Oftentimes, certain advertisers will try to compare things on a pure numbers perspective, and sometimes it's tough to do that.
And I think that with some of the deals I've closed, whether it's the five-figure or six-figure type of deals, another faceless publisher that had a similar size audience to me could not do that just because of the nature of the- Yeah.
And I'm sure you've run into the difference, like, is that, like,
a lot of times the people who are doing the advertising, the executives for the company who are doing the advertising, I'm sure you've seen this, like, they're readers and they're listeners, right?
And that is not the case in how their other budgets are often done by the marketing person who honestly probably doesn't even read the different publications.
[upbeat music] Welcome to The Rebooting Show. I'm Brian Morrissey.
Each week, I have a guest on to talk to get into the details about building sustainable media businesses, and I've always liked brands that are at intersections, and business publications by their nature sit at intersections of business and the focus area.
And I've written about how this kind of coverage is changing from dry trade publications, for lack of a better word, to include an entire array of different publishing brands that accomplish many of the same goals as trade publications, bringing high-level insights, gathering together a like-minded community, but often of different types of business models and are created by different types of people.
And some use the publishing as a funnel for investment deals, others for consulting, often a mix. I wanted to have on Dan Runcie to discuss this.
Dan is building Trapital, which sits at the intersection of business and hip-hop.
And before the show, I was thinking, like, outside of tech and probably, like, weapons, maybe pharma, I don't think America has as powerful of an export as popular culture, and sitting at the center of popular culture is hip-hop.
And I, I think,
tell me if I'm wrong, Dan, but I think what you ended up seeing while you created this is you saw that this is a big business sector with outsize impact that wasn't being treated the same way as other powerful business sectors.
Yeah, you had it right in the beginning. Hip-hop is our biggest export that we have, especially from a culture perspective.
You see artists everywhere and just the reach they have, but you're also seeing how so many things from hip-hop culture are repeated in other places where you can see the roots of how hip-hop starts as this form of people wanting to share and spread news about what's happening in their area.
I think we saw that in the early eighties, Public Enemy, all the way up to artists like Lil Baby speaking out about, uh, political issues, and we're seeing it in other countries, too.
So that piece of it's always been fascinating, but with the business aspect of it, I started this because I saw a gap there.
Look at all of the influence hip-hop has, look at the reach it has, and a lot of the coverage was more focused on the top-line number.
So-and-so has this net worth, so-and-so is making this much money, they made this deal. And you're kind of seeing it now to still to some extent where so-and-so invested in this.
But what does it actually mean to break down what these artists are building with the companies that are surrounding them, the companies both in and outside the music industry that are trying to partner with these artists and all of the sectors they're getting involved in?
How can we break those down in the same level of insight and the same level of analysis that you would see Wall Street Journal do a breakdown on a big tech company, or that you would see Harvard Business Review break down a company on Wall Street for their quarterly earnings?
So starting Trapital was an opportunity to dive into that. Before this, I was doing different articles and first on my own blog, and then was doing freelance articles for different publications.
And some of the bigger ones as well was doing stuff for Wired and a few others, but even then it said I felt that there was a gap between the type of things that they were putting out and even though there was certain- Yeah.
-things that were tangentially related, and I think hip-hop specifically was something people were interested in. I saw the way that trends were heading in digital media, and I said, "This needs a home for itself.
Let's make it happen." And that's when I started Trapital. So it's been- Yeah. -great to see the response and wanna continue building from here. Yeah. Well, I hope you do continue building it.
So this was two thousand eighteen, right? When you started Trapital. Yes. I started in two, tw-twenty eighteen.
And mostly it was you saw that there was this gap that existed, and you were like, you had gone to business school, yeah? I did, yes. Right.
I went to business school twenty-- uh, from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen, and while I was there was when there was a case study that had came out about Beyoncé, and then that's when the light bulbs opened up for me.
The case study had made, uh, big waves everywhere, and it was about the surprise album drop that she had done in twenty thirteen. I saw that, and I said, "We need more things like this, and we need to build this out."
So that's where the original origin for what became Trapital had been. And you started obviously with the newsletter, and not obviously, but you did start with the newsletter, right? Like, were you seeing the...
'Cause, like, I, I do think that there are a lot of
newsletters broadly that I don't want to say we're inspired by, but like Saul, you know, what Ben Thompson is doing with Stratechery, and we're like, "This could fit in a lot of different areas." Oh, definitely.
