CEO Sarah Personette is blunt that she has no interest in becoming an events company, warning that "over-rotating" to events is how media brands lose their identity. Puck runs a limited slate—two premium ticketed summits, insider breakfasts in DC and Hollywood, and partner-driven dinners—but only when they reinforce franchises and margins. The goal is to use convening power strategically, not let it become the business. Sarah joined me to discuss this and other topics, including why podcasting is more about relationships than revenue, how Airmail now brings Puck to over 100,000 paying subscribers.

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Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

This is my, my last recording of the year.

very excited to get this in with Sarah Personett.

Sarah is the CEO of Puck.

you're coming up on two years now.

I am.

Yes.

I've been here for two years.

Exactly.

Right.

you know, I've always been, you know, interested in puck.

It, it is, I think it's getting at, something that is real in media in

that everyone's trying to figure out how to have the, you know, the, the

shift to like individuals, right?

And then to figure out a way to have the best of sort of

institutional media with individuals.

And I think that was.

Really one of the founding sort of precepts of P right.

I think you nailed it.

John Kelly, the founder of the company who's been on your show before, you know,

he, he had a thesis that journalists were the original creators and that.

Subscribers and readers care deeply about that connection with the creator,

with the journalists, bringing them sort of into, into their phone in

order to learn about what's happening in the industry that they care about,

in addition to also the connection points across industries, because

puck's sort of unique in that it's.

Access to the inaccessible story that is happening in media and politics, in

Hollywood and fashion and art and sports.

And then also how at the upper echelons of those industries, there's

so much connected connective tissue.

So each of those franchises are anchored by.

Matt Bella for Hollywood.

Lauren Sherman for fashion.

Marion Maner for art, and that is the, the, the culmination of John's thesis.

And we've seen that, we've seen in the numbers from a subscriber growth

perspective as well as in, I think the, the commercial side of the business

and advertiser growth perspective.

That the connection with those individuals, as you know, journalists

being creators, has really, panned out.

Yeah, I even saw some like playing cards with car, with I guess

drawings of, I don't, I think my wife got got a, got a, a, thank you from

we have a, A game.

Yes.

Yes, exactly right.

We, we've actually done a couple of different games with the, with the

just saw it like literally before here.

That's why I was mentioning, I was like,

fun.

It, because it, there's, we have one that is, kind of like around the who Puck knows

and you have to like play different games in order to guess which talent is behind

each of the different categories and sort of the stories that were reported on.

But it goes back to your point.

People have a deep relationship with the journalists that we put

forward and we put at front and center at inside of the company.

And I think the other part that's really interesting.

Which you do as well, the when the newsletter from Matt or Lauren or

Ian Kreisberg, who's our newest, franchise with ai, related to,

it's called the Hidden Layer.

You as a reader can immediately respond to, in or to Lauren with a question,

with a thought, with an insight.

And so we're sort of breaking that fourth wall to create that connection so that

you know where the story's coming from, you know where the news is coming from.

And I think that gets a little bit at.

The evolution of trust in the broader industry for media and journalism

today, when you have a person who is the, the face and the report and doing

the reporting and doing the actual writing, it's easier to trust that

individual and you are willing and, and you're also from business model

perspective, willing to pay for it.

Yeah.

And it seems like you're, you're moving into like franchises

helmed by, talent, right?

Like, I mean, and that's, I, that to me is, is how you.

How you square the two, right?

Like, I mean, having like a collection of people who are really good, like

sub at substack or, or newsletters is, is like one thing, but there's

obviously you're trying to, like, you're trying to balance a lot of risk too.

at the end of the day, I mean, one of the big problems is if, if one of the,

the talent leaves, then you know, you're, you gotta scrap the, the best part of,

of institutional media is you just, you, you just swap in someone else.

You just hit on I think two interesting pieces.

The first one I will share is around Substack a really interesting

platform, and I think a platform that in many ways has democratized media

and journalism and storytelling, and is someone who grew up in tech.

I, I very much appreciate that thesis, but it is a platform that

is built for solo operators and.

For both journalists as well as for media companies.

There is, safety, security, and also I think opportunity in being able

to be your own unique talent like a a Matt or a Lauren or a Bill Cohan.

Have the support of a company that is bringing a growth team, a commercial

team, a marketing team, an HR team.

and so I think that's where we have been really successful in recruiting talent

that is in like truly the, the best of the best in each of these categories

because they want to still have.

A singular voice.

They want to be able to have a franchise built around them.

And at the same time, they do want that safety and security.

And what you were getting to in terms of the shape of the number of franchises

and sort of the shape of these, um.

Smaller businesses inside of the broader puck portfolio, you are very

much correct and that is intentional.

So we have nine franchises now inclusive of the hidden layer,

which we LA launched this year.

And then also, I know we're gonna talk about this a little bit later.

