What We Got Right & Wrong In Year 1

Wow! On Friday, it’ll be one year since we launched our media company Scalable. 

It has somehow felt like a week and a decade all at once. To celebrate, we’re looking back at a year of conversations—and our own experience—to share what we’ve learned, sometimes the hard way.

That’s our answer when people ask us for our biggest takeaway from starting a business. As founders, we’re constantly being pulled in different directions from writing and recording to hiring and running business operations. We’re often prioritizing and re-prioritizing what is urgent on any given day.

Plus, we’re balancing all of this with our live appearances, which means a lot of working from the road: Kaya’s flight count since the beginning of the year is 56 and Jasmine’s will be 36 by the end of November. (Jasmine is also expecting her first baby, which is sure to shake things up even more next year.)

We’re not alone in thinking it would be easier! Take Hernan Lopez, founder of podcasting company Wondery, which was acquired by Amazon in late 2020. He told us he expected to raise money quickly, so he hired six employees. Funding didn’t come for another two years. “If I had known how difficult it was going to be, in the first year in particular, I may have not started Wondery,” Lopez said.

Don’t get us wrong: This is the best job we’ve ever had. 

But we’re glad we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, especially how much time and effort goes into researching, recording and publishing a weekly podcast.

On our first shoot day, we had no producer and were still writing our scripts while in the hair and makeup chair. In the end, it took us about two hours to record an 8-minute episode! We have so much more appreciation for creators and founders now that we’re deep in it ourselves.

Bonus lessons: Build something from day 1 that can outlast you, and hire first for the things you don’t like doing or aren’t good at. 

For us, that meant a third-party video production company and a social producer (shout out Hope!). We’re very happy Jasmine is no longer dabbling in CapCut.

The list includes everyone from CMOs of Fortune 500 companies to creators and founders like us. We’ve also been struck by the conflicting opinions and advice on AI, from how to best integrate the tech into workflows to whether AI deals are worth it for creators.

But what’s been most interesting is the number of CMOs who have told us that despite the rise of AI, the fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed. We’ve heard versions of that from CMOs at Visa, Meta and Netflix and beyond.

We’ve found AI most helpful behind the scenes. We don’t want AI to write our newsletter or an AI voice clone to deliver our podcast. Those are the parts of the job we really enjoy! Instead, we’ve used AI to help us polish sponsorship decks, parse large data sets, put together presentations for conferences and help identify the spiciest quotes or consistent themes from our podcast transcripts.  

We’ve seen the tech advance tremendously over the past year, but there’s still a lot we wish it were better at, like generating thumbnails that are both YouTube-friendly and fit our vibe. 

It sounds cliché, but it’s true. “Consistency” came up in 40% of our first 50 podcast episodes, mostly during interviews with creators when we asked them for advice on growing a business.

That’s why we’ve published our podcast every Thursday, including the day after Christmas and on New Year’s Day. We’ve also stuck to publishing this newsletter on Tuesdays and Thursdays at almost exactly the same time.

People need to know when to expect content from you, especially when you’re first building an audience. We knew we needed to create a habit with readers, listeners and viewers, so that we could hopefully become part of their routine. So far, so good: The vast majority of you open this newsletter right around 4 pm ET when we send it out, according to our analytics on Beehiiv. 

It’s not always easy! Sometimes creating content is the last thing you want to do. And trust us, we’ve had plenty of those days. But as creators consistently tell us: You have to keep showing up, even when you don’t feel like it.

Thank you so much to all of our readers, listeners, viewers, as well as our guests who have helped shape our newsletter and podcast over the past year. We can’t wait to see what year 2 will bring!

As always, send us your feedback by responding to this newsletter—we love hearing from our community.

For more of our reflections on Scalable’s first year, including some of our most surprising moments, tune into our 50th episode, embedded below or available across podcast platforms.

Everyone has been focused on the competition YouTube faces from streaming platforms like Netflix—and now Disney. But perhaps YouTube’s biggest rival will actually end up being a social network, rather than a premium streamer.

Instagram launched a test of its long-form, horizontal video product, Features, in the US on Monday. Scalable fans heard it here first: Instagram’s vice president of product, Tessa Lyons, teased the news at our Summit in May.

