A Media Operator Turns Five
Today is a special day for AMO because it’s officially five years old. When I think about five years, so much has changed. But my belief in the media industry’s incredible future hasn’t.
On our fifth birthday, I want to take a few minutes to talk about our journey, current status, and future. It may be a bit self-indulgent, but here we go.
The launch
I had been considering a content project talking about media for a while. At an industry event with a friend that spring, I talked about doing a podcast. But ultimately, on August 9th, 2019, I decided on a whim to write instead. Over about two hours, I went from not having a newsletter to writing my first piece.
I launched on Substack because everyone did, announced it on social media, and as you would expect, there were crickets. I told a few friends who signed up, but by and large, getting subscribers was hard. But it didn’t really matter to me because I didn’t consider this a business. I wanted to build a publication about the business of space. AMO was going to be my personal blog and a way to meet people—if anyone subscribed.
Fortunately, someone important subscribed. On September 10th, I wrote about Falfurrias Capital buying Industry Dive. At 8:47am that day, I got a DM on Twitter from Industry Dive’s CEO, Sean Griffey. “Nice write-up of the Industry Dive deal in your newsletter. You got more right than anyone else who covered it. That is hard to do from the outside.” That, alone, remains imprinted in my brain. And it was Sean’s tweet four days later that suddenly gave AMO a big push.
I wish I had a screenshot of my Substack analytics, but there was a big spike in subscribers that day. After that, more people signed up and I’d get positive replies from other operators. But it wasn’t a business. I still had that space pub on my mind.
Fast forward to January 2020, my boss at the time, the CEO, informed me about hiring a President to oversee the commercial side of CoinDesk and that I would report to him. Well, I had tacit permission from the CEO to do AMO before it made money. I didn’t want to explain to my new boss why I had a side hustle, so about a week before he started, I turned on paid subscriptions. Everyone else was making money from subscriptions; why shouldn’t I?
Well, people paid. Not a ton, but more than expected. The very first person to subscribe was Rameez from Antenna. Having someone pay $100 to read what I had to say was incredible. Nothing feels quite the same. Fast forward a month and Austin from Morning Brew bought the first corporate subscription. In March, I doubled the subscription price. To this day, people still pay $100 a year, which means they’ve been on this ride with me for over four years.
I wrap up this period in November 2020. Thanks to this newsletter, a spontaneously launched project, I got my dream job. I became the GM of Morning Brew’s B2B business. I actually ran my first sold ad (that I never invoiced) to Morning Brew to promote that job. Austin Rief, COO of Morning Brew at the time, was a stronger recruiter: “If you come on the team and do a good job, when it’s time for you to go write about aliens and galaxies and other shit, I will fund 100% of the business,” he told me.
And so, the side hustle stayed the side hustle. I left Substack thanks to Ben at The Code Co, finally moving to my only platform. I did my thing at Morning Brew. We grew the b2b business from 5 people to dozens, increasing revenue from <$5m to $23m. Every Monday and Thursday night, I’d sit down at my laptop—in the throes of a pandemic—and write this newsletter.
Which brings us to today…
The space idea never happened, but by mid-last year, it was clear that AMO could be a legitimate business. Omeda and BlueConic had spent good money advertising. Hundreds of people were paying hundreds of dollars to subscribe. And we were planning our first event with ticket sales. People were not only paying to read content, but also to attend an in-person event.
And so, at the end of 2023, I hung up my employee hat and became, as one friend said, unemployable. I went full-time on AMO. People like to say it was a risky move, but 2023 was a great year for AMO due to that event. Here’s the revenue breakdown for the business:
I publicly stated that the event generated close to $170k in revenue, so you can calculate the business’s full revenue. Aside from my time and the event’s COGS, it was a very profitable year.
Year to date is even better than 2023. Revenue is up 24% year-over-year and we’re 67 days from the AMO Summit, when more than half of the event’s revenue is expected to come in. As of August 9th, here is the breakdown for AMO this year.
Advertising and webinars are related as they are both sponsor-driven. There has been a boost thanks to returning partners, Omeda and BlueConic, and new partners including Direqt, H2K Labs, Sovrn, SEBPO, and AdOrbit. Event sponsorships are up thanks to these companies as well as Organic, Refact, Bombora, Chartbeat, and Collingwood. The reality is, companies want to reach media operators and are willing to invest.
But you’ll notice the subscription percentage is down. From a revenue perspective, year-to-date this is up 38.5% YoY. We’re close to exceeding last year’s revenue—likely by the end of August. So, that feels great. And yet, this is becoming a smaller piece of the business for two reasons.
- There is a linear connection between the free email list size and subscription payments.
- We have introduced higher priced tickets and sponsorships, while keeping subscription prices flat.