That also includes the acquisition of Air Airmail, which we're working

through that integration right now.

when.

When the company first started, it was, you know, Matt driving Hollywood

content and that franchise is called, it's called what I'm hearing, Lauren

with line, sheet, singular voice for line sheet, and so on and so forth.

The only franchise.

That wasn't sort of a singularly anchored by a talent was our political

franchise, and that's called the best and the brightest, and we had more of

what I would describe as like a galaxy of talent that reports on the coverage.

What we've learned over the course of the last couple of years is that

the reader base is interested in more days of coverage and they're also

interested in more territories of coverage for each of these industries.

It's hard for one singular person to cover off on absolutely everything that's

happening in in Hollywood as an example.

I mean, when you get.

The logistics of what's happening with, you know, very specific

lawsuits in Hollywood and you get into entertainment law.

Matt is an expert in that, but so is Eric Gardner and Eric Gardner

is able to go one click deeper and offer that to our subscribers.

Kim Masters, who we brought on is, you know, a legend in the space and

she's able to share what's happening at the top of all of the different

companies across various studios.

If you look at Julia Alexander.

She's really interesting because she is sort of a, a multifaceted athlete because

of her deep horizontal expertise in streaming and how streaming cuts across

entertainment, it cuts across media.

It cuts across the, the business of sports world.

She actually writes for a variety of different franchises because

the unique subscriber bases to each of those, entities.

Warrant her, I think her real analytical mind and strategic mind around how, how

the evolution of consumer behaviors and how business models are changing those

industries and the specific impact on it.

So we're almost looking.

We're evolving the model to think, certainly franchise first, but then you

have specialists in each of the industries still anchored by the the star talent.

And then you have sort of horizontal talent.

Eric being an expert in legal affairs, can actually weigh in on what's

happening in the AI space right now.

He can weigh in on what's happening in fashion.

He can weigh in on what's happening in entertainment.

I don't know if it, it wasn't the original part of the thesis, but what was the

original part of the thesis is that there is so much interconnectedness at

what happens in all of these industries.

And so now you're seeing the profile of the organization build out around

that as subscribers, demonstrate that that's of interest to them.

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's become a little

bit more traditional, right?

I mean, it's like a, it's like a more traditional media model that than,

a collection of like individuals or like, you know, like a, a bar stool

or, or even like the ringer, you know?

I think that's, that's different than, than what we're talking about here.

It's an interesting comparison.

I if I, if I take the question into brand strategy for a sec second, like,

I always think about brand architecture as being there's, you know, a master

brand with a series of sub-brands.

You're either branded house or a house of brands.

I think the thing that is unique.

It's a puck that won't, won't change, right?

Is that our brand architecture is actually more of an equilateral triangle, where

you have puck as one part of the triangle.

You have the, the core talent that sort of lead talent that

anchors the the franchise.

As a, a very important part of the, the brand architecture.

And then you have the category or the like, name of the franchise, the industry

that they're in, whether it's again, art, ai, you know, so on and so forth.

And for it to be a truly puck offering, all three of those things.

Have to be front and center there.

There's not a world where we, where Puck can live and exist without

having the anchor talent or the voice of the individual being present.

And the same thing with the category or the industry not being present.

Those, those three things sort of always need to be true.

And we take that into the way that we even think about our experiential strategy.

for example, this morning we had.

The last of our series of Puck Power Breakfast is down in dc.

Those are anchored by Leanne Caldwell and we brought her on to actually

anchor the best and the brightest, all of our political coverage this past

January, and she has been, well, we still have a stable of, of incredible

authors that that write for it.

She is really that voice to the DC opinion elite that she sees each and

every day on Capitol Hill that she's convening in the Puck Power breakfast

over the course of each month.

And we make sure that she's front and center.

Puck is front and center, and then ultimately, like politics

are front and front and center.

So I think it's a little bit different than the traditional media model because

I think people sometimes get lost.

And I think sometimes industries get lost.

Right.

so let's talk about the business.

I, I feel like, you know, puck started.

At, at the newsletter, like Peak, at Peak newsletter.

It was probably Peak newsletter.

It was like 2021.

And, and there, there was a lot of attention on substack

and newsletters in general.

but I always think, you know, you, you can't stay, like newsletters as a business

is like, maybe for if you're just an individual, but to build like, yes and

like finance and, and, and whatnot.

You can, you can do it, but like you have to go beyond.

Newsletters.

I think, talk to me about.

mechanism.

Yeah.

Yeah.

we also have to do more, you have to be multimodal in media these days.

Like you just, I I, I feel like you can't, just anchoring yourself to

text is, is a difficult proposition.

and you guys have chosen podcasting, but tell, tell me about, like,

podcasting is why that was.

I think it's a natural in some ways.

I mean, I, I did, you know, newsletters and podcasting, so I,

I clearly see the connection to it.