I had been following Ben's work for a while.
I saw how he was able to build a business around this, and even before I knew the mechanisms of how to do it myself, I was googling, "Is there some service that could connect newsletter and blog in together so that I could send my articles out and have them go out?"
And this is when I found out about this tool in beta called Substack, and I'd reached out to them before they had launched, and then they told me that they were launching right around the same time that, um, Trapital had made its bigger announcement.
They opened it up to others, so this was the beginning of twenty eighteen as well, and then that's when I had started it there.
So-Seeing how Ben had done it was helpful, but I think also for a while for me with building the company, I had been quite locked in to the business model Ben had.
But then I think the more and more I learned about media and just how it works to be able to share the information and what makes sense for Trapital and how what I'm doing in many ways because of the audience I'm reaching and the subject matter is very different than what someone like Ben or even some of the other folks who have built similar type of newsletters is doing, it was helpful for me to take a step back and say, "Okay,
after trying that business model for a while, wasn't the best, and let's- Yeah... go back to square one and see what makes more sense- Yeah... for Trapital."
A- and I wanna talk about that, but I, I wanna just stick on this for a a minute, like, because, like, I think the approach that you're-- I think I saw s- the tweet you had the other day where you're like, "I'm not a journalist, I'm not doing it."
I wanna talk about that because, like, I think you're... What you're doing is, is it's business analysis, right? You're doing deep analysis of this as a business.
Um, it, it's not like a-- there's a lot of different formats of, of newsletters, I feel like, and, and it's not an aggregation of like, you know, Snoop dropped this NFT and, and this is happening.
Beyoncé's new album came out and did this much sales. Like, it's not, it's not the bullet point. [laughs] Exactly. For lack of a... There are bullet points, but it's not like all bullet points.
[laughs] Yeah, exactly, because I think in a lot of ways, even though I knew that I could do that, I knew that that could easily be commoditized, and that wasn't my big differentiator.
The differentiator and what had resonated with people even before starting Trapital was being able to do the analysis and being able to- Yeah...
do it in a relatable way that spoke to people and wasn't coming across as unrelatable because I do think that especially when you're talking about hip hop, you're talking about things in Black culture, there is being able to connect from that language perspective, but also being able to- Right...
talk about all of the specifics with building companies and analyzing them, and I think that unique piece of it was where the sweet spot was for me. Yeah.
So I wanted to make sure that stayed with the product itself and specifically with the newsletter. Yeah.
I think that's-- I, I, I love that you mention that 'cause, like, I think one of the things, like the differentiator from like, you know, outsider perspective of like Trapital that I see that other places don't have is, like, you give a shit.
Like, you give a shit about, like, th- this area.
Like, you're passionate about it, and I think that comes through and I think it's like, it's a major difference in from the capital J journalism perspective in some ways, where it's supposed to be, like, very removed and, like, we're just, like, observer.
That's, that's sort of how the profession, um, was made, and there's, there's definite-- there's, there's a place for everything.
But I think that there's different types of products that people are creating, um, that, that come at from-- that come at it from a position of, of really caring about, like, this particular area. Yeah.
It's, it's interesting because you mentioned it earlier. I had this tweet a couple weeks ago where I said, "Trapital is not journalism, and I'm not a journalist. This is research, and this is business analysis."
And- Yeah...
from that, a lot of it does come from, yes, this is a area that I am interested in, so being able to share and highlight particular stories works, but I also have done plenty of critiques as well where the moment makes sense.
But I made that distinction specifically because I do think that in the age of people doing similar things to what, what I'm doing and now what you're doing, even though I know you came a bit more from that traditional side, is people starting their own platforms and people getting confused a bit about what is considered journalism and what isn't.
And I still do think that there is a great place for the investigative pieces, people going down and doing the interviews to get the scoop or being able to share those things, and I don't do that with my pieces, although I do have certain people as guests on, and I do make sure that we're having real conversations and not just necessarily doing puff pieces or glossing over things for the back for, for the sake of it.
Right. But I do make that distinction because the value you're getting here isn't to stay up on the news. It isn't to have, you know, the gotcha over the big corporation. It is more so to be able to share the- Yeah...
insights specifically with the people working in this industry and the people who are avid fans of it so they can make better decisions with their time and money- Yeah... and building in the space. Yeah.
And it's not like an... I don't know. It's not like an either or thing, right? It's not like there's only one way to do things.
