Making Media

Today on Making Media Matt shares his top 7 bits of media wisdom that he has thoughtfully curated during his efforts to build a media company. Each individual guest and episode offers a new takeaway, and Matt attempts to find the thread that goes between all of these lessons and create an actionable summary. Studying great founders, learning from the best in the investment world, studying these gr...

Today we have a special guest on Making Media. There are few people who write and live like David Coggins. David has a way of maintaining his creative identity while still adopting many of today's tools. He writes books, and he writes on his Substack, The Contender. We talked to David about his process for writing, what he is or is not sacred about, how his parents normalized creative acts in his...

This week we cover another niche media business. Our guest, Thomas Shields, launched The Dink in late 2020 and has quickly grown it to become the media authority on the booming sport of Pickleball. Across its newsletter, podcasts, videos, blogs, and more, The Dink offers everything you could want to know about the sport. And we discuss the whole journey and business with Thomas, who started it as...

Today we're sitting down with Brian Morrissey and getting back to the guts and glory days of the media industry. In 2021, Brian founded The Rebooting - a newsletter publication focused on the mechanics of building sustainable media businesses. Prior to The Rebooting, he spent a decade building Digiday and had a nice stint as editor at Adweek. We get into Brian's own experience launching his busine...

Today we speak with the Wall Street Wonder, Matt Levine. Matt's Bloomberg column, Money Stuff, has become a must read for most of the finance community. It's that rare place where you get laughter, learning, and complex topics. During the conversation, we talk with Matt about his ability to translate those complex topics, how his early legal career at Wachtell Lipton, and then his banking career a...

Today, we’re speaking to the CEO of Flightradar24, Fredrik Lindahl. Flightradar24 might not qualify as a traditional media company but it does attract millions of people to its content every day and I, for one, am a huge fan. It is the clear leader in flight tracking globally and its stats are wildly impressive. They track around 250,000 flights every day and have over 4 million daily users. Their...

Our guest today is David Law. David is a broadcaster and co-founder of the biggest podcast in tennis, aptly named - The Tennis Podcast. This is an exceptional conversation on what it takes to be successful as a podcaster. David and his co-presenters have recorded over 1000 episodes. They went 5 years without earning a penny from the podcast. It took over 10 years to become a full-time gig. But Dav...

Our guest today is Greg Rose, who has worked closely with Richard Branson at Virgin for nearly 15 years. As Virgin’s Content and Communications Director, Greg is responsible for what you see from Richard or Virgin’s companies across social media, Richard’s autobiographies, and more traditional public outlets. He is the man who convinced Virgin’s famous founder to take social media seriously in the...

Today, we’re answering a question we get a lot. How do you start a podcast? We’ll tell you everything you need to know, from hardware to software to thoughts on content and format. Scroll down to our shownotes for a full list of the products and services discussed. Enjoy. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.  ----- This...

Our guest today is someone we've mentioned frequently on this podcast, Liberty RPF. It's difficult to define exactly what Liberty writes about - but that might explain why we find his work so fascinating. He is a curator of great content and acts a sherpa for his audience, pushing them to find new things that resonate with them. It's a role that feels increasingly needed as we live in a world of i...

Today’s episode is a little different. Rather than bring a guest on, we’re going to break down how Forbes works. As former investors now operating in the media space, a few brands particularly intrigue us. Forbes is near the top of that list, not least because its current owners are trying to sell it for $800 million. It has been around for over 100 years, is often referenced in pop culture, and i...

Our guest today is Kevin Espiritu. Kevin is the founder and CEO of the world’s most followed gardening brand and online garden store – Epic Gardening. Matt and I had been following Epic and Kevin’s journey for a while but when we met him in person at Capital Camp in May, we knew we had to get him on the show. Since going full time on Epic Gardening in 2013, Kevin has cracked all forms of media. Th...

Our guest today is Jay Clouse. Past guest Chris Hutchins told us that Jay had given him some of the best, contrarian advice on memberships. Naturally, that was enough of a hook for us so we got on the phone and asked him how to build a community around your product. Please enjoy this conversation with Jay Clouse. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, che...