But what, why, why, why podcasts?

If I go back to the original start of the company, you are correct.

It started with newsletters as a primary distribution and as you expand to the

way that people wanna, cons consume, and you and I were talking about this before

we jumped online in consumption of video consumption of audio consumption of text.

If you wanna make sure that you're building for how the subscriber

wants to consume in the moments and the free time that they have to

consume, you do have to be multimodal.

So I, I, I completely agree with you on that, and that was a big driver behind

how we expand each of these franchises while they're anchored by, you know,

again, they're anchored by talent.

Newsletter is always going to be a core part of that offering.

but similarly then we think about how we expand to audio,

how we expand to experiential.

we're also playing around with actually some different business models and

revenue streams that are completely outside of the traditional media model,

which we can talk about it another time.

why not?

Now that sounds really

I, it, it actually is really interesting, but that's

for, for launch in 2026.

So, so more, more to

I mean, you can't just drop like, oh, I got this really

fascinating thing to talk about.

but podcasting became a really.

It wasn't, it certainly wasn't brain surgery, but became an interesting

next way to connect with the audience.

And so Matt had already had the town, and we had the powers that be, which

is anchored by Peter Hamby, a really that one I, that particular podcast as.

Excellent job of bringing the, the power corridors and, and sort

of how all of these different categories, industries and, and

really opinion elite sort of connect.

But then as we added Lauren Sherman with line sheet.

As Dylan Buyers gets more and like deeper and deeper into the media

industry, we wound up thinking about how can we stretch those business

and stretch access to subscribers and readers and listeners through

that next, that next media solution.

And so we launched, We launched fashion people last year with, Lauren.

We launched the grill room with Dylan, and now Julia Alexander

has joined him as a co-host.

we actually acquired, so this is an interesting thing.

In some cases we are building net new and in some cases

our growth is coming through.

Is coming through acquisition.

So we brought Jim or John Heman on.

He is, he has had a lot of success historically within politics.

So that's been added to our portfolio and we're supporting him there.

and, and then last but not least.

When we introduced the Varsity, which is our business of sports franchise, it

first started with John Orion launching a newsletter, and then we very quickly

moved into a, a podcasting structure for him and he's actually our, Our first

pilot into how we think about video.

We're partnering with Nessen, which is the New England Sports Network.

And there, there are our video production partner and we're distributing through all

of their different distribution channels and then also leveraging the audio.

So I, I think there's.

Pros and cons to podcast models.

There's been a, a runup, I think on the podcast, in the podcast world and

everybody wanting to get into podcasts.

We're very specific around why we do a podcast and when we do a

podcast, it's usually to, to sort of stretch and sweat the assets.

Of the thinking, the relationships, and the insights that our core

talent have across these industries.

And then we will also take those podcasts a time and we'll transcribe,

and I think you do this as well, but we'll transcribe those.

Because sometimes subscribers would actually rather read the

podcast than, than listen to it.

And so it's really more of a. Are we following the north star of the

consumer and their consumer habits and able to, and, and really wanna

be able to deliver content to them in the way that they wanna consume it?

I, and the only other ad now we really take with each franchise.

We review those franchises on a biannual basis from a business, metric perspective.

And then we think about how do we extend and stretch to other

channels like experiential.

And we just let launched our first round of premium ticketed events this past year.

Yeah, I wanna talk about that, but just on, on podcasting,

is it a good business on its own?

Like, because I didn't think of podcasting as like it gives

leverage in different businesses.

It just, my experience with it is like as a direct.

Like revenue driver, not great.

but it, it, like I know if someone listens to this podcast that they're more likely

to take some kind of like action, you know, if I invite them to some event or

some something that, 'cause it builds, it builds some kind of rapport and,

and so that's how I think about it.

But I'm just wondering, like, do you see this as like a, is it a good business?

I do not think standalone podcasting is a good business.

I agree with you that it becomes a mechanism for connection with readers

and or subscribers and listeners, and it becomes another access point or window.

So there again, there are some people who really love podcasts and when they

have a relationship with, that starts with Lauren through fashion people.

She talks about the work that she's doing and she's.

Producing and sending.

And if they're interested in that story, that's going to be in the inner circle

layer they need to subscribe to, to that.

So in an interesting way, I think it is a creative platform.

For journalists.

And I also think it's a relationship, development tool between our talent and

then the, the audience that they're trying to, to, to educate on, on a weekly basis,

but to, to just do a standalone business.

And I, I would agree with you.

I think there are the same faults and risks.

Yeah.

So why, why no, why, why has video not been more of a focus?

Why, why, why, why not like have Lauren do the TBPN of Fashion?

That's my idea for you.

Thank you.

I, I'm, I'm gonna jot that down.

it is absolutely true that video has been, An explosive medium,

not just for the last five years.

And from my time at Facebook, we were talking about the shift to mobile

and the shift to video on mobile.

