Podcast Reveals $25M Business
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Sam Parr shares how he discovered a highly profitable, under-the-radar business called Market Beat through a mention on Starter Story.
"Let me tell you how I found out about Market Beat. I was reading Starter Story and one of the questions is 'What books and podcasts do you read?' This guy Matt Paulson said he really enjoyed listening to My First Million.
I actually first interacted with Matt when my Twitter got hacked. People hacked my Twitter and tweeted out they're giving away a PS5, saying send $400 and they're donating the money to St. Jude's. Matt sent twice the asked amount - $1,000 - just wanting St. Jude's to have extra money. I told him that sucks, I'm so sorry about this, and he was like 'no big deal.'
I clicked on his profile and found he runs Market Beat. They do $25M in revenue with just 13 employees, and $17M of that is profit. He sent me a picture of his QuickBooks to verify. For the first 2 years it was just him.
The business is basically a web portal for stock information. If you Google things like 'HubSpot price targets' or 'Amazon price targets', they show up early in Google results. They publish about 250 articles a month, paying contractors $150 per article. But the articles don't actually drive revenue - people come to the website mostly just to see stock prices and data.
They make money through subscriptions and advertising, mostly advertising. They have 15,000 subscribers paying between $20-40 a month. They have just one ad salesperson selling directly to financial brands, and if advertisers are too small they work through agencies."
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.