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Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with

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Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm

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Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today. My

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Speaker 1: guest is Sam Wick, head of U t A Ventures.

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Speaker 1: One of Wick's jobs at the talent agency is to

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Speaker 1: help build businesses and business opportunities for ut as many clients.

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Speaker 1: The era of a star holding up a coke can

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Speaker 1: and smiling for a check is pretty much over. Nowadays,

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Speaker 1: brands are looking to align with bold faced names that

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Speaker 1: give them what Wick calls brand permission to reach their

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Speaker 1: target consumers. Wick has seen the evolution of digital media

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Speaker 1: from the front row, having come up as an executive

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Speaker 1: at MP three, dot Com, MySpace and Maker Studios before

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Speaker 1: he joined U T A in ten. Putting on his

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Speaker 1: venture capitalist hat, Wick also offers some insights on fast

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Speaker 1: growing sectors that are destined to enter sect with entertainment.

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Speaker 1: That's all coming up on today's episode of Strictly Business.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Strictly Business, Sam Wick, head of MUTA Ventures,

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today. All right,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me tell me Sam, You you know,

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Speaker 1: as the head of a ventures group for one of

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Speaker 1: the Hollywood's largest talent agencies. You have quite a perch

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Speaker 1: into the industry, and it's an industry that has has

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Speaker 1: really been in the last you know, two years, has

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Speaker 1: been in quite a run of attracting a ton of

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Speaker 1: attention from private equity. Seemingly every everybody that ever held

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Speaker 1: an executive position is about to launch us back to

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Speaker 1: go buy things. There's a lot of activity in the

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Speaker 1: marketplace right now from your perch, what do you see

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Speaker 1: that is, you know, particularly of interest to private equity investors.

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Speaker 1: Sectors of entertainment, media and telecom are they most interested

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Speaker 1: in right now? Right? So, if we even kind of

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Speaker 1: step back and just talk a little bit about how

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Speaker 1: we think about kind of talent and how they act

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Speaker 1: as accelerants, you know, for a business. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: one UM agencies, Traditionally we're focused solely on media, but

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Speaker 1: as they've evolved and added additional division sports, speakers, fine arts, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, digital, the the breath of what we actually

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Speaker 1: touch is much much broader than just media. So the

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Speaker 1: way that I fundamentally think about it is where do

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Speaker 1: our clients have brand permission? Where does their audience feel

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Speaker 1: a sense of attachment to the remissions or their goals.

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Speaker 1: And that is so that includes media. Media is definitely

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Speaker 1: a large focus area there, but it also includes consumer products.

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Speaker 1: That also includes um experiential businesses like hospitality or restaurants,

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Speaker 1: and it includes a pro social right. You know, one

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Speaker 1: of the things that town are great are simplifying complex

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Speaker 1: situations or borrowing. You know, brands can borrow their brand

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Speaker 1: equity to help them kind of understanding. So you see

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Speaker 1: that a lot in like climate change or even a

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Speaker 1: category like finance. But go back to social just you know,

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Speaker 1: any any number of social justice issues absolutely get magnified. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but to go back to your question in terms of

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Speaker 1: where are people looking right? What are they thinking about right?

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Speaker 1: And so I'll hone down on a couple of themes

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Speaker 1: that I've been thinking about specifically related to media, and

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Speaker 1: then maybe a little bit later we can talk about

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Speaker 1: the thesis that actually gets us to these categories. But

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Speaker 1: on one end, you've got UM this movement towards media

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Speaker 1: companies focusing on direct consumer businesses. And if you think

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Speaker 1: about companies like Disney and Discovery, historically they were more

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Speaker 1: B two B two C companies. They created great content right,

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Speaker 1: and they went to someone like Comcast. You did all

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Speaker 1: the marketing, the customer acquisition, the the LTV, TOKAC analysis,

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Speaker 1: the churn analysis, all of us. They're getting good at this, right,

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Speaker 1: and Disney is getting really good at this, right. So

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Speaker 1: then they start thinking about where the growth is for

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Speaker 1: these kinds of businesses, right, And Disney now has three

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Speaker 1: direct to consumer services, and ESPN and Hulu and Disney

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Speaker 1: plus it's pretty logical that you could think about, well,