So these are our consumer behaviors that have existed and been, strongly

developed for a long period of time.

That said, I think that video is a, an expensive proposition to get into and.

It is becoming more efficient over the course of time.

But if I zoom way out, I'd be happy to talk you through the the five-year long

range plan that we built a couple of years ago when I first joined, and really

making sure that we are reinforcing our core and our core being newsletters first

and foremost, and then expansion to other channels within that franchise, making

sure that we stabilize each of those f.

Franchises in that they are margin accretive.

Making sure that we are growing our audience base across each of those

franchise and that we're generating real commercial demands because the

audiences that this elite sort of opinion.

This opinion elites that are critical decision makers in each

of these industries are coveted by advertisers and coveted by marketers.

So if we can get those things right, then we start to get into

the territory of testing expansion.

And we've tested expansion into pods.

We've tested it and we're, and we're continuing to evolve that model.

We've tested expansion into a variety of different events, which we can go into,

and we continue to evolve that model.

And there is a world where we will.

We've started to test into video with, John Oran and Nessen and, and the varsity.

We're gonna learn from that, and we're gonna take those learnings

and then really probably start to scale at some point in time.

But right now, in the near term, when I'm thinking about how I'm, I'm

financially running the company, I really wanna make sure that I'm, I'm.

I'm appropriate in terms of the operational efficiency with which

we are, which we, with which we are driving the business forward.

I think, I think the conversation I had with John, he had said, you don't, you

can't own the waterfront like these days.

Like that, that is, you know, and I think that it stands in contrast

how a lot of these businesses are being built now versus how they were

built, in the previous generation.

I think with that, the test and learn approach is really important.

So many comp media com, legacy media companies, have gone all in on certain

investments instead of starting small and, and learning what's working, not working,

and then, and then iterating off of that.

And that's the approach that we've really tried to be disciplined on.

So tell me about events.

I mean, events are a big deal at a lot of, media companies, publishers.

I always say to some, some of them the legacy ones, it's their, like, you

know, legacy is not like analog anymore.

Legacy is a lot of, digital media companies.

I, I'm always like wondering, I'm like, okay, you're gonna do events now and

you didn't do 'em for like 12 years.

Like, that tells me that you're doing it, not because you really wanna do

it, but, and, and that's, look, a lot of these businesses now are heavy.

Event driven.

And it's funny for me because I always came from B2B and like events were like

everything in B2B, they, they still are.

and, and now I think the broader media, world is, is getting event fever.

obviously congregating people is, is always, it's a testament to a brand.

It has, it has, it has an economic function.

You know, you, depending on the event you do, like you,

you people go there to network.

You, you're basically matching a, a buy and a sell side, you know, and, and B

two B's a, a lead generation business.

So it's always been that way.

and you guys are not B2B, right?

But you're.

we're B two P. We're

What is it?

It's like B two P. You guys say business or professional?

I dunno.

It's like high end B2B, whatever.

It's south Tribeca.

I, but, tell me about how you, how you think about the, the

events because you have different.

I mean, one of the things that I find interesting about Puck is that you've

got different media worlds under, so like the DC media world is, is a completely

different beast from the rest of it.

The, the Hollywood media world with the four year consideration, like it's

there, there are different types of advertisers, and the different like.

How people do events in Washington.

It's like, it's the one place where people love breakfast.

and you know, there are then, you know, with, with all the awards in,

in Hollywood, there are, you know, standard sort of event franchises.

How are you thinking about events broadly?

The macro strategy for puck really breaks down experiential

into to three different buckets.

The the first one is our temples, the second one is our thought

leadership events, and our, our third one is really like our,

our private built if sold events.

The on the 10 pole side.

Temples are premium ticketed events.

To your point, across all of these, the real power I think of

puck is its ability to convene.

So there is an element of that that is consistent across each,

but the ticketed premium events.

We launched, in the Arena, which was our sports summit, this past year.

And we also launched, the Art of Influence, which was our art summit.

These are full day summits or conferences.

They are about a hundred to 125 people.

Our price tag is around anywhere between 1500 and $2,000 for that,

the entirety of that experience and.

It has been really successful in both the partnerships that we've been able to land.

we've worked with Moffitt Nathanson as an example for the In the Arena event.

It has, it gives an elevated conversation.

It allows for the networking that you just mentioned, and it really.

Crystallizes, I think for our subscriber base, why they are subscribers to Puck.

So if you are a part of the Inner Circle, you get ACC early access to tickets.

You get access to tickets at a slight discount from others.

If you are just a, a regular subscriber, then you get access to, tickets.

We actually did not sell outside of the puck subscription base and

the Moffitt Nathanson, client base.

And so that was a, that really made it.

premium in terms of the access to that type of, offering?

Okay, so you had to be a subscriber in order to even buy the ticket.

Okay.

