APRIL 21, 2023

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

5 things to do

Don’t be like most content entrepreneurs who spend all their time starting (or growing) the business without ever thinking about their exit strategy.

It could be years away, but knowing your destination informs your business strategy today. With that focus at the forefront, you can make more informed decisions about what you do and why you do it.

Here are five things to consider today – no matter what stage your content business is in:

1. Determine your end goal: When you no longer want to own the business, what do you want to happen to it? Among the common options:

  • Pass it down to a family member.
  • Merge with another company.
  • Sell your business while continuing to work in it.
  • Sell the business and leave it.
  • Sell a stake to an investor or partner.

2. Grow your audience: All value comes from the audience in one way or another (The New York Times’ value isn’t related to how much content they develop. It is valued on the buying power of their audience.) Grow your audience to increase your business’ value.

An audience-asset business can feel trickier to value, but it really isn’t. It’s still all about revenue and profit. For a content-based business, anything from 1.5x to 2.5x revenue seems standard — or 5x or 10x profit, depending on your revenue mix.

If your content business isn’t large enough or profitable enough yet, you could determine the price on a per-subscriber basis or downloads over a certain period.

3. Establish a distinct business identity: Can you separate your personal brand from the content brand? Some creators treat the two with a singular identity – their name. That could be problematic when it comes time to exit because the value of the business is intrinsically tied to the individual.

Think about how to make your brand related but not identical to you. For example, Ann Reardon uses her name on her cookbooks, but she’s evolved her brand identity to include How to Cook That. If you didn’t do this from the start, that’s OK. Plan now on how to evolve your brand identity. After all, that’s why you’re talking about exit strategies now rather than when you want to exit.

4. Write down your plan: Include your dream vision for the business, your exit goal, and your achievement date. Keep it at the forefront visually and mentally, as it should serve as the basis for all the decisions you make about your business.

Your exit plan isn’t set in stone but should remain as solid as possible because it’s the guiding light for the business strategy.

5. Make connections: Share the plan with your team and family, especially if passing down the business is the goal. That way, everybody understands the ultimate goal and can work toward achieving it.

If you plan to sell, identify potential buyer categories and specific companies. Create a spreadsheet with categories such as acquiring brand, rationale, and contacts. Then pay close attention to the news about what’s happening with those companies and the industry. Update the tracker accordingly. You may delete some and add others.

Connect with people at those potential buyers. You won’t talk acquisition now, but you might find a partner for an upcoming project or a sponsor for your latest podcast. You also can learn more about the company, its people, culture, etc.

Yes, it can initially seem odd to plan your exit from the business you plan to start or the one you’re in the middle of growing. But doing so informs your ongoing strategy so you can have the most profitable and satisfying exit when you’re ready.

Resources:

Want more tips? Creator Economy Expo has a whole track devoted to content operations. Join us next month and use coupon code TILTNEWS200 to save $200 off any in-person pass!

Want to guest blog for The Tilt? Here are the guidelines. Have a question? Ask Ann.


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5 things from the tilt

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5 things to know

Money
  • Snap up: Creators on Snapchat will benefit from the full platform rollout for ad revenue-sharing. You need at least 50K followers and 25M monthly Snap views. Oh, and you must post at least 10 Stories a month. (Tech Crunch)
    Tilt Take: Of course, revenue is a good thing. We were more interested to learn the pilot program led users to spend more than double the time (year over year) viewing Snaps from that initial creator group. That’s an amazing incentive for platforms to share revenue with creators.
Audiences
  • Buy up: Vox spun off its site NowThis into a deal backed by a nonprofit focused on civic engagement. Recurrent sold the Saveur website to an investment group led by its longtime editor. All indicators show that big media may be more interested in selling than acquiring. (A Media Operator)
    Tilt Take: It’s not just big media looking to sell. Ask content entrepreneurs with similar audiences about acquiring your content business to help expand and grow your business more quickly.
  • Twitter down: Twitter web traffic dropped almost 8% in March compared to March 2022. Visitors to the site have been dropping the past three months, year over year. (That’s contrary to Elon Musk’s claims.) (Vox)
    Tilt Take: Twitter isn’t on life support, but competition increases. Read this interesting take in The Guardian on the new and the old vying for audiences. (And keep monitoring your Twitter analytics so you can adjust quickly.)
Tech and Tools
  • Links up: Instagram creators can now add up to five links in their bio. (CNET)
    Tilt Take: Make sure to update your bio with your highest converting and relevant links, so you don’t have to rely on Instagram as much to reach your audience.
And Finally
  • Guidance up: YouTube updated its community guidelines that ban content that glorifies or celebrates eating disorders. Now, it indicates it “may remove imitable content, age-restrict content, or show a crisis resource panel on videos about eating disorders or self-harm topics.” (tubefilter)
    Tilt Take: We like that YouTube also says they will reach out to creators whose content gets removed to help them play by the rules in the future.


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the tilt team

Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Pam Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony.