The Opportunity in Social Audio

Users are slowly beginning to turn away from social media as a source of great content; a recent Pew report found that about 48% of people get their news from social media, which is a huge number but still down 5% from even a year ago. More creators are forging multi-platform, independent careers, which can make it hard for audiences to find them. ... See more

In the past few years, startups like Substack, Patreon, and Shopify have created alternative ways for creators to build businesses online through direct transactions, rather than advertising. This shift exposed a simple fact: in an ad-driven world, creators were generally under-monetizing their audiences.

The recent history of the Internet, however, warns that we shouldn’t necessarily expect the endearingly homegrown nature of these 1,000 True Fans communities to persist. When viable new economic niches emerge online, venture-backed businesses, looking to extract their cut, are typically not far behind. Services such as Patreon and Kickstarter are j... See more