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Speaker 1: they now understand that funnel, they understand how to market,

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Speaker 1: what are the other things that could fit with their

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Speaker 1: brand identity. So, for example, we're an investor in a

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Speaker 1: company called masterclass Um, which is an incredible you know business, right,

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Speaker 1: you could see a company like that really fitting in

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Speaker 1: quite nicely with Disney or frankly Discovery right um. But

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Speaker 1: you could also see those same types of companies not

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Speaker 1: just focusing on video assets, but any asset that has

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Speaker 1: a subscription method, right, So think about a music service

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Speaker 1: or a wellness service. Could a company like Calm or

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Speaker 1: headspace to be bundled together with some of the offerings

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Speaker 1: that some of these media companies have, So so anything

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Speaker 1: kind of in this larger subscription um area. I think

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Speaker 1: it's really quite quite interesting for us if the world

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Speaker 1: of the new bundle people are bundling and yeah, in

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Speaker 1: the old days it was MTV and CNN and Nickelodeon

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Speaker 1: and Lifetime, and now it could be, like you said,

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Speaker 1: any number of channels plus a wellness app or a

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Speaker 1: or a zen meditation. You're right that unbundling and re

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Speaker 1: bundling is why I think why everything feels so kind

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Speaker 1: of kind of frenzied right now in the business, because

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Speaker 1: there's all this opportunity, but there's also like, what's going

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Speaker 1: what's going on? So yeah, as you say, okay, so

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Speaker 1: I want to give you another theme, which is um

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Speaker 1: and this is like this has been going on for

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Speaker 1: up right, which is if you find places where people

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Speaker 1: are spending more time then where dollars are spent, there's

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Speaker 1: going to be growth. Right. So if you think about this,

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Speaker 1: you know where I initially built my career, which was

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Speaker 1: in digital media perfect example. Right, for many, many years,

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Speaker 1: there's more time spent than dollars spending. Everyone kept saying, well,

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Speaker 1: advertising dollars are eventually going to shift. Where's that happening today? Audio? Right,

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Speaker 1: So often as we say podcasting, but it's not just podcasting.

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Speaker 1: Clearly there's incredible growth and podcasting. We see a lot

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Speaker 1: of the same dynamics happening with creators, the creator economy

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Speaker 1: and podcasts like we have a client my favorite murder

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Speaker 1: has an incredible kind of connection to reach same way

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Speaker 1: the digital talent you know do you know do today,

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Speaker 1: But it's broader than just podcasting, right, and such as content,

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Speaker 1: it's the entire infrastructure layer. We have an investment in

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Speaker 1: a platform company called Art nineteen that does distribution and monetization,

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Speaker 1: but it's also connected devices. So if you think about

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Speaker 1: what's happening with Alexa or Google, right, that's a separate ecosystem,

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Speaker 1: more time spent than dollars spent, right, Um. And then

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Speaker 1: you could also look at you know, areas like converting

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Speaker 1: print to audio and there's been a lot of investment

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Speaker 1: they're making that content, making content kind of easier to consume,

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Speaker 1: you know, on the go. Right, So that is also

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Speaker 1: a general theme for us. Right, I'm thinking like even

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Speaker 1: within those industries, there's so much tech innovation that needs

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Speaker 1: to to make up We've been so spoiled, were so

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Speaker 1: spoiled by these great interfaces but every click is somebody

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Speaker 1: pouring over to make it that easy. And a lot

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Speaker 1: of investors have told me, like, you know, it's not

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Speaker 1: as sexy, but ad tech and connectivity tech is there

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Speaker 1: is just amazing, like you know, moving ahead at at

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Speaker 1: warp speed innovations going on there. I'm sure you're seeing.

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Speaker 1: It is a truism that it is oftentimes not just

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Speaker 1: the vision but the execution, the detail. So it is

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Speaker 1: the little things right that um maybe we don't think about.

