The Podcast Industry: A Viable Option For Investors

This transcript is not edited.

[00:00:29]Heather Osgood: [00:00:29] Hello and welcome to the podcast advertising playbook. I am joined today by Chris Cunningham of C2 Ventures. Welcome to the show, Chris. 

[00:00:38] Chris Cunningham: [00:00:38] Thank you for having me happy to be here. 

[00:00:40] Heather Osgood: [00:00:40] Chris, you are an investor in the podcast space. And the reason that I thought this conversation would be great for our audience today is because you see a very different perspective in the industry than a lot of people do. And I'm really just excited to pick your brain and provide the information [00:01:00] that, maybe people thinking to enter this space might be interested in knowing or even companies in this space might be interested in. But before we jump to that, if you could just give us a quick backstory on who you are and what has brought you to this place in your career.

[00:01:15] Chris Cunningham: [00:01:15] Sure. Originally from the Boston area at school in North Carolina, I was actually born in Finland. So that covers about half of my life and four seconds. I grew up in the internet space as far back as 99. So I've been a founder, entrepreneur tech, startups and learned to cut my teeth through that through trial and error and some wins. I started doing angel investing full-time in 2014, believing in that startup founders needed more than just capital. Again, I did some things but I also made mistakes and looked back and reflected and felt that I wish I had more people in my cockpit, if you will, to help me navigate as a founder. So I started doing angel investing full time, had some success there.

[00:01:53] And four years later I met a partner. We joined forces to launch a $10 [00:02:00] million, early stage venture fund pre-seed and seed out of the New York area. And so I've gone there from this founder operator ad tech guy and pivoted my career into doing early stage venture and investing.

[00:02:14]And I also have my own podcast called The Superpowers Podcast. We're. refreshing right now from doing two seasons with my cohost Bill. And now we're moving to season three, which I'll be doing a solo. We still love each other, but I'm going to be taking it over. 

[00:02:31] Heather Osgood: [00:02:31] Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

[00:02:33]How has the transition been for you to go from Founder and, really maybe looking at things from that perspective to being in those investors shoes. 

[00:02:43] Chris Cunningham: [00:02:43] So I think it's super helpful. The analogy that I always use is the idea of the player coach, or if you've played a sport, maybe in theory, you could be a better coach, coaching an athlete, for example.

[00:02:53] And I certainly think I earn more respect and can talk the [00:03:00] talk with the founder community. Given that I'd been a founder. I ran a company called App Savvy for six years, which pioneered monetizing Facebook before smartphones. So, because I've raised money and had to pivot and I've overhired, and again, I've made countless mistakes because we all do as first time founders.

[00:03:21] I wear that on my sleeve now. So it's less about I've crushed it. It's more about that. I've made some mistakes and I want to ensure that you don't. So to answer your question, it served me, I think very well, if not, it's given me sort of an edge to build trust with the founder community.

[00:03:38] For us being in venture, there's a lot of components, but a huge part is deal flow. There's thousands of companies, a lot of them are terrible. Some of them are okay, but if you can source through the right pockets that really helps increase your odds to invest in the right company. And as a result of me being a former founder in the tech circles, even though [00:04:00] I'm older now it definitely serves you well to be inventor. And I've talked to other venture individuals from other firms that are, that, that have been founders that tend to agree  

[00:04:10] Heather Osgood: [00:04:10] yeah. I think, as a founder myself, that working with people who understand where you have been is so helpful because they can provide so much insight and guidance for you and they also can relate to the things you're going through. So it seems like a really great transition for you. 

[00:04:27] Chris Cunningham: [00:04:27] Yeah, no. And then again, we're, we're not curing cancer, but certainly the idea of trying to give back. So when you can lend experience to a upcoming founder, who's got the energy and the drive. And he, or she listens to your direction because you've built trust.

[00:04:47] Again, we don't, it's their company. We're not trying to tell them what to do. It's a pretty satisfying feeling, fun facts, but also terrible fact Heather, 85 to 88% of startups fail, which is not good. But when you [00:05:00] look at the data, the mistakes are being repeated. So I almost equate it to, I have two boys, as I mentioned to you before we started that.

