King of Podcasts Tells Us How He Launched 5, Made Millions, with Alex Blumberg of Gimlet Media
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the 100 bucks is none other than Derek Roddenbeck. He is an artist and he's looking to increase his revenue. If you want your chance to enter and to win 100 bucks each Monday on the show, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes now and then text the word Nathan to 33444 to prove that you did it.
Again, text the word Nathan to 33444. right guys alex truly is a game changer and so is our guest tomorrow he's 25 his name is nahal kazim and his revenue goal was 600k this year his plan fire or get fired Okay, Top Drive, good morning. I am here at Capital Factory with my coffee in my hands. I'm excited, and I think you're gonna enjoy our host today, or our guest today. His name is Alex Bloomberg. Many of you probably know him. He's the host of Startup and CEO and co-founder of Gimlet Media. He's also an award-winning radio journalist. Prior to Gimlet, he was the producer of This American Life and the co-founder of Planet Money. Alex, are you ready to take us to the top?
I am.
All right, let's do this. So first things first, for those folks that maybe are new to podcasting and new listeners of podcasts, give us the 60 cent overview. What is Gimlet Media?
Gillette Media is a podcasting, it's a digital media company focused solely on audio or primarily on audio. And right now, mainly the way audio, on-demand audio is delivered is through the podcast. And so we're a podcast network.
Makes complete sense. So guys, shows you want to check out, things like, again, the Startup Podcast. They've also produced several new shows since then. Alex, you just closed, I believe it was a $6 million round of funding. Is that accurate?
That is correct. Yeah.
Why raise the money? You know, last startup I went through, we raised a bunch of money and, you know, we sold it. So it was successful. But man, oh man, it was a pain.
Well, we wanted to do it. We wanted to raise the money simply because we have... we have plans for that. We need it. We have some capital expenditures that we want to do. We wanted to build up new studios, new offices. Um, and this will give us a lot more flexibility in terms of what kind of programming we can make. If, if it was, we were prop, you know, we, we, we have, we could pivot very easily to profitability, uh, the way we're operating right now, like on a, on a, on a per show basis, all the, all the shows that we've launched are profitable. Um, But we didn't want to have the pressure on the business to sort of like be funding exclusively out of profits. And we felt like with more capital, we could have optionality in terms of what we could make some sort of longer term investments that'll take some more time to pay off, but that would lead to bigger returns down the road.
So I think you've got five shows currently, Surprisingly Awesome, Reply Off, Startup Mystery Show, and then Science Verse. Those are all of them, right? Yes.
Say that again. Sorry.
You've got those five shows. Those are, I'm not missing any, right?
Uh, yeah, that's, uh, that's it. That's it for now. We're about to launch another one in January, uh, called sampler, uh, which is sort of like, just looks at the, looks at the best moments from, from, you know, what's out there in the podcasting world. Um, yeah.
So, So again, people hear about podcasting. Some people say, hey, this is going to be actually a detrimental threat to radio. You're a guy that obviously probably has a really good opinion and perspective on that. Before we get there, though, for folks that don't understand how you guys actually make money, how do you make money?
We're primarily ad supported right now.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:18
2
What is Gimlet Media and how did Alex Blumberg start it?
6:18–9:43
3
Why did Gimlet raise $6 million and what will the funding be used for?
9:43–17:55
4
How do Gimlet podcasts generate revenue through advertising?
17:55–20:44
5
What CPMs and ad rates does Gimlet command compared to radio?
20:44–22:21
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Top Founders
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