Parcast's $50M Spotify Exit
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Sam Parr shares the story of how Parcast, a podcast network, achieved massive success through a volume-based content strategy.
"The founder Max Cutler was a 27-year-old graduate who bootstrapped this thing. His dad worked in radio - not as a rich guy, but as a broadcaster, so he had industry experience.
By 2018, just 2 years in, they had 16 shows with 100 million downloads. By 2019, they had 40 weekly shows. Now they have a staff of about 150, with 75 of them being voice actors.
Their content strategy was simple - they weren't doing thoughtful, beautifully done shows like This American Life. Instead, someone would read a book, summarize it, and read it out. They pump out literally one show a day across their 40 shows. It's just a volume play.
Their audience is 75% women, plus me. They're not even popular on social - 20,000 followers on Twitter, 36 on Facebook, 50,000 on Instagram. They just dominated people searching for their content, like their podcast 'Serial Killers.'
After just 3 years, they sold to Spotify for around $53-54 million in cash, plus another $50 million in earn-out. All bootstrapped, no outside funding."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.