Features debuts alongside a new tool to share clips of long-form videos as Reels and adds to a slew of other recently released video products, including a TV app and a way to organize content into series. Taken together, these updates make Instagram look more like YouTube than any of the streaming services it’s normally compared to. (In fact, the biggest thing that seems to be missing now is live and on-demand subscription TV.)

This isn’t the first time that Instagram has tried to make long-form video happen, so we’re still skeptical. But Instagram now has YouTube’s success to model its own efforts after, and it has made major improvements to its algorithm that help get the right content to the right people at the right time. Plus, as recent struggles at Netflix seem to suggest, it might be easier for a platform to go “premium” than vice versa.

Another thing working in Instagram’s favor? It has strong ad tools and a wide base of advertisers.

Still, big questions remain, including how creators who produce long-form content will get paid. YouTube’s big advantage has long been its ad revenue sharing program, while Instagram has a spotty history of paying creators. A spokesperson told us that the company is currently exploring ways for creators to earn from brands, fans and even Instagram itself, including performance-based incentives.

Then there’s the question of the TV app. Simply having long-form video doesn’t automatically mean that people will start watching Instagram on their TVs. It took years for YouTube to build up its TV app. Instagram needs viewers on bigger screens for it to capture the streaming ad dollars it is after.

Higgsfield, an AI video and image startup, raised additional Series B funding from Nvidia and TCV, a crossover fund that has backed Netflix and Spotify. The startup initially raised $400 million in its Series B round in August at a $5.4 billion valuation. It has put some of that funding toward influencer marketing, though some videos have received questions over disclosures.    

POV Beauty, the skincare brand co-founded by creator Mikayla Nogueira, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Silas Capital, a consumer growth equity and VC firm. POV Beauty also expanded into Sephora stores in the US in September. It seems like investors and at least one brand have finally moved past “Mascaragate,” a 2023 scandal involving Nogueira that contributed to influencers’ bad reputation.

Newpress, a new media startup founded by YouTube-focused filmmakers Johnny and Iz Harris, is raising $12 million in a funding round led by Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective. Other investors include YouTuber Mark Rober and former Politico CEO Patrick Steel, who is joining the board. Newpress also hired Bill Owens, a former executive producer for “60 Minutes.” 

Goodles, a healthier mac and cheese brand backed by actress Gal Gadot, was acquired by pasta giant Barilla for a reported $750 million. It’s unclear how involved Gadot will be in the brand moving forward. Read more about the rise of creator equity deals here, or tune into our recent podcast.

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Check out the latest workforce data and insights from LinkedIn Pulse here.

Axel Springer, the German owner of Politico and Business Insider, told Reuters it would be open to a role in any potential European TikTok deal. That comes after the Financial Times reported that Axel Springer’s CEO Mathias Döpfner pitched the idea to Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France. ByteDance called the report “a total fabrication.” The European Commission is not currently trying to force a sale of TikTok like the US did.

TikTok is partnering with Tubi to develop 10 original long-form series based on their content on the short-form video app. It’s all about long-form clearly! (See Instagram section above!)

MrBeast’s Beast Industries announced a partnership with MasterCard, which includes new consumer and creator co-brand cards, as well as other tools and educational resources for future founders and creators. It’s the latest high-profile brand deal for the top YouTuber, who has recently partnered with Old Navy and Google’s Gemini, and shows that brands are still where the money is.

Matt Friend, a comedian and creator, joined Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” postgame show as a regular contributor. His new comedy segment is called “The Friend Zone with Matt Friend.”

Tinx renewed her podcasting deal with SiriusXM for another two years. 

Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, which he co-hosts with Monica Padman, dropped out of Edison Research’s chart of the top 50 podcasts in the US, Bloomberg reported. While still popular, the podcast is an example of how it can be hard for established shows to remain fresh, especially as listening moves to YouTube.

Steve Wilson will lead Netflix’s podcast division. Most recently, he was chief strategy officer of podcast studio QCode. Before that, Wilson spent 15 years at Apple, including in podcast marketing. The move comes after Netflix announced it was laying off 6% of its staff and replaced its chief content officer.

Doron Faktor is now global head of social AI at influencer marketing firm Viral Nation. Previously, he held senior roles at WPP, VML and Golin.

Agentio is hiring a head of creator media in New York, with an annual salary of up to $350,000.

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