Like, I mean, like, I wouldn't expect, like, Trapital to have, like, you know, an investigation into, like, what went wrong at Astroworld, Travis Scott to blame and stuff like this.
Like, you know, Rolling Stone, now Noah Shachtman, uh, you know, from Daily Beast, you know, is, like, you know, bloodhound investigative journalist. He's, he's gonna, he's gonna go there.
You know, he's-- that's, that's his, that's, that's a lane, right? And I think that there's lots of different, um, lanes.
But when you were starting out, were you thinking, "I'm, I'm gonna build, like, a, a media business," or, or were you thinking about it something different?
When I started, to be honest, I was thinking, "Hey, I want to share case studies about things that had happened in the past," and I wanted to be able to share them on a regular basis.
And if I can put food on the table, if I can cover the expenses of what I'm doing, then great, let me do that and see where it goes. So that was the mentality in the beginning.
It wasn't until doing it for a few months and then seeing the potential, seeing the interest that I said, "Okay, I think that there's an opportunity to build this out into something grander."
And I think for me, as I've been able to do more things and seen different types of opportunities come through Trapital as well, not only did it resonate exactly the way I thought it did, it opened my eyes for what the opportunities were.
So when I'm thinking about Trapital a few years down the road, thinking about the products we have, so currently, as we've talked a lot about here, we do have the newsletter, sending it out now twice a week, where we're covering so many of the topics, both from things that happened semi-recently, but also our trends and insights on what's to bring in the future.
We have the podcast where we're interviewing the biggest names and having conversations about the topics. But I also wanna do a few things.
One, expanding beyond me, so having additional voices on the platform that can-Care do similar type of analysis and have their own unique perspectives on the space, but also being able to connect that to the venture side.
One of the things I've been able to do is make angel investments specifically in music, media, and entertainment with the startups in the space. I've been able to see so much.
Trapital itself has been a great source of deal flow for that. So being able to do that has been great.
But what does it look like to build that out, to have a team that can have more focus from a investment perspective to truly own the space?
And as I know you've, uh, covered a bunch of times, and I know we've talked about before, being able to have that media and venture combination and one feed into each other works well- Yeah...
especially in a niche like this. So that's what we're building towards, and that, that definitely- Yeah.
I mean, I just, I-- Last week's episode, I guess it'll be this week now that we're talking, but like last week when people are listening to this, hopefully, um, it, well, I, I had on, uh, Lit from Liquidity.
I guess it's just Liquidity. Um- Oh, yeah... and he, he-- it's a very sim- You know, I mean, obviously he comes from a different posi- of a meme account that moved into newsletters and doing investing.
But one of the questions I had for him was like, do, do you...
I asked him, "Are you building a publishing business with a venture fund, or are you building-- do you wanna build a venture fund with, with, uh, publishing?" Long term. Yeah. Interesting. What was his response to that?
[laughs] Oh, come on, Dan. [laughs] Uh, he said, basically, he said venture fund. Um, yeah, he's an investing guy. Like, he's like, you know, does he wanna be like, you know, slinging ads all day? No. Yeah.
[laughs] It's interesting because I do think- For the record, I love slinging ads, and you should all contact me 'cause I will happily sling them. [laughs] It's bmorrissey@gmail.com. Well played. Well played. Go on, Dan.
[laughs] I'll say this, the content piece of this has always inspired me. I like being able to share the stories. It's been great to do that. Ads, the ad business itself, I think when things work well, it can be great.
Yeah. As, and I'm sure we'll get into, having longer term sponsors and ones you can truly build and grow with have been great, so especially when you're a small niche operation.
So me being able to do and continue those is good. But I do think that the future of this, the more time that we can spend investing and building and supporting those companies, the better. So I do- Yeah...
still wanna have Trapital still be just as active as it is on the media side of things, but I think the more that we can do on the investment side, we can continue to, uh, push this mission further.
The, the main goal at the end of the day is to elevate what's happening in music, media, and culture. Content is a great way to do that, and that's what we've been doing for a few years.
But being able to back and support the companies that we believe can go to the next level, because we've seen the past decade and a half of this bull run, there's so many companies that you can look back on and say, "Oh, there was either some hip hop artist or some culture or some move there that helped catalyze their growth and helped get them to a next level."
And I feel confident- Yeah... in our ability to be able to identify and pick those companies moving forward. So- Yeah... that's what we're building towards.
