Chapter 1: What is the purpose of the Advice Line podcast?
Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. And you can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs.
You can sign up for free at GuyRoz.com or on Substack. And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti. Jonah, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. So you were first on back in 2017 to tell us a story about how you started BuzzFeed, and that was a long time ago.
I mean, we did that live in New York City. It was fun. I had fun. I hope you did.
Yeah, it was great.
And if anyone listening missed that episode and you want to go back and listen, it's a great episode. It involves the founding of Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington makes an appearance in the show. All kinds of things happen. We will drop a link to it in our episode show notes. So basically, the BuzzFeed story really began about 20 years ago, back in 2006 for a time.
It was the most fun place on the internet. The site had online quizzes and listicles. And I'm sure lots of you listening remember the famous dress. Was it gold and white or black and blue? I always saw gold and white myself. And over time, BuzzFeed started to be talked about as the future of journalism. It even won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021. But today...
The Internet is a much different place than it was when we first told the story. And BuzzFeed, like many other similar sites like Vice and others, has faced its share of challenges. It was a recent article in The New York Times with the headline, Can Jonah Peretti Save BuzzFeed? So, Jonah, let's start with that question. Can you save BuzzFeed? What's going on right now with BuzzFeed?
So, I would argue that BuzzFeed is still one of the most fun places on the internet. You know, tens of millions of people every month coming to BuzzFeed. We also have HuffPost, another Pulitzer-winning news brand. That you guys acquired, I think, in 2020. Yeah, so I started it over 20 years ago and then it was sold to AOL and then I had the opportunity to buy it back.
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Chapter 2: How did Jonah Peretti start BuzzFeed?
HuffPost has had tremendous growth in membership. The biggest thing we have to figure out as a company is some of these legacy things that encumber the business. So pre-COVID real estate that we still have leases on, debt payments, some of the restructuring costs. All these things have weighed down our business. And we've made a lot of progress. But we still have more work to do on that.
And I think one of the things that you cover in your show is the way entrepreneurs have to continually reinvent their businesses and change what they're doing.
No question.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, I think about when you started this business 20 years ago. I mean, you were a younger guy, and you've had a lot of experience running a business now for 20 years as the CEO. But, you know, you are in a rocky period. It's not a secret that you've told investors that you guys are at risk of not continuing by the end of this year if you run out of cash.
So give me a sense of what the game plan is. How do you – I mean, you also have said that you're optimistic about about the future of the company, which is important. You should be. You're the leader. Tell me how you sort of plan to turn this ship around.
Yeah, so what happened was we disclosed what's called a going concern. And that is a technical accounting term that means that you have liabilities within the next year that you can't cover with your current cash balance. A lot of companies have had those. We had one a couple years ago as well that we resolved. So our plan and management's plan is to resolve that going concern.
And really going back to founder mode of saying, hey, we got to reinvent the company for this near future and wanting investors to know there's risk to that. But also now we're getting back to what we love most, which is innovating, creating new things. We launched this new incubator branch office. We have new apps.
Tell me about that.
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Chapter 3: What challenges is BuzzFeed currently facing?
And you bring everything. You bring the screen, you bring the chairs, you bring the headphones. Yes, screen, headphones, concession. We have popcorn attendants that serve throughout the event. Everything that's in the theater comes to you in the outdoors.
And you work with companies hire you? Who pays for all this?
Yes. So a lot of it is property management companies. They have resident events. As you know, a lot of the rentals now, they put a lot of effort into their experiences and their communities. That's a big part of our
Uh, clientele, and then we also work with, uh, Netflix and prime to bring a cinematic experience to their originals since they don't have really presence and movie theaters for their originals. So we've been able to do some great stuff with them. Um, and then also cities will bring us on to do community events and their parks, um, and sponsored events.
Nice. How did this business start?