That's interesting because I think one of the, one of the tough parts

about, ticketed events is you're kind of working against yourselves because

everyone wants everything, right?

They want the ticket, they want the direct revenue, but they want the sponsorships

and like you're almost working.

Yourself in some ways because the sponsors want

the right people in the room.

Like they don't want a lot of consultants.

Sorry to all the consultants out there.

I like you, but I'm just saying the, the most of the sponsors want, you know, to

be, to be reaching like influential people that they can hopefully sell things too.

I, I think that's actually why the premium price point, the nature

of our partnership with Moffitt Nathanson and truly just the audience

that John Orand can, can convene.

And then on the, in the arenas or on the, art of Influence side,

our, our art summit, we partnered with Glen Furman's, non-for-profit.

And similarly, you know, we had Gagosian as our final speaker

in inside of that entire day.

The audience in both of those rooms was exceptionally premium.

It was the people that, that you want, you wanna be in the room with.

and I think that was dictated by, I, again, really like Marian's power

to convene John's power to convene.

I, I think the, the core partnerships and then when you're putting it

at a premium price point that only our subscriber base can access.

You're sort of solving for that thesis that marketers want to be in the room

connecting with the right people.

So we were able to do that and I think you'll continue to see us, stretch

within as we build out franchises.

Finding, finding the right white space to build that type of summit is

important, but we have to have the, we have to have the right white space.

And we had that.

With our thought leadership events.

These are not ticketed events, but they speak to the market dynamics and

what you just mentioned earlier, DC is a, is a breakfast market and they

are, breakfast is wonderful

There you go.

I'm supposed to be going to your breakfast tomorrow.

I'm a little under the weather, so I might not go and

It was today,

it

there's a, there's one tomorrow.

It's on my calendar.

The private conversation with orchestra.

Oh, that one.

That's with, that's with orchestra.

you're doing, you're in the events.

I, I was like, I was like, oh dear, I thought you were talking

about the punk power breakfast down in DC and I was like, you

I don't go to Power Breakfast.

I go to,

I go to the media nerd once.

But, but with that one, it is a series where we're convening the

political elite across that market on a monthly basis and bringing in different

speakers, but it's not a ticketed event.

It really is about the networking and it's about the ability.

To have access to Leanne.

It's about the ability to have access to the, you know, the, the, the

powerful people and the influential people on K Street, and to also

have access to the, the editorial content that's being brought forward.

We do the same thing in, in Hollywood with Matt.

We introduced stories of the season.

Which is a thought leadership event around the Oscars and the Emmys, and that's the

power to convene guild members and voting members for the academy and, and you

know, across the different FYC periods.

But it would not work if it was a ticketed event.

It works because there is an editorial integrity in the way that Matt's

programming that, and there's editorial integrity in the way that, Leanne is

programming the puck power breakfast that really makes that particular layer work.

And then I come from a world actually where I, I have seen.

When a p and l gets over rotated to events, it's actually the downfall

of a media company because then they become an event company and they're no

longer a media and a content company.

Talk to me about that.

What, because I think a lot of people will be in that.

I know what you're talking about, but like the, you know, look, this industry

chases, they, they chase the short term revenue and like you got to, right.

And you know, like your, colleagues at Sefo, they're, you know, full, full

on like event, event, event, event.

And I get it.

That's like, you know, the last company I worked for was like

85% of the revenue was events.

I get it.

but that is an interesting point, about being a media company rather

than what Henry Blot had had called Digit a, he said, you're

an events company with a website.

The, so there I was, I was like, gosh, I don't know how to take that.

I have, I have no judgment against that.

Look, I, from my experience, and you just shared the example of

semaphore, they might actually be.

In the business that have a long-term strategy of wanting to be an events

company, we are very clear that we are a media company and being a media company

and thinking about the long-term growth of this company, and the reason why it

was valuable to have a five-year long wage plan is that we are committed to.

Methodically growing while very diligently protecting.

Protecting the strength of Puck's brand and our the puck's

brand equity from dilution.

When you start to do thousands and thousands of events

and you over rotate your.

I think over rotate your, your revenue dependency on that vehicle solely.

You actually, you, you start to burn through your margins.

It's not a, and we run our experiential business with a

very diligent mind to margins.

Not everyone does that.

So you introduce an event in order to drive top line revenue, and then all

of a sudden you have a, a very, very messy p and l. so this is why as we,

the horizontal strategy of, you know, thought leadership, temple events and

sort of built if sold private experiences.

That gives us a framework to plug into each of the categories that we're in and

consider with that franchise lead, Hey again, what, what problem are we solving

for the market with this programming?

If we're not solving, if we're not uniquely solving a, a

problem in the market, then, then we're not gonna get into the

experiential part of the business.

Same thing with podcasting.

We don't have a podcast across every single franchise in every single

category because we might not be solving a specific need in that market.