So the original business model, 'cause you had been, like, early on and, like, paid, but then you, you decided to move away from that. Uh, talk, talk to me about that decision. Yeah.
So that decision there, if I'm tracing back to where the mindset was 2018, this was me looking at the landscape of the paid newsletters, and this was relatively early before it became a thing on Twitter and places like that.
I looked at what Ben Thompson was doing at the time as the model for this, and I said, "Okay, well, if that's what you need to do," thinking about that, thinking about Kevin Kelly's theory of the thousand true fans.
I said, "If I can get a thousand people to pay a hundred dollars a year for this and then some, then I can check that box." And I knew that at the time I felt like there were enough people that could do that.
But I made the switch away from that about 11 months in, and I did it for a few reasons. One, even though things were trending in the right direction, I'd had some aggressive goals and didn't quite hit those.
But then I said, "Okay, what was the reason for that?
I can continue to push harder to try to convert the people that I have on this free list to the paid list, but my time as someone that's not just creating the content, but also running the business is limited, and the ti- the more time I'm trying to spend convert the few thousand people that I was reaching at the time to then go to this paid product could be spent spreading the overall message of what I'm doing at Trapital and being able to help that reach even more and more people."
So there was that trade-off that I know a lot of publishers have, especially- Yeah...
on the, the more indie side of what's free to help spread the awareness to make sure it can reach people, and what do you keep behind the paywall.
And I realized that there was a bit of a disconnect and challenge there, but then also, given the nature of the audience that I was speaking to, the connection there to paying for content with things like this, and then also
the broader potential of using the content itself as an opportunity to bring in other businesses or other business opportunities, like venture for me, felt like there was much more upside with that, with the type of business that I wanted to build, as opposed to trying to push for ten dollar a month and a hundred dollar a year subscriptions.
Yeah. It's one of those- I think-...
like, old things where, um, not even old things, but when people often say sometimes it's easier to sell the ten thousand or thirty thousand dollar product than it is for the one hundred dollar product, this was a perfect example of that.
Yeah. And I think it's, what's, what's interesting is, like, you know, I, everyone always goes to extremes with these models and stuff. It's all one or all the other.
Um, but I think I saw some interview with you, 'cause it's like a lot of these, a lot of these models where you're, like, talking about a hundred dollars, like, per user, it-- they sound, that sounds good, like, for a certain type of, of content, but not for...
In other types of content, like, people can be more valuable in your audience if they pay you zero. Right. Right?
Because of, like, who they-- because of their influence and, like, you know, who they can connect you to, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so- And I think that's a great point- You sort of wanna have-...
specifically for this audience too, right? Like, one of- Yeah...
the reasons I think the ten dollar a month, hundred dollar a year works well in tech is because there's already a culture around-Paying for co-content itself, a lot of these companies are funded by their tremendous ad businesses in general.
So then being able to expense something is much more likely, and at least within my experience, doable than what you may see on the music side.
In general, I think the companies and the people at the companies earn a little bit less in general, maybe compared to some of the others- Yeah... and there's less of a culture on that.
But I would say that the influence that the folks have in music, media, and entertainment for connecting a lot of those dots, as you mentioned, is likely even greater. So I think- Yeah...
that lines up a bit more with this model too. But it's also, like, matching up to the, the mission, right?
And, like, a strict paywall strategy I don't think would totally match up with how I read your mission, at least on your site, no? [chuckles] Like, um, you can have more impact.
I remember Adam Ryan from Workweek was on here, and he talked about impact as revenue, and I was like, "What are you talking about?" Like, it's one, it's a marker, it's a measurement.
But, like, you know, if you're looking to... If, if you have a mission beyond, um, driving EBITDA, you know, you have to balance that mission with, um, with a business model that makes sense for it.
Like, 'cause a lot of times bus- And I think that's why publishing has been in such a screwed-up state is because what the publishers have said is their mission, their, their business model is in opposition to that.
Yeah. That's a great point. And for me with Trapital, the mission itself, as I mentioned, we're elevating hip-hop, we're elevating- Yeah... the business leaders in music, media, and culture.
And with how information is shared, it's hard to do that if you're like, "Oh, the best information that we have, oh, that's behind a ten dollar paywall." You know what I mean? Yeah.
As a flip side, it's not like the people in tech or in other areas of tech are necessarily trying to elevate technology or elevate those leaders. Yeah. They're already there, right?