Yeah. So, um, I have always had a love for events and my business partner has a background in property management. So during COVID, we kind of were just like everyone else trying to figure out how can we adapt to this new way of living. And we found that there was a lot of budgets that weren't being used for resident events because of COVID.
So we kind of thought, how can we come up with a creative way for people to gather outdoors with proper social distancing and use these budgets that people have? So we kind of came up with the concept. It was supposed to be temporary. And then it snowballs. And now we're in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orlando, Tampa, now just Miami. We're just launched.
Wow, that's awesome. Congrats. And tell me a little bit about your business. What did you guys do in overall sales last year? Last year, we did a little over a million. Nice. Okay. So before I bring Jonah in, what is your question or challenge you're trying to solve?
Yeah. Since our business is seasonal, we do outdoor events and cash flow can be challenging. How can we continue launching new markets ourselves while also attracting aspiring entrepreneurs we can invest in to operate and own a share of each market? And is this the right model to scale efficiently?
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Chapter 4: How does Jonah plan to reinvent BuzzFeed?
I just wanted to also say that I had this on my goal board to be on this podcast before you guys even had the advice line. I was like, there's no way I'll be on this podcast because I know it's usually really established founders. So this is a full circle moment for me. So thank you so much.
Awesome. Well, thanks for calling in. Yeah. I mean, you've talked about this too, Jonah, about live events. You're really bullish on this, right? Like in-person events.
I think that you can embrace AI and use it in products, but you also can counter-program AI, which is people are sick of just digital experiences and want to connect with other people in the real world. And it's also scarce. You know, if all of a sudden software is sort of infinite and anyone can make vibe code anything, then what becomes scarce?
And it's spending time with real people in the world. And so I definitely think it's a good area where there's going to be a lot of growth.
We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz, and we've got the answers right here on The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. And my guest today is Jonah Peretti. He's the founder and CEO of BuzzFeed. And we are taking your calls.
And let's bring in our next caller. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, Guy. Hi, Jonah. Hello. I'm a longtime listener and very excited to be on. My name is Andrew Bruce. I'm based out of San Francisco and the founder of CatSumo, which is a pet company focused on helping cats live longer, healthier lives through products that encourage play and relaxation while also strengthening the bond between cats and their owners.
Okay, so it's a cat products company. Tell me about your products.
Yeah, so the first product is an interactive cat wrestling glove. that allows you to socially play with your cat. It's like a puppet. Yep. Yep, exactly.
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Chapter 5: What business advice does Jonah give to Anthony from Miami?
I cut a little hole in the head of one and put a little Insta360 Go camera there. And I've only posted one video of it, but it performed pretty well. And it's very entertaining to watch.
And that could be a way to build the little media network that creates community.
That's cool. The brand is called Ketsumo. Andrew Bruce, good luck. Thanks for calling in. Thanks so much for having me. Okay, next up after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your business questions right here on The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking calls with BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti. Jonah, what do you say? Should we bring our next caller? Let's do it. Welcome to The Advice Line. You're on with Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, Guy. Hi, Jonah. My name is Melissa Bermudez, and I'm calling from Newburyport, Massachusetts. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Unrefined Foods. We make mornings easier for busy families with farm-to-freezer nutrition they can trust.
Our frozen muffins are just like homemade, but better, loaded with stone-milled organic grains, real fruits and veggies, just a little maple syrup, and they're ready to eat.
All right, thanks for calling in. So Melissa, and what makes them different from, I don't know, like another muffin that you would buy?
So there are not many frozen muffins in the grocery store that are ready to eat. So we make everything with 100% organic stone milled grains. So that means we're truly taking a wheat berry, which in our opinion is the original superfood, milling it, keeping all the nutrition and flavor of the entire grain intact, and taking that fresh flour,
putting it in our muffins and a ton of other really great ingredients you'd use at home if you were trying to make power muffins like olive oil, again, real fruits and veggies, maple syrup, whole milk, eggs. And unbelievably, there's nothing else like it in the grocery store that we are aware of.
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