Politico Pro's Briefing Revenue
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Sam Parr shares how Politico built a massive business through specialized industry briefings.
"Politico is like a news website for DC politics, but that's not interesting. What's interesting is they sold recently to Axel Springer for over $1 billion. They had this service called Politico Pro where they got roughly 9 figures (100M+) in recurring revenue.
Basically it's around $1000 a month subscription. If you're a lawyer or work in DC and need to know what laws are happening in real-time - like if the Senate is thinking about changing something - they have these Pro briefings. They send at least one a day, sometimes more. They're really fast, short emails briefing you on what's happening that day in very niche areas.
For example, they have a segment just for pharmaceutical companies. If you're a pharmaceutical and want to know right away what's happening with new laws, or want to dive deeper and read about researchers, or want to have a conversation with an analyst - you spend thousands or tens of thousands a year. That's basically what you're getting - this briefing and a few other things.
They scaled this business to north of $100 million in recurring revenue. I think if you could pick the right thing - whether that's pharma, legal, or different types of finance - you could build a really interesting daily briefing business. You could even have users say which companies they want to spy on more than normal, and charge tens of thousands of dollars a year for a subscription like that."
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.