Our guest today is Om Malik. Back in 2015, Om published an interview, or what might better be described as a conversation, with Brunello Cucinelli. It's a truly special conversation, and I know many people that find it's a life changing conversation. Brunello seems to be the rare, maybe the only, billionaire that has somehow found balance in life. He's deeply philosophical. He approaches business...

Our guest today is Adam Ryan, the founder of Workweek. At Colossus, we're big fans of Workweek. We've hosted the Wolf of Franchises for an excellent Business Breakdown on Orangetheory and I'm an avid reader of Adam's Perpetual newsletter. For this conversation, we discuss the ongoing shift towards individuals over institutions, how media companies might solve the business model challenge that curr...

Today, we speak with the founder of the UK’s fastest growing radio station, Louis Timpany. Louis started Fix Radio in 2017 after realising that the power users of radio weren’t being served at all. He was working on a construction site when he noticed that the biggest source of arguments, day-in-day-out, was about the radio. No-one listens to radio as much as builders. But at the time, there was n...

Part of our mission with Making Media is to highlight great content across the internet. Earlier this year, we talked about influential business essays with one of our favorite writers, Packy McCormick. Today, Web Barr joins us to review the best of what we’ve seen, read, and heard so far in 2023. Web is a formidable media operator. He is a multiple-time Webby Award and Communication Arts winning...

Today, we speak with one of our esteemed hosts, Eric Golden, in our first in-person Making Media episode. After a career in the bond markets at Fidelity, Eric now hosts Colossus show, Web3 Breakdowns. As is customary with our Inside Colossus episodes, we go behind the mic with Eric and discuss what hosting a podcast is really like. What’s changed, who does he look up to, and what would he advise o...

Our guest today, Chris Hutchins, is a bit of a podcast whisperer and has some of the most unique ideas in podcasting and in media. Before Chris went full-time with his All the Hacks podcast, he co-founded two businesses. One he sold to Google, the other he sold to Wealthfront. He also spent time as a partner at Google Ventures before going full-time with his podcast business. For this conversation...

Today, we are going behind the scenes with a master of his craft, Morgan Housel. In the investing world that Matt and I are from, there are few – if any – who make better content than Morgan. His blog has been a personal favourite for years and his first book, The Psychology of Money, just crossed 3 million sales. So we reached out to see if he’d take us behind the scenes. Where does he write, whe...

We are diving deep into the world of intellectual property with legendary comic book artist Todd McFarlane. IP sits at the heart of many media discussions and it's something we are very curious about. Todd revitalized Spider-Man, co-created Venom, and was the sole creator of Spawn. He also founded Image Comics just over two decades ago, and that has become the number three comic book business in t...

Today, we speak to the person who keeps us up-to-date on everything media-related, Sara Fischer. Sara is a media reporter at Axios where she writes their excellent Media Trends newsletter, among many other things. She’s become a trusted insider and a key figure in our industry. We explore the traits of great journalists, Axios’ secret sauce, and the quirks of various business models in media. Enjo...

Julian Treasure is an expert in communication and one of the most powerful speakers in the world. How do I know that? He has the sixth most watched TED talk ever given and all of his TED appearances combined have over 135 million views. When he speaks, people listen. And that’s the crux of what he teaches. Speaking and listening are fundamental skills in our lives and careers but very few people e...

After a huge week for the show, we take stock and open the mailbag of questions we’ve received over the past month. Our usual interview-style episode will be out tomorrow with one of the most-watched public speakers in the world. Enjoy. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Scribe....

We’re joined by the co-founder of Golf’s leading podcast and media business, Neil Schuster. No Laying Up has humble roots but has quickly become an influential force in the Golf world. The small team has captured the mood of golf fans through incisive analysis, conversations with the sports’ stars, and original travel videos that make you want to pick your clubs up. It was a thrill to sit down wit...