And, and that needs to be true before we venture into it.

Yeah.

So I'm sure you're gonna give me.

Incredible details on the p and l, but I gotta ask, you know, it was

primarily a subscriptions business when it started, but then also did

really well with, with advertising.

Like, what are you willing to, like, paint as far as like what

the, the, the revenue, um, is now?

So total revenue.

We had a, a wonderful year and we're really, really proud of that.

We grew about 40% in total revenue.

Our commercial revenue grew about 30%, and our subscription revenue grew about 50%.

So, all in line with the, the sort of long range plan goals, and to do a,

like, take a really quick step back.

Within our strategic plans and

But is subscriptions like a bigger, is that, is it the largest like

commercial is bigger than subscriptions, and that

is a part of our strategy.

When you look at just the, the.

When you say commercial, you mean like ads.

Yeah, advertising across newsletters, across display, across

experiential, and across podcast.

So for the, the various, you know, various channels that we just talked

about, there's the opportunity to do advertising, placement in each of those.

Within the subscription revenue, we have two tight, we have two tiers.

We have an inner circle tier, which is a, the 250 range.

And then we have, a just regular subscription, which is anywhere

between a hundred and and 150.

We, new, new subscribers are at a hundred.

And then over the course of a few years, we then, look at stair

stepping into $150 as we add on.

More authors, more content, more accessibility to different things.

but yeah, we've had in line with our goals, the at, at a strategic level.

We focus every year on audience growth, revenue growth, operational

excellence, and brand protection.

And then underneath that we have a, a really, a, a specific

financial model that says.

What does our top line revenue growth need to be?

What's the breakout between subscription revenue and commercial

revenue and or new lines of business?

and then with that, we then do projections for the, the forthcoming years.

Then on the operational excellence side, what's really important?

We're not, I'm not gonna share, you know, sort of how we think about

margins and those types of things, but at a macro level, what I think

is helpful to understand and why we have a different approach to the.

Economics of the business versus maybe legacy media companies is because

we are, we very cleanly look at our revenue per head as well, so we wanna

make sure that we're running the company as lean as possible with the

appropriate amount of redundancy, but this drives us to solve problems.

Through solve problems, through process changes and through structural

changes versus always trying to solve problems with additional people.

And I think that's, that's one of the benefits of having learned from

studying the industry for a long time.

Yeah.

I mean, that's why I remember, I think, Jake, Sherman from from Punchbowl was

on this podcast talking about their revenue per head being over a million.

I'm like, that's the new flex.

Not, not the comScore numbers.

Like, I mean, if you can have like, you know, revenue per head over

a million, that's, that's good.

Uh, tell me about air mail.

you know, we, I, we delayed this podcast till, till the

air mail deal finally closed.

my friend Lachlan was, was, was, was dribbling it out,

like, as, as it was happening.

what is, what's the, what is the logic to this from the puck side?

Because it seems the, the business.

Wonder, everything you say, you know, had a tremendous year.

and, you know, air mail is, you know, is an interesting, is an

interesting property, right?

really un unprofitable has no track record of profitability.

You, you own retail mail.

I, I saw you have a newsstand in Milan.

I saw.

so congrats on that.

I mean, I am pro newsstand to be cute.

Clear, what's the logic behind it and why is it worth the,

the, the headache or the risk?

We are thrilled.

I mean, I'm genuinely thrilled to have air mail in the Puck portfolio.

It's been about six weeks since the acquisition, and so we're definitely

in that post merger integration stage.

but to.

To kind of step back for a second, I, I will say first these are two

very complimentary brands that both have access to an an upper echelon

of audience, and yet at the same time really don't have a ton of, of overlaps.

So.

When I think about heading into 20 26, 1 of the core parts of our long range

plan is that we were going to protect the core, which is our core business,

and then we were going to reinforce through expansion and we were in market.

So John and I were in market this past year looking for.

What were the players that could actually fulfill our investment

thesis or our value creation thesis?

And that thesis sits in sort of three areas.

It sits in subscription synergy, cost efficiencies, and then category

expansion and subscription synergies.

Really plainly, we're very clear.

There is very little overlap between the airmail audience and our audience.

Very little in, in terms of like a, a paying subscriber base, which

is important to the, you know, the overall audience growth metric.

When you look at content coverage.

This acquisition very clearly and authentically got us into a category

that we have not been in before.

It we are, are not

You mean like luxury?

culture and society.

Really like culture of society, wellness, luxury.

We, if you wanna get into the advertiser space, we

But that's what I mean, like, I mean, the advertiser side, it's like

you, you, you guys do a lot of the corporate social responsibility stuff.

And we actually have a ton of luxury advertisers, and we

now, with the airmail acquisition, have, a, their portfolio of luxury

advertisers is, is exceptional.

So we're now in the process of, talking to them and bringing them over as well.

it does open us up to content that fulfills a need.

