Indie Hackers

Media companies buying media: the new acquisition playbook

Shaan frames a pattern: non-media companies acquiring media/community brands to own an audience. Examples include Robinhood buying Snacks, Stripe buying IndieHackers, HubSpot buying The Hustle, and Spotify buying The Ringer.

“Robinhood bought, uh, Snacks, which was like a kind of a media company. So Robinhood, this exchange, not a media company, buys a media company. Stripe bought IndieHackers, right? Stripe, not a media company, bought IndieHackers, this community of kind of makers. HubSpot buying The Hustle. And there's a few other ones that are actually somewhat prominent. Spotify buying, let's say, The Ringer or things like that.”

Steal thisIf you run a software company, consider buying an audience instead of building one from scratch.