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Speaker 1: They're not as flashy, right if well, you know, but

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Speaker 1: that really make a difference. And so when you look

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Speaker 1: at and we have a lot of businesses and consumer products,

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Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time thinking about what is

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Speaker 1: the acquisition funnel, what is the drip marketing strategy across

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Speaker 1: you know, email and text and you know, and what

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Speaker 1: is the proper churn rate and and inventory allocations and

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Speaker 1: three PM Like these are things that are not particularly

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Speaker 1: like you know, high flying and sexy, but they are

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Speaker 1: typically a hallmark for um, you know, what moves a

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Speaker 1: business from being just good, you know it too great.

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Speaker 1: And so you know, going back to the audio theme,

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Speaker 1: you know why you know why is why does why

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Speaker 1: is clubhouse winning in the audio category, right, because it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be ton of competitors. Why are they winning, right?

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Speaker 1: And and it's oftentimes that attention to detail the network

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Speaker 1: effects that really, at the end of the day, make

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Speaker 1: a huge difference easy of us. So with the direct

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Speaker 1: subscription boom at the biggest of the big companies, how

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Speaker 1: are you seeing that filter out to opportunities to investors

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Speaker 1: in other areas. We both invest and we build businesses

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Speaker 1: with our clients and UM when we build, what we've

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Speaker 1: found is that over time the market is evolving and

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Speaker 1: it's it's in a sense upstreaming. So it used to

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Speaker 1: be that the talent would just start something from scratch,

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Speaker 1: raised capital, build the brand. Increasingly we're seeing this interest

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Speaker 1: in and this is when we work with with private

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Speaker 1: equity quite a bit, or with corporations spinning out new divisions.

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Speaker 1: UM you know, potentially buying a company and using UH

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Speaker 1: and working with talent to inject their their brand story

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Speaker 1: and authenticity and accelerate the brand, or even taking a

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Speaker 1: brand like a lot of the large public companies have

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Speaker 1: brands that are just kind of operating at at a steady,

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Speaker 1: steady state level, right, and you know, the gross margins

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Speaker 1: the same, the profitabilities the same, the marketing expenses the same.

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Speaker 1: They're not gonna double down on marketing, but they feel

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Speaker 1: like if they could, if talent could come in and

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Speaker 1: really fit with that brand and help them move the

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Speaker 1: needle via earned media, right, you're willing to compensate the

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Speaker 1: talent in exchange for that. And so you do see

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Speaker 1: that up in a lot you know, you know, on

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Speaker 1: the talent you know side again, I think more frequently

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Speaker 1: in both um consumer media, but also uh quite often

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Speaker 1: in consumer products you know as well. And are you

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Speaker 1: seeing I would imagine that you're seeing, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: talent getting some form of equity, whether it's you know,

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Speaker 1: equity equity or a small slice of equity. But I

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Speaker 1: mean that seems to be a growing area. I would imagine,

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Speaker 1: you know, a growing area focus for the you know,

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Speaker 1: for the many you know, top tier folks that you

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Speaker 1: guys represent. Yeah, there is, there is, There's there's a

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Speaker 1: couple of themes, right because you know, there's always been

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Speaker 1: a very robust endorsement business for a lot of talent.

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Speaker 1: But what we're increasingly saying is that the talent are

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Speaker 1: interested both because of the potential financial returns. But also

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Speaker 1: I think the legacy aspect of it in building you know,

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Speaker 1: big and meaningful you know businesses, and there are macro

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Speaker 1: factor is driving this. You know one if you look

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Speaker 1: at and you look at studies around younger consumers, they

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Speaker 1: are increasingly looking for brands that they that have a

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Speaker 1: founder led story and they understand the mission around and

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Speaker 1: talent are highly effective at this. You also hear the

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Speaker 1: same thing from retailers, so um Target has done especially

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Speaker 1: well at this over the past few years and bringing

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Speaker 1: in founder, founder led brands. I think the other fact,

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Speaker 1: and this really touches in with media, is that it's

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Speaker 1: harder and harder to tell your brand story through traditional media.

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Speaker 1: Right there's less advertising space. And so if you look

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Speaker 1: at the platforms that are growing, let's so let's let's

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Speaker 1: look at the social networks. Think any of the right, Facebook, Instagram, Snap.

