JD Power's Automotive Trust
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A story about how JD Power built a billion-dollar business by providing automotive ratings and awards.
"JD Power is a billion-dollar company that tests different cars and gives out awards. The way they make money is the car companies are members of the organization. If you only want the money and don't care about being ethical, you could say to Ford 'our new membership costs this much money - are you guys in or out? And just so you know, if you're out, we can't give you any awards.'
JD Power was sold to McGraw Hill in 2005 for $400 million, and then it was sold again recently in 2019 for north of a billion dollars. It's essentially a trust-as-service business, but you have to be like a benevolent dictator - you can rule it but you really need to be honest, otherwise you lose trust.
It's similar to what happened with Standard & Poor's during the subprime crisis, where they were rating junk bonds as AAA because the banks were funding them. When the only thing you're providing is trust as a service, that's a breach of trust."
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.