AMO has changed a lot since I first introduced the $200 per year subscription in 2020. Initially, it was just a weekly newsletter. Now? Subscribers receive multiple pieces a week—we’ve published four financial analyses this week, for example—from myself and freelancers. There’s also a Slack where members can chat with each other. We’ve started to build basic databases like the private equity tracker.
But there’s a lot I need to do to make the subscription business successful. It’s the true measure of AMO’s success. A person’s willingness to spend money—both from an effort and financial perspective—speaks volumes. And so, in my mind, the fact that subscriptions remain a small part of AMO’s revenue is problematic.
What are we building?
All of this begs the question: what next? We’re five years old today, so what does the future look like?
I break that into three chunks.
Immediate
It’s a sprint to October 15th. The agenda is almost done (it took me longer this year). That means marketing can start ramping up, we can start generating buzz, and more tickets will sell. If you have not bought your ticket and are planning to come, I hope you will purchase today. It’s going to be a great event with unbelievable speakers, including:
- Paul Miller, CEO of Questex
- Rachel Oppenheim, CRO of Semafor
- Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic
- Matt Middleton, CEO of Future Proof
- Becca Sherman, COO of Workweek
- Scarlett Sieber, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer at Money 20/20
And there are many more on the list. We’ve already got attendees from the Financial Times, Adweek, Active Interest Media, WTWH, EnsembleIQ, Industry Dive, Blavity, Morning Brew, Citywire, Hearst, Blockworks, 1440, Boston Globe, and more. I will announce the full agenda soon and ticket prices will increase at the end of the month.
By end of year
A Media Operator is going to hire its first reporter. I want someone to report on the industry—good and bad—so I can focus on analysis. I won’t stop writing, but AMO needs great industry coverage to become a stronger brand. There are many stories I can’t tell as the founder and operator because I’m pulled in numerous directions. I sometimes regret not having a co-founder, but that goes back to me not realizing this could be a business.
I will finish the job spec by the end of the month and start recruiting from there. This will be a full-time, salaried role. I need to figure out how to make that work since I’ve never hired someone full-time. Feel free to email me to discuss this role.
The subscription price will change by the end of the year. Starting in 2025, the price will increase to $395 a year, up from $200. Quarterly will increase to $150. I’ll keep everyone updated so no one is surprised, but I hope you’ll stay.
AMO is much more than it was in 2020 and will continue to expand. I did a survey earlier this year and found a few things people were interested in that I’ll start rolling out after the event.
- Monthly AMAs. Sometimes you just want to bat an idea around. I’ll have a monthly Zoom for that.
- More scheduled virtual events to delve into specific topics with other operators and discuss various business models.
These will be part of the subscription offering in 2025. If you want this and everything else AMO has to offer, subscribe now.
When we look back on 2025, I want subscriptions to make up 25% of AMO’s full year revenue. There are a couple of paths to achieve that.
First, I need to grow the top line subscriber count. Audience development is a weakness. Individual subscriptions are tied to the top line free subscriber count, so the more AMO can grow it with the right people, the better.
Second, it won’t just come from individual subscriptions alone. I’ll need to convince AMO’s senior executive readers that their teams should also read it. That’ll be group sales. But by 2026, I want to be confident of where a solid quarter of the business’ revenue is coming from. Ads and events are a huge part of AMO’s future, but predictable revenue is king.
AMO for the long-term
I want to take a moment to talk about the long-term vision for A Media Operator. One thing I’ve noticed while covering this space is that there are three types of businesses that can stand on their own, but also blend together quite a bit.
The first is media, which is what AMO covers today. Ad sales, subscriptions, lead generation, etc. The content is the business. We hire journalists or content creators. AMO is a media business.
The second is events. Some companies are pure-play events companies. They may claim to have media, but let’s be real: it’s all about big shows and conferences.
The third category is information services. They involve high-priced subscriptions, multi-year licenses, and can be content or data.
Some companies do all three. There are information services companies that have events, and events companies that also do information services. And they intersect with each other. There are things to learn about these companies and best practices from one that could benefit the other.
This graphic shows what I mean.
Long-term, I want AMO to grow into a publication serving the intersection of media, events, and information services. There are events we can build for each of these categories. There are new business models we haven’t introduced. You can imagine reporters covering these beats. It’s not a 2024 objective by any means. But over time, AMO will become the publication that serves all three categories.
When I think about this, I get fired up. How we get there remains to be seen. But I think there’s real opportunity here.
Happy birthday, AMO!
And so, after five years of building AMO, it feels like we’re just getting started. I’m grateful to all of you for signing up, reading the newsletter, becoming subscribers, buying tickets, advertising, and spreading the word. I never thought this would be the business I built. I wanted to talk about space.
But five years in, I’m thrilled to be here. All my life, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Now I am. Thank you for reading and being on this journey. If there are things you want to see from A Media Operator, email me.