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Speaker 1: The actual content that people are consuming is generally the

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Speaker 1: social content that you and I or a celebrity or

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Speaker 1: an influencer is creating. And so they're actually controlling that

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Speaker 1: marketing message in a way that's much more powerful. And

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Speaker 1: I think the brands are increasing recognizing that that they

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Speaker 1: are an effective manner kind of breaking through, you know,

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Speaker 1: breaking through the noise. You must have seen um you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean you must be watching with interest. The growth

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Speaker 1: of TikTok and and TikTok as a as a marketing platform,

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Speaker 1: is you know, the fact that that feels almost baked

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Speaker 1: into its d n A. It seems like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's so much opportunity there, Uh certainly. I think one

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Speaker 1: thing that's interesting is before TikTok, you may have to

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Speaker 1: go back, uh ten years to find the last breakthrough

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Speaker 1: social media product, which is probably Instagram, right, So it's

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Speaker 1: been a while, so it's hard to get those network effects.

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Speaker 1: And each of these platforms has a different kind of

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Speaker 1: influence or a creator and typically a different kind of

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Speaker 1: um product are kind of product opportunity comes out of it.

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Speaker 1: So what's interesting about and about TikTok specifically is for

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Speaker 1: me is one the growth of food. Like food has

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Speaker 1: always been a category that we've always felt that talent

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Speaker 1: could push on. It's always been historically been a category

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Speaker 1: that's not been as attractive because the margins have been

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Speaker 1: somewhat thin. At the retail level. You've got to sell

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Speaker 1: a lot of boxed macaroni and cheese to make it

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Speaker 1: worth your Yeah, when you're seeing a lot of creators

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Speaker 1: do very interesting things. So, for example, we represent Half Baked,

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Speaker 1: harrist Right, who is one with the YouTube an TikTok,

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Speaker 1: Joshua Wiseman who is a fast growing kind of young

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Speaker 1: hip you know, celebrity chef. And so each of these

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Speaker 1: platforms does create their own set of stars and influencers

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Speaker 1: which then leads to a series of businesses that they

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Speaker 1: can build. When you go out in the in the

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Speaker 1: business building part of your job, when you go out

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Speaker 1: to look to raise money for people, do you find

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Speaker 1: that you find do you have the usual suspects? Do

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Speaker 1: you have the usual ten firms that come in to

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Speaker 1: my mind, I keeps every time I turn around, there's

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Speaker 1: a new something, something capital new, you know, venture is

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Speaker 1: inc It feels it feels like there's just like a

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Speaker 1: lot of new faces coming into the you know, a

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Speaker 1: new interest in the industry. Are you seeing them right? Um? Well,

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Speaker 1: first I should start by saying it's not just me.

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Speaker 1: I have an amazing team. Um. And I will also

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Speaker 1: say that I think, you know, pound for pound it

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Speaker 1: it's the best you know, uh team possible. And it

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Speaker 1: is largely a team composed of female executives and that

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Speaker 1: I have a sense as that's why we're overperforming. Well,

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Speaker 1: you want to get something done right UM. But you

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Speaker 1: know what's what's interesting is I think, as we've discussed,

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Speaker 1: I come from a background of having raised venture capital

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Speaker 1: for my own companies, building them and selling them, and

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Speaker 1: that was the model that I truly understood UM coming

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Speaker 1: into it to U t A. What I've learned is

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Speaker 1: that you know, being in client services, we're not a

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Speaker 1: one We can't really have one size fits all. That

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Speaker 1: not every business, not every talent is meant to go

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Speaker 1: through the venture process. And so in developing our group,

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Speaker 1: we developed in essence of financial coverage model and we

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Speaker 1: work with family offices, all stages of venture private equity

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Speaker 1: and also UM corporations. And the models have a wide

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Speaker 1: variety in terms of how they're capitalized. So there are

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Speaker 1: businesses UM that we've gone out and we've raised venture

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Speaker 1: capital for so UM. So for example, we have a

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Speaker 1: business with Ray called Ciena Naturals, which is a natural

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Speaker 1: haircare company is run by a woman named on a joke,

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Speaker 1: who's fantastic. That company UM is venture backed, large venture backed.