For luxury advertisers because it is about, it's very

sophisticated global in nature.

stories and storytelling that cuts across, you know, we always say

there's, there's a little bit of like.

Criminal scandal that's associated with air mail.

There's a little bit of, what is happening in the beauty and the

wellness space that's really alluring.

There are just so many topics that are.

A little bit more consumer in orientation than what we have done

during the middle of the week.

That's more of a professional offering by category, and we've taken a different

approach prior to this over the last couple of years of aqua hiring

smaller sub stacks into, in order to break into different categories,

we Acquihire and Mariam Man's.

art Substack and now he anchors wall power.

We could do that in, you know, through lots and lots of small acquihires,

and we, we will certainly leverage that as a part of our strategy.

But this was a transformative m and a deal that helped to deliver on that.

That really important part of our strategic P plan of reinforcing

expansion through acquisition, and then again with the synergies

from a subscription perspective.

and the category piece that mattered.

But the third part that I had mentioned was operational excellence.

And we are able to look at that business and through the process of diligence

and, and, and really a series of.

Lots and lots and lots of meetings.

As you know, m and a is not, it's not, it's not a singular meeting.

It is, it really is a, a long process and was amazing to work with the air

mail team on the other side and, and the bankers on the other side as well, with

rain to come to the conclusion that.

We can operate this business as a part of the puck portfolio, still delivering

the same, same design aesthetics, still delivering the same premium editorial

content, still delivering the same commerce experience, but we can find

synergies across the company that allow it to move to profitability faster.

And, and that's really what what we have wanted to do.

As a, as an example, and Brian we're, you know, sharing this here with you first,

we are really proud to be able to say that we're exiting a year with, uh, over

a hundred thousand paying subscribers.

And that this is a, an important acquisition in that process to

be able to, you know, drive that type of Audi, audience growth

in a, a singular acquisition.

so it's a, it's really, I think.

it's an exciting and transformational

And so, but these are gonna be, these are gonna be separate subscriptions.

They are not, over the course of time, they will

be a singular subscription.

Right now we will run both subscriptions as separate.

And then, over the course of the next six months, we're actually gonna be

unifying the tech stack and we'll be thinking through the, unification of

the, the subscription so that a Pox subscriber gets access to air mail.

An airmail subscriber gets access to puck content.

We feel like that's a creative in, when I think about value creation, I'm, I

always, I'm always thinking about for, for our subscriber, how do we make sure that

they have access to the content that they wanna have access to, and that they can,

can discover it as easily as possible.

This now opens up a whole host of really interesting content that because of the,

the elevated and sophisticated nature of both audiences, there's real interest that

both will have in cross-pollinization of the content and the other part of this

acquisition, which was really a, a, a fun surprise, I think in, in the middle of.

The diligence process was meeting with, air mail's c original

CTO, who Grayden had hired.

he is exceptional.

His name is John Tono.

He built a, an really organically, an entire content management

system from scratch and.

I remember the days when, when content companies thought like the CMS was

there, it was, you know, the, the, the hallmark of their enterprise value.

That's not, that's not what we're doing here, but it is a really

outstanding system that makes us more operationally efficient and it

as a, as a company and is going to allow us to drive personalization.

In a way that's been needed for puck subscribers and then, and then

additive for air mail subscribers.

So it will eventually become one.

yeah, that's gonna be an interesting process though, right?

Because there's a price differential because, air mails like is 80 bucks,

79.99 and, and you're gonna move these people up, you know, you can look at

it $30 or, but, or you're, you know, you're gonna move them up by like 40%.

The pricing strategy work is a, is running in parallel to the brand work

and the technical work so that we can make sure that people feel like they are

getting, that as we stair step pricing that it, that it's, it's a, it's effective

relative to price sensitivity and, and so you're, you're completely right.

It's a, it's, it's an important part of, of our strategy.

So how are you gonna, I mean, the air mail brand is gonna remain.

Right.

It's not gonna become, or it's not gonna become like a franchise of pac.

no, we will become a franchise of Puck.

and so as we

I mean, like your other franchises like, like what I'm

hearing, like that kind of thing.

I would think of Air Mail as being our core franchise that is speaking to.

Truly like the, this cultural part of society.

And that is a, a, a brand that will continue to deliver the same

content that they've delivered.

It will continue to deliver the same as brand aesthetic that is, that

they have, Been known for and loved.

I mean, it's truly, I think one of the reasons why there's, there's

so much loyalty is because the experience is, is so stunning.

but, it will be a part of the puck overall master brand and becomes

a franchise so that when you subscribe, you're able to access,

you're able to access that content.

it's a tricky thing, right?

Because I mean, it's like when you're in the m and a, it's like,

oh, there isn't much overlap.

but then that works against you because that means that the, maybe

they're just totally different, you know, readers, they're, they're

just interested in different things and so, you know, introducing.

