Kevin Ryan's Studio Model
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A story about how Kevin Ryan, an early DoubleClick employee, built multiple successful companies through a simple but effective startup studio model.
"Kevin Ryan was the 20th employee at DoubleClick, which sold to Google for multibillions and eventually became Google AdWords and AdSense. He made around $20 million from that sale.
After that, him and this guy named Dwight would invest $300,000 and give companies 6 months to show traction. Their process was simple - they would come up with an idea, get a piece of paper and pencil, write out the math, and if it looked interesting, they'd try to find someone to execute it.
The outcomes of their companies include MongoDB, which is currently publicly traded at a $21 billion valuation, Business Insider which sold for $500 million, and Zola which was doing hundreds of millions in sales before the pandemic. They also started Gilt, and there are 4-5 more hits they've had.
I actually called and emailed Kevin every month for 3 years trying to get him to talk to me. Eventually, he let me fly out there and meet with him. While their process sounds simple, it's still quite hard to pull off, but they've managed to do it successfully multiple times through their company Alley Corp."
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.