Money Buckets
Imagine that money is rain falling from the sky. You can get this money in two ways: put out lots of buckets and go around collecting the money, or run around with a big bucket, actively chasing the drops. The buckets you place out take a little more work, and aren’t readily available. The bucket you can use yourself and run around with, well, everyone has a chance at that.
The trick obviously would be to get yourself some of those “put ‘em down and let them collect money” buckets, and not waste your time with the running-around bucket. You have to go collect from those buckets you’ve laid down all over the place, but the work’s not nearly as time consuming and rough as the running-around bucket.
Last night, I was told that my business model was a lot more running-around bucket than collection bucket. It involved too much of my hands in the mix to make it happen. There were other models that were similar to what I want to create that wouldn’t require as much direct hands-on for what I’m doing and hoping to get back from the effort.
Create or Help Others Create
The model right now is this: I gather talented people to one umbrella. We build podcasts. We launch the podcasts and build audience around the material. We sell access to those podcasts to appropriate sponsors to the content, and acceptible to the audience. (For instance, we won’t sell burger ads on a vegan podcast).
It’s the magazine model. It’s Conde Naste. Build a cool magazine (audio in this case). Get people jazzed. Sell a few ads (or if I’m lucky, single sponsors who want it to be THEIR SHOW). Build another magazine. Share love between the mags.
The other model is to develop services around the podcasting ecosystem. I think that this model has some merit. It’s a great way to build great stuff with others and instrument their passion to a finely honed edge. It’s another way to swing at a similar ball. But it’s different. It’s not really as hands-on, not as deep, and I dunno. I think I feel a bit intimidated by the model for reasons that I can’t fully illustrate here. For whatever reason, I feel like even LESS of an expert at this different model.
Lawyers and More
Have I ever told you I hate money? Steve Garfield has a post citing stuff Robert Scoble said. It talks about questions one should consider getting answered before joining a content network. On the one hand, I understand. Podcasters are at a weird place where there are lots of companies looking to profit on their work, and some of those companies are sharing. Others aren’t. YouTube’s terms and conditions, from what I understand, suggest that they can make money on your stuff, and that they’re not obligated to share it with you.
This mucks things up for would-be content network ideas like mine. In my case, maybe I’m coming at this from too much of a “aw shucks, we love each other” mindset, but I’m thinking that if everyone’s podcasting from passion, doing this in earnest, and working together to build audience around the podcast topics we’re creating, then we’ll figure out a way to instrument the podcasts and make money.
I’ve been straightforward all the way, saying that I’m hoping to get money to the company for all this, and that I intend to share. I’ve given out my initial ideas about pre-contract handling of any money we manage to land. But more and more, I’m being advised to get a lawyer, to build appropriate contracts, to prepare for Intellectual Property battles.
Boy, smells like effort. (You listening, Steve?)
Am I Swinging Too High?
My plan is to build a bunch of great podcasts, get audience under each of them, and share the value of that production with those who are seeking new media outlets to reach those audiences. It’s a very very VERY short tail of podcasters who are making money right now doing what they’re doing. The rest of us, the overwhelming majority of us, aren’t making a dime directly. Sure, some of us are using these podcasts for different means, and others are finding tangential revenue for what they’re doing, but I’d say there are TONS of people who *wish* they could get a big audience, get their passionate message out to more than the 50 or 100 or 200 people. I think there’s a way to reach thousands, 10s of thousands, more. I think that we can get money to those people who do this consistently.
Is this a crazy plan? Or is it a matter of scale? Publishing houses don’t just launch one book and sit back and see what happens. They launch a few products, build market, and then they go forward to try and build on their success.
Please, tear this apart. Are you on the sidelines waiting to see this crash and burn? I’d like your serious and honest thoughts and impressions on what you’ve seen so far about Grasshopper New Media and the plan as you understand it.
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Comments
I do agree with what Christopher Penn just wrote about how this is just another form of artistic expression that other industries have already cashed in on.
However, my passions for Chris’ ideas and forward-thinking progress comes from not only getting in early, but gaining the knowledge to have multiple buckets in the correct spots once the downpour begins.
Whether or not GNM makes it as a capitalist company (generating profit) or not, we’ll all have learned from what Chris is sharing. And for those of us (at least myself) who are honest and have not been sucked into culturistic greed, … we/I couldn’t thank him enouh for openly sharing this information.
So, thanks Chris. Lead on…
No - publishing houses gamble. They drop a ton of money on a WHOLE bunch of authors, gambling that one of them will hit it big and bring the money it for them to keep doing the same thing. Movie studios are the exact same thing, as are record labels. The gamble is pretty simple - you have to get the big hit and cash coming in before your burn rate puts you out of business. This is the central problem with the network model, regardless of industry - more often than not, the burn rate destroys you before you get the big hit.
The network model isn’t just running around with a bucket - it’s hoping that the few drops falling from the sky will actually land in a place you can run to in time to get the bucket under it, until podcasting becomes mainstream enough that there’s a lot falling from the sky.
A better question to ask is - how do we get drops to the bucket NOW? Can you seed the clouds so that they produce rain, and if so, can you do so in the vicinity of your bucket or buckets?
Christopher S. Penn
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