The Exchanges

Q Interesting. Interesting. Awesome. Wait, Alex, this has been really, really valuable before we wrap up and get into my favorite part of the show. If people want to connect to you personally online and follow your journey as you build the business, where can they connect with you?

A Uh, Twitter's a great spot. Um, at Alex Scatel. Go ahead and follow me there. Uh, you can feel free to shoot me an email. Um, my personal email is a Scatel at gmail.com. So if you have a great idea or want to talk through any ideas that you have or learn more about the company, shoot me an email. Um, I'm one of those that, you know, I kind of respond to every email. I'm up all the time thinking about, uh, world domination. Let's be honest. No, not, not even close, but, um, we're having fun. It's, this is what I love. Ever since I was young, I've wanted to kind of dive in and have a company and, um, it's been fun.

AI assessment note: “Twitter's a great spot. Um, at Alex Scatel. Go ahead and follow me there.”

Q All right, let's do this. So first things first, this is like a tough, tough space, right? Like media in general is getting turned on its head. Why'd you decide besides obviously reaching a part of America that you felt mass media was kind of missing? Why'd you decide to go into online publishing?

A Yeah, so I think, um, it actually started back in college. I had developed an idea, um, for a site called thenews.com, news with a U. Slogan was, we change news to add you, and the idea was pretty simple. I thought that, um, people were going to be their own publishers, distribution was changing, and, um, was there a space to create a platform where people could, uh, publish news on their own through their own distribution channels and help people create the, the value And the content they were generating. Um, that project did not unfortunately go anywhere. I applied for a night news foundation grant and, um, was not successful, but kept the dream alive. Um, made my way up to DC, kind of worked at the, uh, at the senatorial committee and the governor's association, learned a lot about the media landscape. Um, saw what was happening over four and a half years ago with distribution changing and really Facebook, Twitter, um, Your email inbox were becoming more and more the homepage for your news.

AI assessment note: “I thought that, um, people were going to be their own publishers, distribution was changing”

Q Number one, Alex, what's your favorite business book?

A So I think a book that really, uh, inspired me recently was David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell's book that kind of talks about how you're not as much of a disadvantage as you think as a small scrappy startup. Um, there's actually some competitive advantages there to being smaller, to being more nimble, to moving quickly. And, um, the longer I've kind of been in this space scrapping away, the more I've gotten to know some of the, um, Some of the heads of the larger media organizations, you can see their challenges in working in big institutions. They're just hard to move. It's hard to take risks and chances, and, um, and so I definitely feel like if you're an entrepreneur that's in a space that's really competitive, um, don't be afraid. They're, especially if you understand the space and feel like you know it, if you feel like you can find a competitive advantage, Um, then go for it. And, um, you know, you can find some advantages going up against the big guys.

AI assessment note: “a book that really, uh, inspired me recently was David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell's book”

Q Um, what, and then how do you make money?

A So we make money through a combination of ways. Uh, I think advertising is sort of, um, one that it's, you're going to hear across the board, but we really focused on programmatic advertising. Machines talking to machines. We have a really strong team on that front. Um, Brandon Payne is our chief revenue officer. He spent 11 years at Google and helped YouTube figure out how to make money. That was what he was tasked with at Google. He's now our CRO, and we're thinking through ways right now, I think in the journalism space, when you look at the value of information and how much it moves, how much impact it has on the world. The value exchange is really, it's not there. Um, to be monetizing a story that, uh, you know, changes a presidential election at .1 cents per view doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So I think what you're going to see and what you're starting to see is story brands like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, they're looking down a path of digital revenue that doesn't support their newsroom.

AI assessment note: “we make money through a combination of ways... we really focused on programmatic advertising.”

Q Doing about fifty million uniques. And one of the things he told me, um, Alex was just the amount of technology that they've got behind the platform is huge. Would you, would you agree with that in terms of you said you had a technology company under your MGA brand? Is that a significant portion of your expenses each month or the developers in that tech, in that tech business?

A It is. Um, but I think being a lean company, uh, we do, we rely on companies like Google who have developed Incredible tools to analyze data. We use analytics premium. We have a consulting team. We have four people who are building out segmentations. They're looking at recent recency frequency, building out different, um, different channels for us to, to provide content. So I think there's a lot of, um, you know, I can't speak to individual media companies, but just my take on, uh, on the industry as a whole, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors around technology. And I think you're starting to see five, 10 years ago, it was all about the content management system. You know, oh, our company built this custom content management system, and that's the unique differentiator for us. That's why we're winning. Um, and I think what you're starting to see is those media companies are now abandoning their own CMS, and they're moving to things like WordPress. Um, I think a lot of... Well, it's, it's a lot less expensive. Um, I think VCs are now just smarter, and they realize that that's not a really a competitive advantage to have a custom CMS.

AI assessment note: “It is. Um, but I think being a lean company”

Q Is that code that you guys built internally?

A Yeah. So we're, we're constantly optimizing that. And I think the goal for us is could we, could we utilize some of that technology on a broader scale, thinking outside of our own news organization and, um, supplying some of these tools to the media landscape at large. So we've really invested in, uh, technology tools and, um, Thinking of these distribution channels, these are, you know, this is the new printing press. It's, it's, it's how can you reach people online? How can you reach them, um, on your own terms? So not just relying on a story that goes viral, but building these audiences that you can go back to again and again and again. And that's where I've invested since the beginning is really thinking about.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. So we're, we're constantly optimizing that.”