Bill Simmons

Be in people's ears 45 minutes a day and deep trust forms

Shaan explains why he started a podcast despite weak direct ROI: being in someone's ears 45 minutes a day builds deep trust like the trust he felt for Bill Simmons and Calacanis. That trust is exactly why he could later raise a Rolling Fund from listeners without tapping anyone he knew in real life.

“But I just felt like if I'm in your ears for 45 minutes a day, You're gonna make a decision. You're gonna say, this guy's annoying, I don't like him, he's stupid, and you're gonna churn out. Fair decision by you. Or if you stick around, this like deep trust is gonna form.”

Steal thisBuild a podcast as a trust-compounding machine; the audience that sticks will back your future ventures.

Spotify didn't buy The Ringer for ad revenue, it bought exclusive content to cut churn

Shaan argues Spotify's ~$300M for The Ringer has nothing to do with podcast ad revenue: as an audio (not just music) company it buys exclusive key content like Bill Simmons so listeners switch to and stay on Spotify, the same content-wars logic as HBO and Netflix.

“it's like the HBO model or whatever, Netflix. They're all trying to do the same thing, which is how do we get the key content here so that our subscribers stay subscribers or new people become subscribers? And that's the math. And so it has nothing to do with what The Ringer can do in its own revenue. That's irrelevant to them. It's what they think they can do if they— the key content in the key podcast verticals.”