[00:05:07] Imagine not teaching your kids, the dangers of a crosswalk or table manners or how to look an adult in the eye. So how do you give founders all this fresh money and expect them to crush it? That's, we don't really think that's the right approach. It's much more of a, kind of a hands-on collaborative network approach, which I will say quickly, because as long-winded is our L our LPs, our investors are also folks like me and you. So they're, they've invested to make a return, but they also give their time. And I forgot to that is a very huge component about C2V is our LPs are very active with our founders. 

[00:05:43] Heather Osgood: [00:05:43] I think that just seems like such a crucial piece of it because like then I think that analogy was perfect. And I also think that whether you're a first time founder or whether you have started several companies. As a founder, there are always things that you do not [00:06:00] see that someone else can point out who has a different perspective and a different take on it. I think that that's, that's really fascinating.

[00:06:09] And I guess I'm curious out of all of the industries that you guys could have picked to invest in. I know that you are investing in the podcast space and I'm curious what brought you to that space and why do you think that it's valuable? 

[00:06:23] Chris Cunningham: [00:06:23] So I grew up in ad tech media, right? So the publisher community from The Times, ESPN. Like any media property that had a dot com. I grew up in that, at that sort of error and helped monetize that inventory. So I've always been in tune to what. What platforms are getting people's attention. Before Facebook was a thing, there were other social networks that I was aware of. And before there were Spotify, I knew the earlier versions of those platforms.

[00:06:52] My point is I've always been in tuned with what, mediums attract people's attention as far back as Myspace to Clubhouse today. And the [00:07:00] reality of it is once you, who, whenever you get there and you recognize the power of audio, the simplicity the way that sort of the creative and the advertising can work versus traditional display. The light went off and I'm not, I don't think I was early by, by any means, but it was very obvious to me that this medium would take share from radio and perhaps take share from other traditional verticals, such as digital and broadcast. Now, whether it took share or just attracted new talent or whatnot, number one was, how fun was the medium? And what a great medium you can listen. And when you want, you can be anywhere you can download. So that's easy. You start finding these great talents coming on board. I think we're probably at the point now that people recognize the power and the value of the podcast space. What we wanted to look at, we don't exclusively invest in the podcast space, but we love that vertical.

[00:07:58] One of our companies specifically, [00:08:00] Magellan is a company that is focused on the measurement and the insights of podcast advertising. And that's equating it to a Nielsen or ComScore. Like how effective was your ad? Did someone hear it or listen to it? As we continue to look at the podcast ecosystem, as far as startups, it's probably more around the infrastructure or what I would call, like not the cars on the highway, but the actual highway, if that makes sense.

[00:08:31] So not the anchor, but perhaps what, what lies beneath. But it's not going anywhere. We're extremely bullish on it and love the podcast vertical. 

[00:08:41] Heather Osgood: [00:08:41] That's so interesting. So it's almost to make the analogy of the gold rush that really, you're not there mining for gold. You're there providing the infrastructure for the miners. And in the same way it sounds like that's how you're approaching the podcast industry is maybe this is a bright, shiny object right now that could potentially [00:09:00] make money. But you see it as being something that if you invest in the infrastructure, ultimately that's where the money is because so many people are ultimately going to go back to that resource 

[00:09:12] Chris Cunningham: [00:09:12] A hundred percent and that's yeah, you summarize it better. And the reason for that is we're just trying to mitigate our risks. You know, When you look at sort of 10 different hosting platforms, okay. Like how do you, which one is the winner here? We tried to look at it more in the context of the infrastructure or the bolts or the pieces that all of these players that are potentially competitive.

[00:09:33]Are they going to need this to support and grow their business? And that's hard but that's certainly one of our, one of our core core thesis with our fun and certainly a big reason why we liked Magellan.  

[00:09:45] Heather Osgood: [00:09:45] yeah, that's really fascinating. I love that perspective because I think you're right.

