Venture Desktop

In this episode of Venture Desktop, we are exploring the Consumer Subscription business model — or Consumer SaaS — how consumer demand shaped the growth of the market to date, what investment and company creation opportunities look like going forward, and how the capital stack will mature to support the vast range of companies in the market.

If you want to stay up to date, come find me on Twitter @brettbivens or head to venturedesktop.substack.com to subscribe to the newsletter.

• Consumer Subscription Software Insights — GP Bullhound
• Revenue Multiples in Consumer Tech — Blossom Street Capital
• The Case for Growth — Dave Bujnowski (h/t Paul Barnes)
• GP Bullhound...again
• Bootstrapping to "step function metrics" — Dave Ambrose
• Kayla Itsines’ Sweat app will rake in $77 million this year — TechCrunch
• Calm — Raise small, get profitable
• Calm — Controlling your own destiny
• The At-Home Fitness Roll-up
• Match Group and Segmentation — Brian Norgard
• Match Business Overview
• Spotify Expansion
• Thoma Bravo

Rereadables

• The Internet Subscription Startup is Winning — Tom Tunguz
• Mass Saas — Zal Bilimoria
• Consumer Subscription Software — Nicolas Wittenborn
• The continuous rise of SaaS in the consumer space — Angela Tran

Relistenables

• Allen Chen (Fitbod) — Growth Metrics that Matter
• Holger Seim (CEO, Blinkist) — SaaS Open Mic
• Rebecca Kaden, Nikhil Basu Trivedi, and Jonathan Yoni Regev on Consumer Defensibility — Venture Stories

Retweetables

• Kate Clark on VSCO

In this episode of Venture Desktop, we are looking at a topic that is quite foundational to how we should think about economic growth and progress as we look to the future. And that is the rise of Creator Led Media Companies — which, to give a definition is a business (large or small), that is is first and foremost built around the creative skillset of an individual or a small team.  

For more on all of the links discussed in the episode and to stay up to date on new episodes, head to venturedesktop.substack.com or come find me on Twitter @brettbivens.

The links we go through in the episode can be found here. 

• Creative Compounding
• HBR — The Bannister Effect
• John Cochrane — Free Solo and Economic Growth
• Ben Cohen — The NBA's Youtube Generation
• Jayson Tatum on learning from NBA players on Youtube
• Overtime
• Overtime's Dan Porter on Recode Media
• Anthony Edwards Dunk
• David Perrell and Samo Burja on The North Star Podcast
• Balaji Srinivasan — Adobe for Influencers
• Li Jin — The Passion Economy and the Future of Work
• The Professionalizing Creator Class
• Come for the tool, stay for the network

Retweetables / Relistenables / Rereadables

• Rereadables — The Future of Workers / Mercedes Bent + My Hope for the Future of Work Jomayra Herrera
• Relistenables — Emily Weiss, Glossier
• Retweetables — Dave Ambrose on Podcasting

This week, I dive deep on Spotify, the exploding audio market, and a concept called Business Model Leverage. 

If you have any feedback on content or format, or have any ideas for topics I should touch on in the future, you can find me on Twitter @brettbivens and to stay up to date, you can sign up to the Venture Desktop newsletter at here. 

You can find all of the links from the episode below. 

• Maffei — "When you sum it, we believe the ear is under-monetized versus the eye."
  
• "Audio...Liberty still loves you" (Sirius XM / Liberty Media Investor Day)
  
• Greg Maffei on CNBC
  
• Pandora — "We want a bigger Share of Ear in the expanding Audio Day"
  
• Gavin Baker — Monetization follow attention and engagement.
  
• Nicola Korzenko (Podfund)
  
• The Podcast Monetization Gap
  
• Spotify Q3 2019
  
• Business Model Leverage
  
• BAML Research on Podcasts
  
• Blending genres of audio...
  

Deep Cuts

1. Retweetables — Semil on Followability
   
2. Rereadables — Bill Gurley on the 10x Revenue Club
   
3. Relistenables — A16Z, A Podcast About Podcasting