video rental store. He dropped out of college and basically worked his way up until he was vice-president of product and merchandising of a company that managed 500 video rentals. That's how Reed Hastings became aware of him, and now Sarandos is arguably the most powerful person in entertainment, overseeing a $17 billion content budget. [The Times]

I’m looking for more media entrepreneurs to feature on my newsletter and podcast

One of the things I really pride myself on is that I don’t just focus this newsletter on covering the handful of mainstream media companies that every other industry outlet features. Instead, I go the extra mile to find and interview media entrepreneurs who have been quietly killing it behind the scenes. In most cases, the operators I feature have completely bootstrapped their outlets.

In that vein, I’m looking for even more entrepreneurs to feature. Specifically, I’m looking for people succeeding in these areas:

• Niche news sites

• Video channels like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels

• Podcasts

• Newsletters

• Affiliate/ecommerce

Interested in speaking to me? You can find my contact info over here. (please don’t simply hit reply to this newsletter because that’ll go to a different email address. )

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