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Speaker 1: But there are other businesses where we've structured them as

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Speaker 1: joint ventures with corporations or brand incubators. An example of

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Speaker 1: that would be we have a business called Anomally with

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Speaker 1: Prianka Chopra, Jonas Uh and Mesa. Mace is backed by

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Speaker 1: mass A beauty brand, the incubator, and they're backed by Being,

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Speaker 1: which is a private equity company UM, and they have

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Speaker 1: different I'm not saying one's better than the other, right,

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Speaker 1: It's really about what are the ultimate goals and objectives

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Speaker 1: you know, of our of our clients UM. But there

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Speaker 1: are a wide variety of bottles, so it's not I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's there's no usual substance you know, useful

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Speaker 1: suspects model, although there are certain marketplaces. So if you're

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Speaker 1: going to build a beauty brand, you know that there

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Speaker 1: are a certain number of very strong brand incubators that

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Speaker 1: you're gonna work with, and if you're going to do

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Speaker 1: it on your on, there are a certain number of

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Speaker 1: venture funds who are top to your funds who really

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Speaker 1: excel right at and investing if you want to go

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Speaker 1: down down that path. But what's really interesting to me,

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Speaker 1: and particularly kind of given out the sizing, is that

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Speaker 1: the range of models that that we've been able to

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Speaker 1: kind of work through. And I will tell it's it's

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Speaker 1: say it's it's really um, it's changing in real time.

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Speaker 1: What are you finding in terms of particularly younger talents

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Speaker 1: that comes to you. Are you finding is there a

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Speaker 1: real sense of like digital entrepreneurship out there? Are people?

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Speaker 1: Do people come in Talented people come in come in

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Speaker 1: your doors with the idea of yeah, I can build

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Speaker 1: a company. You know. It feels to me like there

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Speaker 1: is a breed of you know, twentysomething that has a

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Speaker 1: podcasting company in their head and working, you know, working

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Speaker 1: on other audio projects on the side. I'm amazed at

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Speaker 1: how many plates people can juggle, right, So we call

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Speaker 1: them the multi hyphen it's right because they can do

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Speaker 1: so many different things. And so there is UM. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm just starting with a question on on digital platforms.

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Speaker 1: I think many of the creators who um are building

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Speaker 1: businesses on digital platforms. Um, they're breaking down that that

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Speaker 1: that that wall, that barrier. Right. I used to always

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Speaker 1: say this, and men was in the managin of Maker

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Speaker 1: Studios and YouTube Network, and what I saw there was

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Speaker 1: when you were speaking directly to your audience, they really

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Speaker 1: understood who you were, and you had a greater ability

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Speaker 1: to influence influence purchase behavior. Um. And so I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of the digital creators are really savvy and

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Speaker 1: really understand us. UM. And so if you look at someone,

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Speaker 1: for example, like Emma Chamberlain is one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: digital stars period full stop. UM. We worked with her

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Speaker 1: and we've we've built a coffee company with her called

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Speaker 1: Chamberlain Coffee, which is doing incredibly well. UM. But it's

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Speaker 1: because I think the audience understands from day one, right,

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Speaker 1: her love of of coffee in that category. Um. And

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Speaker 1: that's happening across the board. You could look at our clients,

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Speaker 1: the Demilio's um who are on on TikTok, you could

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Speaker 1: you could look at a number of the beauty influencers, right,

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Speaker 1: they've almost baked in commerce as part of their DNA.

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Speaker 1: The content itself, right is you know, instructional is educational

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Speaker 1: right in a way that it wasn't you know for

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Speaker 1: a previous generation who was on film and TV. It's

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Speaker 1: a very different, very different tool. Kid. We'll be back

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Speaker 1: with more from Sam Wick after a quick break, and

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Speaker 1: we're back with U t A. Sam Wick. Sam tell

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Speaker 1: us about your own journey through digital startups and entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 1: How did you How did you get on the path

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Speaker 1: that led you to U T a UM. One of

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Speaker 1: my colleagues like to say, it's the wind, the long

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Speaker 1: and winding road, how I got to you T a UM.

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Speaker 1: I've always been interested in media and tech. I actually

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Speaker 1: started my career doing A and R for American recordings.

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Speaker 1: I worked for a guy named Rick Rubin who anywhere

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Speaker 1: to him anyone loves hip hop Los O very well.