Like, that, that- [chuckles] That's true... same type of nature doesn't- They don't need elevation. [laughs] I, I think we can agree on that one, Dan.
Some of them could probably come down a few notches if we're being honest. Yeah, [chuckles] exactly. Um, so but that leaves you with, like, at least initially, with...
I remember we had talked, I think it was a couple years ago for the first time- Yeah... and, and you were, you were doing a lot of consulting and stuff.
And, like, I've, I've done, that's, it's part of the model that I've, I've used it at the Rebooting because, um, you know, it can be effective.
Like, it's a lot of, it's a lot of time, um, but it gives you insights and, and I, I found it very helpful, um, particularly as you figure out the product, really.
Um, but talk about, like, how, how you've then thought about the business model after, you know, moving away from the paywall. Yeah.
For me, consulting and advisory work was a great next step after shutting down the paid model because when I shut down the paid model, there are a few things.
One, that income stream stopped, and in fairness, I refunded anyone that had recently bought- Yeah... or had ongoing subscriptions based on wherever they were.
So the bank account took a bit of a hit there, but I said, "No, this is temporary." And consulting did a few things, which you mentioned.
It bought time so that I could have the space to continue writing and continue creating content while I'm thinking about where it looked like more broadly.
But then it also was more valuable to me, honestly, maybe not even from the money perspective, but being able to work a bit more integrated with a lot of the companies in this space and being able to get a better understanding for what they need, what their challenges were, and where they saw me as being most valuable, and that's specifically on the record label side or with some of the investment firms and VCs as well who are looking at the space.
And that was helpful for me as I'm thinking about not only Trapital's future, but where I could be most helpful there.
So I did that for probably a good year, I would say, but then around the same time was when I had started to think a bit more specifically about advertising.
And I saw how a few different folks had done it, and there were a few different models where, okay, I had seen how Morning Brew and places like that that are more so sharing the quick news for the day and how they were both selling ads and how those are packaged.
Front Office Sports was another example that was helpful there.
But then also I s- looked at what were other niche or more smaller operations going about selling their ads, looking at what Packy McCormick had done with Not Boring and a few others, and seeing that- Yeah...
how, like, was helpful for me to think about what that could look like for Trapital because it is an opportunity to help the people that are working either directly in this industry, but many times those that are outside of it as well that wanna reach the artists who are creators, who are builders, and the massive influence that they have.
And how can we, uh, have an offering for that? We have a podcast, and we have a newsletter where even though they're not small, they're very targeted.
It's almost a great opportunity to reach this concentrated group of people, so being able to have the sponsorship opportunities for that were great.
So tested it out myself, and as anyone knows, it can be a labor of love to get this right and make sure you understand things.
But I do feel like over time we're able to get a ad and sponsorship product in a way where we're adding value for the partners that we have, but we're also helping to spread the word that they have through the different assets we have, but doing it in a way that still feels natural.
And like one of the things I always write about and say with artists and other people I'm writing about at Trapital, if you're gonna partner or do an endorsement deal or be an ambassador for some company, it should feel natural- Yeah...
in a way where you would expect them to back or this would be a natural thing that you would do even if the money wasn't involved. And I feel- Yeah...
like that resonates with the way I've tried to keep things in line for Trapital, and it's been great because it's allowed me to continue to grow the business.
But still learning a lot about e-um, each step, but that's the primary business model. So not really doing much consulting anymore. Now it's primarily- Okay. So you've moved in... the, um, from- Yeah... sponsorships.
So I wonder with this, because I, I think that's a great point, um, about particularly when, when you have, like, a niche brand that's tied to you at this point, like, and I wanna talk about that.
It's, it's tied to you as a person, right?
And so I think that gives you-It gives you leverage, I think, with partners, a-a-aligning with the right partners, but at the same time, like, they have to be the right partners. There's a little bit of like...
And that's media, media is, is in my mind, like, just managing conflict and, and friction and stuff like this the best you can. There's no, there's no clean model. If there is one, like, I certainly haven't seen it.
Um, and but I think the, the alignment, i-if it's right, th-that these programs can be very, um, powerful. But are, are most of your clients looking to, looking to you for, um, that kind of like...
You know, they, they wanna draft off your reputation and stuff like this in some ways versus like... 'Cause a lot of, like, business-focused stuff is around leads, right?