[00:09:48] It feels there are so many competitive companies that seem like they, they always spread out within industries, you're always going to have lots of competitive companies that do similar things, but I love [00:10:00] the approach you're taking. And I think that makes a ton of sense. It's very interesting.

[00:10:03] Yeah. So we saw a big acquisition happened yesterday. We're recording this here in early March and Entercom acquired Podcorn. And I was, I wasn't surprised. I'm never surprised by acquisitions, especially not any more in this space, but Podcorn was not a very old company. And it seems like the acquisitions are just fast and furious.

[00:10:27] And I know I personally get asked about what my opinion is on the acquisitions that are happening in this space. I'm curious what your opinions are on the acquisitions that are happening. And do you see those acquisitions as essentially just building up a few key companies to be the dominant player, or do you think that those, that there's still a lot of space within the industry?

[00:10:52]Chris Cunningham: [00:10:52] So for any medium that I've been a part of, there's always this mass rush, which I think we've seen in the podcast space over the last three years, a lot of venture [00:11:00] money supports companies. The reality of it is, Heather, one or two of these things have proprietary real value too, for shareholder return and there's an exit and the rest don't. And to some extent, I think we're at a consolidation point.

[00:11:14] So first off, if Spotify is the most dominant player and they're making the biggest acquisitions, mostly talent. And then obviously and then some infrastructure plays like that. There they have the checkbook, they have the sort of the equity. I think they're the market leader in the space.

[00:11:29]I think for the first sort of the mid tail or the long tail, what you're beginning to see is somewhat of a roll-up or a consolidation, because there are five or six companies or 20, actually more like 20 or 30 companies per vertical. An acquisition doesn't necessarily always signal a good thing.

[00:11:46] It could signal that company was running out of money. I'm not saying, in the case of Podcorn. 

[00:11:50] Heather Osgood: [00:11:50] True, that's a good point. I've never thought about it from that perspective. 

[00:11:52] Chris Cunningham: [00:11:52] They were running out out of money. They could not get funding. They there's 15 companies doing the same thing, so they couldn't make it. [00:12:00] So I could be wrong, Heather, but I think that there's probably a bit of consolidation and roll up, which we've seen in ad tech and media, again, normal. Completely normal for the medium, but maybe more so like, Hey, we're probably better off, it's hard enough as it is to share our infrastructure or our sales or our, whatever it is to have a better outcome.

[00:12:25] So, So it depends. I think generally when deals aren't advertised, as far as terms, not in all cases, but in a lot of cases, it may mean that there wasn't enough money to be made. And that's the reality. Just to give you a comp, not that we're going to talk about it. We've invested in one of the fastest growing CBD companies in the country.

[00:12:45] Okay. Like for wellness and sleep. No THC, backed by Danica Patrick, Billy Horschel, Baker Mayfield. They, I won't disclose their revenues, but let's just say that 90% of the CBD companies in the country do under a million in revenue and these guys do, 15 and [00:13:00] get X. Okay. So back to the podcast, you got the analogy.

[00:13:03] So that's I think it's probably a little bit more of that. I'm not in all cases, unless it's very clear that it was a dominant company and sort of a, if you understand the space, accompany that just fit a need that maybe allowed that larger company not to have to build something.

[00:13:21] Generally, what that's, what the mode of acquisition is it's a product fit. They're not buying revenue. They're not so much buying team. That's an Aqua hire. So things aren't working it's generally, there's something on your roadmap. And this company allows you to accelerate it by acquiring it. Yeah.

[00:13:38] Heather Osgood: [00:13:38] Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So I feel like that dovetails really well into my next question, which is, what do you think investors are most likely to invest in context of the podcast space? Do you think that they're interested in content? Are they interested in software? Are they interested in like ad sales servers or maybe potentially user [00:14:00] software?