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Speaker 1: I actually signed a group called System of a Down

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Speaker 1: UM and that was my whole first career and I

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Speaker 1: and I loved music then and I love music now.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that I often say is,

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Speaker 1: no matter what job I choose, it always seems that

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Speaker 1: that company chooses to be in music. UM. From there,

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Speaker 1: I moved into media and tech and I did a

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Speaker 1: series of companies. I ran content for MBA three dot com,

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Speaker 1: which we took public in the early aughts. UM. I

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Speaker 1: then did a SAS company with Mike Jones, who runs

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Speaker 1: a very well thought of incubator here in Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: called science called user Plane, that we sold to a

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Speaker 1: o LL. I ran marketing and content from for my

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Speaker 1: Space if you remember that. Uh And then UH I

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Speaker 1: was on the management team of Maker Studios and it

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Speaker 1: was you know, which we sold to Disney. That in

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Speaker 1: and of itself must have been quite a journey. I

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Speaker 1: had to tell you. Disney is a really amazing company.

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Speaker 1: It is like, you know, the way they tell stories

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Speaker 1: UM and and not just you know, on a screen

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Speaker 1: or on a box, but thinking about the brand, the

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Speaker 1: entire brand life cycle of storytelling is incredibly powerful. UM

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Speaker 1: And being from UH I grew up in southern California,

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Speaker 1: I used to go to Disneyland every year for my

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Speaker 1: birthday and and and so there were days that I

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Speaker 1: would pinch myself as I was sitting there on the

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Speaker 1: corner of Dope Drive and Mickey Ev or maybe it's

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Speaker 1: Mickey Mickey Drive and dopev I can't remember. But you know,

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Speaker 1: it was truly a great place, you know, to be in.

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Speaker 1: You're actually seeing a number of those Disney executive as

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Speaker 1: disruption occurs, doing things that are very innovative. Right. So

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Speaker 1: you know Ben Sherwood who ran Disney Media Networks as

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Speaker 1: a new UM coaching and sports startup called Mojo, which

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Speaker 1: were an investor in UM and you know, Kevin Mayer

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Speaker 1: is obviously doing some things that are quite you know,

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Speaker 1: intriguing as well. Um, so it actually did quite quite

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Speaker 1: enjoy my time there. But um what I what I

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Speaker 1: learned both from from Maker and from Disney, was that

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Speaker 1: I felt that this trend of creators being able to

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Speaker 1: build businesses and all the things that we've just talked

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Speaker 1: about earlier day was only going to accelerate. And that's

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Speaker 1: what really attracted me to U t A. I started

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Speaker 1: thinking about, well, if there's a platform for digital creators,

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Speaker 1: there's probably a bigger platform for all creators, all talent,

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Speaker 1: all thought leaders, all speakers. Uh and what could be

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Speaker 1: the most exciting place to do that? Uh? Well, U

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Speaker 1: t A. You know what surprises me is just kind

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Speaker 1: of the amount of ambition, which, of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: people that that make it in Hollywood are never short

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Speaker 1: of ambition. But the I think just the sense of

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Speaker 1: like business literacy, the idea that oh I can I

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Speaker 1: can create a company. I can create a company that

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Speaker 1: will then you know, kick off returns that can help

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Speaker 1: my effort to provide clean water in you know, in

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Speaker 1: another country. I mean that the the connectivity that that

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Speaker 1: and and as you talk about the power that talent

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Speaker 1: can wield to accelerate things, to bring you to bring

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Speaker 1: things to market. Now, UM, do you ever I would

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Speaker 1: imagine that that there must be times when you have

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Speaker 1: and again not not not as super specifics, but there

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Speaker 1: must be times when people want to bring you ideas

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Speaker 1: that you think, you just this isn't going this isn't

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Speaker 1: going to fly, or we this this, we just there's

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Speaker 1: not going to be the market support for that. Do

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Speaker 1: you ever? Do you ever ever have to have tough

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Speaker 1: conversations with people sometimes about you know, what realistically is

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Speaker 1: a business and maybe what is more like a hobby.