Like, so I th-when I think about Morning Brew and, and I think like even, even Front Office, like, you know, they have ad products and, and they have like a system built really to, to dri-to drive like performance, um, for B2B advertisers, which is basically getting someone to, like, sign up or something like this.
I would think that it's a somewhat different sell because that sell requires the hundreds of thousands of, of newsletter subscribers to really do, um, well.
I, I would assume that you have different types of deals, but, but, uh, what are your deals? What are they typically coming to you for? That's a great distinction. I think I've seen that too.
The larger newsletters that, I don't wanna say they're faceless, but they don't have a person that they're necessarily connecting with, it is more lead-driven or they are trying to get the massive subscribers.
It's different for folks like me and like what we're doing, and I think you know what you're doing as well because people aren't even just bought into the overall metrics of care.
Of course, they wanna see some type of thing that they can track, but they're- Yeah...
more so seeing, and they're interested and they reached out because they can see the influence with the type of people or the way that there's sway there.
So whether that's someone that's following me on social media and sees something I post and sees the type of conversations that we're having and the type of, uh, discourse that it can engage, but then they talk to others that they know.
So there's very much a qualitative aspect for how people- Yeah... are evaluating it. When I ask sponsors all the time when we're talking about potential things, what does success look like for you?
What is it that you're trying to get out of it? Many times it isn't-- I, I rarely hear, "Oh, if we get X thousand impressions or if we get this, it's, uh, considered a win."
It's more so if we're hearing the right types of things from the people that we expect. And even- Yes...
though the quantitative mind in my back of my mind can be like, "All right, well, that's vague," or, "What is that gonna mean when we come through?" It always- No...
normally does because I think it does speak to the influence that Trapital has, the way that people have listened to the insights or read the insights I have, and whether they agree or disagree with them on a weekly basis, they see that it is a bellwether for where things are, but also who I'm able to reach- Yeah...
and I think that has value. Yeah. That's exactly it, Dan. I'm like [laughs] I'm, like, nodding all along because, like...
And it can be hard for the sell because, like, you know, in reality, like the established like players in this area, they're, they're service providers, you know, for like, for sales leads, and that's how they're sort of...
They are like, you know, faceless like providers at the end of the day. And I think what's different about these kinds of, of, of media products is, you know, they have like, there's a tighter tie. I'm sure you get that.
Like, people write you, I'm sure, like all the time and like, "I love Trapital," and stuff like this or like they're like, "Oh my God, I listen to you all the time," because like the voice has that like personal thing.
And that kind of connection is, is qualitatively different than like being able to get a bunch of random people to download a white paper. Right. Um [laughs] Exactly. No, it just is.
That's why people come to me and I'm like, "I don't know if I might not be the right person for the white paper download campaign," although call me, we can work on that. [laughs] B, Y, C.
[laughs] I do think that it's one of those things where especially when o-oftentimes certain advertisers will try to compare things on a pure numbers perspective, and sometimes it's tough to do that.
And I think that with some of the deals I've closed, whether it's the five-figure or six-figure type of deals, another faceless publisher that had a similar size audience to me could not do that just because of the nature- Yeah...
of the- And I th- I'm sure you've run into the difference, like, is that, like,
a lot of times the, the people who are doing the advertising, the executives for the company who are doing the advertising, I'm sure you've seen this, like, they're readers and they're listeners, right?
And that is not the case in how their other budgets are often done by the marketing person who honestly probably doesn't even read the different publications.
They just have like, "Okay, well, this person does this, this person does that, and we'll, we'll go here, here."
And I think what's, what's different here, and what I've noticed even with the rebooting is, like, you have this alignment where you have executives who go like on LinkedIn and stuff like this, really proud to be sponsoring, and then I'm like, I never see people doing that about their banner ad campaigns [chuckles] on these places.
[laughs] It's just strange. Like, really happy about our banner ad campaign we're running. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you don't see it in the same, you, you don't see it in the same way, and I think being able to have presence on those places, it's funny you mentioned LinkedIn because that's a place where my presence and Trapital's- I love LinkedIn...
presence as well has been able to have the reach and as cringe-worthy and as I r- I, I, you know- No, I love it. I love it...
some of the content can be, it is one of the few places where I think you can have that type of reach and the impact that's there. So it's definitely worked well for Trapital on that perspective.
I wanna talk a little bit about y- how, um, you're, the, how you're thinking about the future of the business 'cause, like, with Lit, w-we were talking about, you know, I think Trapital, y-you set it up as like, as Trapital.
