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I think it's unlikely for a while. Content businesses are historically tough sells for VC investment. They've become more common in recent years, e.g. Vox, Bust

I think it's unlikely for a while. Content businesses are historically tough sells for VC investment. They've become more common in recent years, e.g. Vox, Bustle, etc. That's in large part due to the maturity of the advertising technology ecosystem which has made content more scalable/programmatic. We're no where near this point with audio yet. Podcast ads still sold by human agents, burnt into episodes in the form of live reads. It makes for attractive lifestyle businesses and some companies have bootstrapped impressively, but it's hard to see sightlines to a billion dollar plus startup. I think you could see investments in platforms, a la Sound Cloud, or podcast AdTech, but we'll need to see more growth in the medium on the scale of Serial to make it a reality. Full disclosure, I work for a VC firm that was featured on the first season of the Startup Podcast.

darkroasted 11y ago
That is almost the opposite of I would expect. Podcasts have a clear analouge in radio, and radio made lots of money for advertisers for many decades. It is much more difficult to tune out ads when listening. Although, perhaps the profitability of radio was an artifact of supply restriction. Podcasts are easy enough that anyone can do them, and when you have more supply much harder to stand out and make money. But has anyone really figured out web advertising on random content yet (sites on which there is no purchasing intent, and no logged in user)? Is there information out there on how a site like Vox is really doing?
- replicatorblog 11y ago
  You hit the two most important themes. It's a great biz, but not necessarily a venture scale biz. The supply restriction is really important. If there are only a few dozen frequencies in any metro, you can capture large numbers of people, and there are few substitutes (e.g. no iPods) and the cost to broadcast on is prohibitive, you become quite a bit more valuable. Web advertising has a lot of problems, but it does have scale and plenty of sites are making great revenues. Even then, content is still a relatively tough business to get VCs excited about.
sukilot 11y ago
Planet Money did an episode about VC, where the host pitched a podcast business to a VC and got shot down.

darkroasted 11y ago

That is almost the opposite of I would expect. Podcasts have a clear analouge in radio, and radio made lots of money for advertisers for many decades. It is much more difficult to tune out ads when listening. Although, perhaps the profitability of radio was an artifact of supply restriction. Podcasts are easy enough that anyone can do them, and when you have more supply much harder to stand out and make money. But has anyone really figured out web advertising on random content yet (sites on which there is no purchasing intent, and no logged in user)? Is there information out there on how a site like Vox is really doing?

replicatorblog 11y ago
You hit the two most important themes. It's a great biz, but not necessarily a venture scale biz. The supply restriction is really important. If there are only a few dozen frequencies in any metro, you can capture large numbers of people, and there are few substitutes (e.g. no iPods) and the cost to broadcast on is prohibitive, you become quite a bit more valuable. Web advertising has a lot of problems, but it does have scale and plenty of sites are making great revenues. Even then, content is still a relatively tough business to get VCs excited about.

sukilot 11y ago

Planet Money did an episode about VC, where the host pitched a podcast business to a VC and got shot down.