Disney

Disney should run Cameo with its own characters

Shaan loves a listener's idea: Disney builds a Cameo into Disney+ where you pay to have Elsa wish your daughter happy birthday. The characters work 24/7, take zero cut, and carry huge brand value, ideal for any IP-rich company.

“this is this should be a part of Disney Plus. Um, this is a genius idea. You have these characters that can work 24/7, take zero cut, and have incredible brand value with people, especially for the use case of Cameo, which I don't know how other people use it.”

Steal thisIf you own beloved IP, sell personalized character video shoutouts directly; the talent never tires and takes no cut.

Quello: 70,000 paying subscribers for a library of live concerts

Sam points to Quello, a 2010 app streaming live concerts at ~$10/month, as a viable niche-subscription model. It reached 70,000 paying subscribers and was acquired by publicly traded Stingray Communications.

“And they have 70,000 paying subscribers. They were recently acquired by Stingray Communications, which is a publicly traded company in Canada.”

Anchor the business in a promise, not a product

Werdelin explains why he modeled Bark on Disney: Disney is hard to peg because it makes toys, parks and content, yet it's coherent because it's anchored in a customer promise. He built Bark around the promise of dog happiness rather than any single SKU.

“And so I think what was intriguing for a slightly kind of neurotic entrepreneur like myself was this idea that you could anchor your businesses not in a product that you were making, but in a promise or a problem you were solving for your customer. And we wanted to make our dogs happy.”

Steal thisAnchor your brand in the customer problem or promise you solve, not the product you ship — it lets you expand into new lines without losing coherence.