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Speaker 1: It's normally the first conversation that I have, UM, and

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Speaker 1: what I found is that, UM, my colleagues and you know,

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Speaker 1: our our clients really respect that, right. What I what

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Speaker 1: I tell them is that what is you know, my

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Speaker 1: goal here is to build spell equity value. The mission

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Speaker 1: statement of my group is to build equity value for

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Speaker 1: the agency in our clients. And um, we do all

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Speaker 1: of this market coverage with all this information. We we

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Speaker 1: you know, all of the things that are having with trends,

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Speaker 1: and we will tell you what we think is. You know,

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Speaker 1: when you're rowing downstream and when you're rowing up stream,

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Speaker 1: and then after we have that conversation, what I will

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Speaker 1: say is that I will help you however I can.

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Speaker 1: I will support you iever right I can. I just

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Speaker 1: want to be I want you to be informed on

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Speaker 1: what's happening within the market so that you can make

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Speaker 1: informed choices. Sam, I so appreciate you taking the time

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Speaker 1: to talk us through and kind of give us your

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Speaker 1: thoughts about this marketplace. If things are changing so fast,

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Speaker 1: the companies are reorganizing, the you know, business models are changing,

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Speaker 1: streaming services are launching every month. What why don't you

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Speaker 1: wrap it up with a couple of like sort of

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Speaker 1: top line trends that you think that are on the

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00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,199
Speaker 1: horizon for the rest of this year. Okay, So, UM,

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00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,479
Speaker 1: I was thinking both about COVID trends and post COVID

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00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: trends UM and so during COVID, there there's been a

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00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: number of areas that have accelerated. UM. We talked about

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00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,680
Speaker 1: a few earlier on But I'm gonna add fitness as

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00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: a big category, and I think that media companies should

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00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 1: really be thinking about it as a content category. Right, So,

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00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: if you think about a business, we're an investor in

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00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: a company called Echelon, which is a a mass market

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00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: connected fitness company. We have bikes and rowing machines, and

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00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: we think about the amount of time that those consumers

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00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,919
Speaker 1: spend in front of a screen. Those mirrors are you know,

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00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: are another distribution channel that's correct, right, um, And also

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00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 1: think about the network effects around fitness, so particularly about

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00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: coming like Strava right with with literally over a million subscribers.

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00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: What wellness and mental health is a category that continues

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00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: to accelerate when I think a number of people are

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00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: having whatever referred to as PRETSD where they they you know,

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00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: they thought twenty nineteen was was great and sucked and

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00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: now that they're they're thinking about being out five nights

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00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: a week. But I often I have this thing, you know,

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00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 1: I can't wait to go to parties. So I remind

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00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: myself how much I hate going to parties, and and

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00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, there's there, but they're being

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00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: a little cheeky about it. But I think there's good.

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00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: There's gonna be real kind of stress you know around that,

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00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: and that's going to be a big category. UM. Food

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00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: delivery and the shifting of how we consume food has

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00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: been a big, big growth you know category for us, right. Um.

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00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: And then I think as as an investor, what we

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00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: have to think about is within all of these categories

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00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: that we talked about, what is the pull forward versus

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00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: the systemic change. So a lot of content companies in

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00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: in Q two and into Q three saw big bumps

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00:26:58,080 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: because people are at home and they were looking for

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00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: content to consume. Right, is that a systemic change or

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00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: did it pull forward and then it came back? Right? Um?

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00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 1: Also think we really I think there will be a

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00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: great desire for people to connect. And I'm I'm very

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00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 1: confident that I think live and many facets will come

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00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: back quite quickly. But I think it will be generational. Right.

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00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 1: So if I was a live you know, if I

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00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: was betting on the live music category right or investing there,

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00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 1: I'd be thinking about probably leaning younger. Like then when

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00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: I talked to my friends who run sponsorship for the Philharmonic,

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00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: that might be a little bit slower, right in terms

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00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: of you know, you know, you know coming back. Um.

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00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: So those are those are some of the areas, and

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00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: then we could talk about you know, cryptos, sports, betting,

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00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: creator tools, fan engagement, all of those are also kind

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00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: of big growth areas, but areas that we were focused

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Speaker 1: on before COVID and continue to focus on today. M H.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review

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00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear from listeners, and

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00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: be sure to tune in next week for another episode

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Speaker 1: of Strictly Business