(2013-03-05) Goldberg Another Content Company

Bryan Goldberg, having sold/left Bleacher Report, plans to start another web Content company. In my opinion, it is probably the single best venture sub-sector to create, and one that venture capitalists should be scrambling to invest in. In fact, I’ll wager that the venture community is going to have to start putting money into content companies, because they are going to be one of the best performers of the 2010 decade... It is unlikely to yield at 100-times return, but a 10-15-times return is very real.

He still loves the Advertising model, that can easily get you to $25 million per year in revenue — with profit — in five years of operation.

He notes how a number of other web properties (like Gawker and Dead Spin), despite hating Bleacher Report, are moving toward copying its User Generated Content model.

He will target Women readers, as they're under-targeted online compared to print Magazine-s, despite driving Consumer spending and thus Advertising. “So, our agency loves what you are doing at Bleacher Report, and we could definitely see ourselves working with you. The only problem is that of our 40+ Unilever brands, only two of them target men.”

Aug'2013 update:

• We have an opportunity to completely transform women’s publishing, and today I’m announcing my new company – Bustle Com – which aims to do just that. And today we are also announcing a capital raise of over $6.5 million, split across Seed and Series A rounds of funding. The Bustle team is partnering with two outstanding lead investors — the Social+Capital Partnership and Time Warner Investments. Also joining us on this adventure are GoogleVentures, 500Startups, RothenbergVentures, and many friends and family.
  • many of the Comments are skeptical
• Many Women, including ElizabethSpiers, are not thrilled with his entrance. As an ex-entrepreneur (and probably future one as well) I find that sort of casual ignorance of audience and market appalling. If you’re going to start a business, it is your job to understand your audience and to understand the economics of that business. And if you don’t understand that Vogue’s audience online is a small as it is because the company does not generate the bulk of its revenue from lower margin digital sales and has little cultural incentive to do so, then you have not done your homework. And if you think that Jezebel’s audience tops out at five million a month and that this is both the owner’s intention and its fate, then you have not done your homework.
  • Goldberg apologizes: Most women are completely open to the idea of a man starting a company aimed at women, and hiring a large team of women. But for men who do so, it is not enough that we build strong relationships with our female colleagues — something that I have tried to do at Bustle. We owe it to the public at large to approach the situation with great attentiveness. My blog post came nowhere near achieving that. Instead, it undermined a lot of great people, here at Bustle and in the wider media space. And for that I really am sorry.