Insight
Founders are rarely suited to serve effectively as chief executive officers
“There's founders and there's CEOs. In rare occasions, the founder can be the CEO. And obviously when that works, I think it works most beautifully.”
Insight
Private equity investment timelines create severe pressure on startup founders
“Private equity puts a timeframe on the investment and the founder and puts a real noose above their neck if it's not seen as a real partnership.”
Insight
Brands achieve better marketing impact by investing in creators over actors
“I think brands and businesses are better served putting money behind real people versus actors, because actors are just not known by their audience for their passions.”
Opinion
Hollywood is now run by technology platforms rather than traditional studios
“Hollywood now is run more by tech than it is Hollywood.”
Insight
Casting is the single most critical factor in unscripted television
“What we're best at, our core skill set of unscripted TV, it's finding big characters. And in unscripted television, when you cast a character, they're not only the author, because whatever comes out of their mouth is the story. But they're also the on-camera a…”
Insight
Unscripted TV matches scripted ratings at a fraction of the cost
“These unscripted shows, which often can rate just as high or higher, are much more affordable and can be turned much quicker. So in a potential strike or an actual strike of writers or actors, et cetera, we can turn these shows in under six months and sometime…”
Opinion
Drive to Survive single-handedly triggered Formula 1's American popularity boom
“The best recent example I can think of, which is not our show, is Drive to Survive on Netflix. F-One has been around for a long time in the US, much like soccer, much like Premier League, but if you think about what's driven The crazy numbers happening right n…”
Opinion
Nobody viewed chefs as celebrities before unscripted television emerged
“Nobody was watching or talking about chefs as celebrities before unscripted TV.”
Disclosure
Wheelhouse writes balance-sheet checks to buy early-stage access to founders
“We'll write checks off the balance sheet for early stage stuff to get relationships with the founders to learn more about spaces because we can offer the founders access to NBC host or Bloomberg's top bureau chiefs or stuff like that. We'll always get a little…”
Opinion
Talent like Kevin Hart now demand CEO roles over on-camera work
“Now you've got these athletes wanting to be CEOs or Kevin Hart is very focused on being a CEO, not just an on-camera talent.”
Opinion
Host live reads yield the highest ad spend-to-purchase conversion rates
“We then chase it with what's called live reads, which are the best conversion for advertising dollar to purchase, because people who listen to Howard trust him.”
Insight
Pitching a television concept requires a short sizzle reel, not a pilot
“I spent a full year working on one concept By the time we delivered it, there were two other people making the same show. I found out I didn't need to deliver a fully baked pilot of 30 minutes. We could have done basically a trailer, what we call a sizzle reel…”
Assertion Contradicted
Pawn Stars became the number one show on television overall
“Pawn Stars, which had risen to number one on TV at that time against scripted, unscripted, everything”
Assertion Supported
Montgomery inherited Fixer Upper, Duck Dynasty, and Cake Boss at ITV
“What I was inheriting was Fixer Upper, Cake Boss, Duck Dynasty, Hell's Kitchen. We would launch Queer Eye for Netflix right after I got there.”
Assertion Supported
Pawn Stars grew pawn shop daily foot traffic from 75 to 5,000
“And we saw Pawn Stars, for instance, there were 75 people a day going through the shop. We put the show on. There were 5000 people in dead August lined up around the building waiting as we shot inside to meet our funny lunatics.”
Disclosure
Wheelhouse secures co-investment by offering media reach instead of leading rounds
“And so we thought if we can partner up with best in class investors, whether it's venture or private equity, we can co-invest and they won't look at us as competitive. We're not trying to lead. So we've just piggybacked with these folks on coming into great op…”
Disclosure
Wheelhouse entered Goldin Auctions' cap table by offering a television concept
“We invested in a company called Golden Auctions. Really legitimate investors, Steve Cohen, Peter Chernin, the Chernin Group, have all invested in. Our little way for us to elbow into the cap table was by saying, hey, we'll take out A TV concept on the business…”
Disclosure
Wheelhouse reserves large checks for post-revenue startups ready for media scale
“We focus primarily on our bigger checks on stuff that is post revenue and in a spot where we can try to pour the gasoline of our network on top of it, because if the platform's not set up and the supply chain can't get there, then of course we fired a shot in …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pawn Stars feature drove fractional platform Rally's highest user signup spike
“And then of course, after Pawn Stars aired, they'd never had as much user sign up as that first night. And then the re-air, same thing, their number two night ever.”
Disclosure
Wheelhouse secured multiple Discovery Plus series for YouTube creator Mark Rober
“Now we've set him up with a couple series at Discovery Plus that he's in production on.”
Insight
Montgomery argues direct sales rejection is strong training for television
“If you've ever done direct sales, knives to housewives in the Cutco world, you get told no a lot more than you get told yes. And that was good training for television where you get told no a lot more than you get told yes.”
Assertion Supported
Wheelhouse subsidiary Portal A manages Steph Curry's YouTube channel
“We have another company called Portal A that really focuses on Digital stars and YouTube channels. They do Steph Curry's YouTube channel.”