It wasn't like, you know, Dan Runcie's Trapital. Maybe it is, but it's like it's, it's tied in with you 'cause it's been you. I mean, it's the same with the rebooting of me, right? And then you come to, like, a fork.
You either double down on, on you as the quote unquote brand, um, since we're on the cringey stuff, or you, you look to, like, expand Trapital as the brand and bringing on other voices.
Now, the, the risk of that obviously is everyone is different, believe it or not, at least in my experience in life, and you've got like a very consistent-Product now because it's you, it's your product, you make it
It's a question that I've thought about a lot, and there were times when I first started Trapital when I thought that this was going to be a solo thing as long as it could be.
Not solo in the aspect of me doing everything myself, solo in the aspect of me being the sole voice behind this.
I mean, for the past few years, I've had support and help on different things, especially on the production side for podcast or even research now for guests and essays and things like that.
But being able to expand voices, if it works well, it's fantastic because obviously it takes you away from the churn of content creation.
As great as it could seem and as great as the economics may seem to be able to be the sole person, and especially when you can double down on the type of influence that you have, the burnout rate is so high, and over time, it can be tough to stay relevant and stay timely with all of the things that are happening.
But if you're finding ways to find the right people, then I think it can work wonders. So one-- that's one of the things I've kept in the back of my mind.
Whenever I get a bit too protective of the voice or I think about that, I think about the bigger picture.
And yes, although we can all think about the examples of people that are solo doing this, and it's great, and I think there's a path where it could work for me, I think Trapital has more reach, and at the end of the day, I think I would, you know, be more satisfied with how the product fits around my life too by being able to have other voices.
That said, I know that this was a rare combination to begin with, which inspired me to do this.
But I do think that given where things are now, there are other voices, whether that's on the podcasting side or on the newsletter written side as well, to be able to bring in.
One of the things I had done as a test was a couple months ago, had taken a brief paternity leave. My wife and I had our first kid, and I said, "Hey, I need to keep things moving.
I don't wanna just take a break, but I also don't wanna be trying to write articles when I'm trying to do, like, late night- Yeah... bottle feeds and all this stuff," right?
So I had a series of guest posts, and a bunch of people came in, they wrote them, and then I saw the response, and that was the indicator where I said, "Okay, even if this is an occasional thing or there's some way to integrate it in, I could still be the sole voice of...
or not the sole voice. I could still be one of the primary voices of Trapital, no different than you may see with other publications where there is a center person that's there, but it's still personality-driven.
This would never go to the faceless thing, but who are the people- Yeah... that we could bring on that could also do the same type of thing?
I think in some ways looked at what, I mean, on a larger perspective, what, what The Ringer has done, how you have someone like a Bill Simmons, and then you have- Yeah... these other personalities that are around.
But even you look at what something like Puck as well and listen to, um- Yeah... what Matt Belloni has done and how he has his voices, and each person has their individual platforms.
I don't think that exact model necessarily would line up specifically for Trapital, but there's an opportunity to have something like that. So that's what- Yeah...
we're building toward, and then that can extend me away from not needing to create content- Yeah... to that same grind perspective.
You know, and it's like, it's, it, it's like this double-edged sword, this kinda thing, right? Because, like, people have the connection to a, like, a, a person's view of the world.
Like, what I've, like, noticed in this, this type of media is, like,
is at least from a lot of people that I talk to is, like, a lot of the connection is, like, less the transactional, um, thing of, like, you, you give me information, it's, I find valuable, helps me.
And then, like, that's the-- how we talk about it. But a lot of times these, the people act in, in, in ways that are beyond that kind of stuff.
And sometimes it's just like, "I want this to exist in the world, and I, I like the way you view this part of the world, and I support that, and I appreciate that you're able to..." I'm sure you've heard this.
Like, "You're able to, like, articulate the things that I'm thinking about like this." Right. Like, do you ever hear that? Oh, yeah. Definitely. And that's different.
That's qualitatively different than-- And just having, you know, been in, in journalism, uh, for a while, that's really a different kind of, of connectivity, I think, uh, between, you know, the audience and the creator.
Now, the, the question is, can you keep that level of connectivity while introducing, you know, other voices and maintaining some kind of connective tissue
without, like, homogenizing everyone that they're like, um, I don't know, impersonating Dan Runcie? Right. Right. Yeah, that's a...
it's, it's a legitimate thing, and this is what had given me pause before making the decision because there's a trade-off with everything, right? I know that even the way the- Yeah...
emails are sent out, it's sent out from Dan Runcie. It isn't sent out from Trapital.