People to puck content is one thing, and then puck people to airmail content

because I mean, they would've, they would've like subscribed already,

Well, I, I think a part of it's discoverability.

but I, I think you just nailed a part, an important part of a,

a growth and loyalty strategy.

So when we look, the, the learnings we have across our franchises

on the puck side is that, we do expose people to content.

Even, you might only be subscribed to Lauren Sherman, but if there is

a story that we think is relevant to folks in the business of fashion.

For example, bill Cohan is in finance, but he writes a lot about sacks and

so there are times where that content will populate line sheet and will

populate Lauren's Lauren's newsletter.

I think there is a world where there is air mail content that will be

of interest to the, to different, readers across the various franchises

on the puck side and vice versa.

for puck through to air mail, but we are not just making that

shift immediately on day one.

We are going to take the time to learn about each of our, to learn about

the subscriber base and then also technically be able to make sure.

That you can personalize if you wanna learn about wall power and,

and you're originally coming in through an airmail, subscription,

that you're able to do that, right?

This is, this gets back to the in initial setup of our conversation.

It's so important to give people and, and subscribers the experience that

they wanna have and, and so we're being really thoughtful about how we

step into the cross pollinization of content across those, those audiences.

Yeah.

And it'll also be interesting managing the sort of like there's I

and I, John's a great editor, right?

But like, there's, there's like a lot of, there's puck iss, right?

And like, so I'm, I'm interested to see if they'll start to appear in, in

air mail or how you keep that editorial sensibility, which is, I think they're,

they're, they're somewhat distinct really.

And I don't know.

I don't know if it matters as much anymore, but you can have

slightly different brands.

Julia Vitali, who's our, the, the new editor in chief.

She was, brought up by, by Grayden and just has an incredible sensibility.

I think she is the really the right leader at the helm of this next

transition because she understands that the core DNA of what.

Has worked for air mail, over the course of the last six years.

And then at the same time, she is a, a really wonderful entrepreneur

who is, is really leaned into, okay, what can we learn from best

practices in how we operationalize and scale a media company as well.

so I'm, I, I feel like we have.

The right strategy in place, but strategy is only as good as the

people that you have to execute it.

And we have an incredible group of people that have, have

joined us from the Airmail team.

but again, it's the reason why you with any post-merger integration.

You don't just flip the switch on day one.

You really have to be thoughtful about where you believe there

are areas of opportunity.

And then we're gonna test and learn, into that because we wanna make

sure that the subscriber experience is the best it can be and that

the advertiser experience is the

best

Yeah.

I mean, look, you were at Facebook, like Instagram, right?

Like, I mean, Instagram was like left on its own for a while and then

like it slowly merged in some ways, but then still remained Instagram.

I mean, it was like probably a textbook for, you know, successful m and a

Brian, it's funny that you bring that up.

I mean, I, I was brought back to Facebook to, to basically lead how

the full family of apps and services gets brought to market, how they

remain distinct, and then also how you create the operational efficiencies

to drive those businesses forward.

People complain that they had to like vlog in with their Facebook

or something for like a couple days and then people just move on.

They're solvable problems, but, but having the, having I think,

the line of sight and the North Star.

To wanting to ensure it is a great reader experience and that it's

a great advertiser experience.

Tho those are going to be the, the, the principles with which we,

we move forward, in, in tackling this, this incredible opportunity.

It's a, it's, it really is the, it's a, it's a, it's a special, it's

a, it's a special piece of, or a special portfolio, I think ad for us.

Is this like, do you, do you expect to have like a portfolio of

brands like this or, I mean, 'cause this is, this is different than like

your, your franchises and this is new.

I think we will continue to look at a balance of organic and inorganic growth,

and we will continue to use the investment thesis in evaluating businesses.

In looking at, is there a benefit from a subscriber file perspective, does this get

us into a new coverage territory and can we operate the business more efficiently?

I find more entities like that, I think it, it would make a lot of sense for us

to continue to add them to the portfolio.

But I will share, I will say that in that, that's long term thinking.

I think in the near term.

Getting the integration right is so critical and it is the thing

that most companies, I think miss, is really taking the, the time and

the care to think through what does this mean for people and culture?

What does it mean for technical integration?

What does it mean for product go to market?

Like these, these things are all missed oftentimes during

the, the like buying process.

And then, you know, you quickly move on.

And what I'm really proud of this leadership team on is that we, we've

taken the, the execution, the effective execution of this integration really

seriously, so that we can come out of the next, you know, six to 12 months

with, a, a holistic company that is really strong and airmail being one,

you know, one core growth lever in that.

Right.

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, Sarah, thank you so much for, taking the time, end of the year.

This is the last recording, so we got it in.

I feel very happy that I got to be your last recording.

All right.

Thanks so much.

you.

Have a great holiday.