The Importance of Innovating Content

On May 6th, 1835, from a cellar in downtown New York, James Gordon Bennett Sr. published the first-ever stock report based on information he’d gathered on Wall Street.

His brand new one-page paper was called The New York Herald, and it would change the content we consume forever.

When you think of old-time paperboys yelling, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it,” you’re thinking of Bennett’s work. He pioneered the so-called Extra edition, wherein papers would print more than once a day, updating stories as news unfolded.

He’s also widely considered to be the first person ever to publish an interview. If you can imagine that – it simply hadn’t been done before.

He invented the society column. He invented the stock sheet. He was the first publisher in America to be granted an exclusive interview with a sitting president, and the first to employ a European press corps, bringing unparalleled news from Europe.

During the civil war, he pioneered the use of maps to show troop movements – something we largely take for granted now.

He also had his reporters pour over southern newspapers, tallying up any mention of rebel troops or positions.

“The resulting list was, when published, so accurate and comprehensive that the Confederate war command arrested several clerks at its Richmond headquarters, on the assumption they had leaked secret documents.”

All this wasn’t easy. These were the knock-down drag-out days of early New York media, and his opponents did a lot to try and keep him down.

Publishers boycotted any newsstand that did business with him (sound familiar?)

They refused money from companies advertising with him. On his honeymoon, they conspired to try and have his travel plans cancelled. Then later, worked hard to spread the rumor his son was a bastard.

Enemies even beat him up on the street in broad daylight (including, in one noteworthy instance, a candidate for district attorney whom his paper had put down).

None of it worked. Through his voice, and his innovative storytelling, Bennett had won the support of the people. He could speak directly to them. And they would not let The Herald fail.

“I never wish to be a day in advance of the people,” he apparently said.

Maybe not, but he sprinted ahead of his competitors.

By 1865, as he neared retirement, revenue had climbed to $1 million per year, which was as much as the next five competitors combined.

When his son took over, it would be America’s most profitable paper, and eventually afford the junior Bennett two Parisian townhouses, a 1,800-acre estate in Versailles with a palace on the grounds, a shooting estate in Scotland, a villa in Beaulieu-sur-mer with four private chefs, and a 314 foot yacht with three private staterooms just for him, each rumored to house a different mistress.

Oh… And a townhouse in Manhattan, a mansion on 182nd street, a country club estate in Newport, and of course, The Herald building itself.

It was, in short, very, very, very profitable to be good at capturing the attention of the masses. And the key to that seems to be a continual focus on innovating content.

All of this is chronicled well in a book I picked up recently, Battle of Ink and Ice.

The main storyline is about a historic dispute over who reached the North Pole first.

But it’s set against the backdrop of the newspaper wars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and for the last few weeks, it’s had me thinking a lot about content innovation, and whether we can lay down any firm rules on how to do that.

So far, I think I’ve found four. And next week, I’m going to show you what Sahil Bloom, Mr. Beast, and Tim Ferriss can teach you about that.

How To “Spy” On Revenue

During office hours this week, a great question came up: “How do you estimate how much money a newsletter is making?”

Ahh… Research! One of my favorite topics.

This is a tricky one, because some media brands monetize differently than others. So audience size alone isn’t a great indicator of how much money one’s making.

For example, in 2018, Morning Brew did $3m in revenue with a list of 1m readers. A couple years later, The Newsette did $40m with a list half that size.

So audience alone can’t always reliably tell you how much a newsletter is making. Instead, here are a few methods I recommend:

1. Just Ask: Maybe one of the best reasons to start building a newsletter or other business seriously is that you go from being a “wantrepreneur” to being an industry peer. If you’re in the trenches, building something real, and you reach out to other people who are doing the same, you’ll be surprised by how often they’re willing to share. I’ve seen this throughout my career in media – people are very generous, even with supposed competitors.

2. Google Past Interviews: Founders rarely talk about current growth numbers in interviews. But they’re often happy to talk about last year’s numbers. So whenever I research a company, I’ll use Google to go back in time reading interviews from several different years to piece together revenue growth. Literally just google “[company name] revenue [year],” jot down notes, and repeat that.

3. Ask Past Employees: Another option is to use LinkedIn to find past employees, and ask them. Many are happy to chat for free, and others will answer practically any question you have for a $100 consulting fee. (If you’re an employer reading this, and you don’t like it… Here’s a reason to invest more in retention.)

Simple but effective. Usually, No.1 or No. 2 do the trick.

What I Don’t Recommend: LinkedIn Sales Navigator is valuable for some things. I actually maintain a subscription just because I think it helps you write the kind of stuff no one else can.

But it’s trash at estimating revenue of media companies.

To return to the Morning Brew example, as of this morning, SalesNav’s best estimate is that they’re doing $10-$20m.

But this article from two years ago shows that they did $36m in the first half of 2022. Extrapolate that to $72m for the full year, and even if they haven’t grown at all since then (unlikely), SalesNav is still off by a factor of 3-7x.

Wild.

That’s all for this week!

-Ethan