So even that thing, the reminder of the inbox, in so many way there's, in so many ways, there are specific things that I've done to double down on that. The podcast has my face on the cover art, right?
So as we're thinking- Yeah... about how best to do that, that has, in my mind, kept a relatively high bar for what we could do and what I wanna do.
But I've said this, or I've thought about it more this way, if we could still keep the content perspective fairly small.
So even if it's me and one or two other people, it's not like it's this carousel of outs or anything like that. It's a high bar. Folks that you have- Yeah...
been, they know that you can have the conversations with, whether it's writing a essay on a particular topic that's timely, and maybe they have a perspective that I may not have.
But then additionally, we could hop on a podcast and talk about something that either may be timely or this that we could put out, because I think in some ways that's a aspect of it too, so. Yeah.
There's definitely trade-offs for sure. Yeah. That- But that's where I wanna be able to see where it can go.
Yeah, that's a really good point, and it made me think about, you know, Claudia Chow, this amazing, um, creative director, did, uh, the rebooting sort of branding.
And, and she didn't put my face, like, on the podcast art, and I'm hoping it's be- she didn't do that bec- it's because she was thinking ahead to, like, the expansion of the brand and not for other reasons.
But I have to follow up with her. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean- Claudia, call me. [laughs] It's interesting because my face wasn't on the podcast cover art for the first-Two years, I want to say?
[laughs] Like, it, it-- so it took time, but it was after a while, you know, I said, "Okay, maybe I'll expand right now, but let me lean into the fact that people are listening to me." So, so yeah. Okay.
So, so before we go, uh, you got what? Like how many, how many subscribers? Sixteen thousand I saw on the site. Is it more than that now? Oh, it's... Yeah.
So right now, yeah, we're gonna approach like seventeen in the next, you know, few days, I would say. So yeah, by the time this comes out, we'd probably be right around there for subscribers.
And then this is an email list that we churn quite often, so I mean, our open rates are mid to mid, you know, fifties right now. Granted, we do take- Oh, great...
a lot of that with a grain of salt, just given all the iOS changes and stuff like that. But directionally, still makes us feel good. Okay. And so going forward, m-more activity on the investment front, you think.
Are you gonna bring on someone to run the business side, do you think? Or are you... Where, where are you planning on like sort of...
'Cause you have to do everything at once, but at some point, you sort of need to like sort of zero in on where you're gonna have the most impact. Yeah, for sure.
I've thought about what structure makes the most sense where there isn't too much overhead, but it also is helping in the ways that are aligned.
So that's something I've been thinking about a lot because it's not an aspect of, oh, like, do I want the help? Of course, but I think there's certain roles that make sense for a particular timeframe.
Like for instance, I mean, as someone that went to business school, every once in a while I'll get reached out to about someone that may wanna help as like a strategist, right?
And it's like, well, you know, like that, I think, you know, there's a time and a place for when that comes in the company.
But like right now, I do think that one of the next bigger roles there, maybe it isn't running a business perspective, but maybe there is a, a chief operating officer or some type of operations person that could kind of co in tandem.
Yeah.
And then on the investment side, if it's me as the GP, and then there are certain associates there, some way that, you know, I could still at least oversee, but then being able to have trusted people that can- Yeah...
move, in particular, both areas. Yeah. I mean, I want a spreadsheet person, not like a PowerPoint person. That's for sure. Yep.
[laughs] I mean- 'Cause it's nu-numbers are in spreadsheets, and sometimes the numbers with like dollar signs next to it. That's better than some twenty-slide deck. Right. Yeah.
I think there's a place in the future where the twenty-slide decks- Yeah... may make sense, but it's like- Yes, in the future... not- Let's get that spreadsheet filled out first. All right, Dan, let's leave it there.
I want to thank you. This was a great conversation. It was a long time in the making, uh, due to my own disorganization. Hey, this was great.
I, I mean, I'm a big fan of your podcast, and listen to you when I hear you on other podcasts too. I mean, I've listened to you and Adam Wright's conversation on his pod too, so big fan.
And yeah, no, it was great to come on. This was great. Cool. Awesome. Thank you. And thank you all, uh, for listening. Uh, we'll be back next week with a new episode. [outro music] Thank you for listening this week.
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