[00:14:00] Chris Cunningham: [00:14:00] I don't know if I have all the answers here, but I'll share it both from being a podcast host and what I've observed. Like number one, I think distribution is always the hardest thing to achieve. It's one thing to create, but it's also to get eyeballs. So any company that's potentially solving for aggregation net, the power of network, by getting more eyeballs on a particular show or content, I think, is interesting. Perhaps companies, as you mentioned, Heather, around advertising. Which businesses are thinking about a different format in which to market or promote a show, I guess that falls under the lens of distribution. But, against something that I, that I certainly struggled with as we were releasing our Superpowers Podcast. Like cool, we can get it out there. How do you get audiences? How do you cross promote? And then, I know there's a lot of hosting  platforms, but is there a format from a hosting perspective and a cost benefit that perhaps [00:15:00] podcast hosts can lean in on a little bit more. But again, back to infrastructure and support and distribution. Those are the two things that I see as the, probably the most valuable. 

[00:15:10] I mean, the harsh reality of it is that there's probably a 5%, 95% swing from Professor Galloway and Kara Swisher and Rogan, and all these other names that we've shared and kind of this, this mid tail, but what's interesting is, what does discovery look like? Which is why I like Spotify. They have an incredible discovery engine for their music experience. And are there other companies that can help support, both discovery and distribution. To me that feels like those are two areas that could potentially have upcoming podcast hosts or podcasts hosts in general not want to participate cause it's, it's kind of hard. And then obviously from an audience perspective, how do I find what I'm looking for? That may not be the largest marquee name. So [00:16:00] those were a couple of thoughts. 

[00:16:01]Heather Osgood: [00:16:01] I totally agree with you. I think that's really interesting. And what I'm really curious about is, as we look at companies like Spotify, which like obviously said at this point, they feel like the market leader. And if spotify is dominating. Is there space because I think distribution and discoverability have been huge issues, especially discoverability where it's easy to find those big shows.

[00:16:24]But what about everybody else? And it's not that the big shows aren't great to listen to. They're big, great shows for a reason. Cause they're terrific, but there are so many other shows out there. And I think the real value of the medium is the diversity of content, but getting that in front of people.

[00:16:39] And it's amazing to me, I was at a luncheon yesterday, which yes, it was an actual in-person. It was the first in-person event I've been to in a year. It's pretty fun. Yes. Yep. And there was an older crowd and I was talking about my business and literally half of the people there did not know what a podcast was or how to listen.

[00:16:58] So I'm like walking them through these [00:17:00] steps, but it's so hard because I want to say they're so great. There's so many terrific shows out there. Like just explore and find, but it's, there's, it's not like there isn't a super easy tool for them to find the kinds of shows that they want to listen to. People just end up listening to what pops up.

[00:17:15] So. I think that'll be interesting, but I am also just so curious if there's space for these smaller startup companies, because it feels like a lot of people have tried to solve the discoverability issue. I've had tons of companies over the last few years, that I have heard of, and none of them seem to really have any teeth. They don't seem to go anywhere.

[00:17:36]Chris Cunningham: [00:17:36] So the best ideas in my humble opinion, Heather are always born out of frustration or pain or just you like it, you took this example, maybe someone, one of your listeners is going to run with it and build a great company and good for them. You go out and you find out that there's a demographic drop-off, I'm just, you know, role-play here with me. And after the age of 55, no one listens because they're used [00:18:00] to radio or they're, that would be a problem I would try to solve for it.

[00:18:04]Is maybe it's a 15 minute version. Maybe it's. Maybe it's the length of the show. Maybe there are maybe there's talent that would be more interesting for an older demographic. Again, these are maybe terrible examples, but I think you get the idea. My other answer to your question is I don't know. And but there's opportunity, it's just, there's some, there's still room it's still early. Is it around distribution? Is that around ad form, advertising. Again, bias here with Magellan, but in anything around analytics and insights, measurement, you spend, did it work?

[00:18:41] I don't know. Yes, it did work, did I, so anything around forget our company, but think about yeah, measurement insights that can fuel or power decision-making, that's interesting. But there are definitely, if you ask me, are there going to be some awesome companies in [00:19:00] this particular vertical, the podcast boom that we have not heard of, that are going to rise and be successful. I think there's no question about it. 

[00:19:07] Heather Osgood: [00:19:07] Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. So I'm curious 

[00:19:11] from your perspective is ad revenue the only important revenue to track within podcasting. 

[00:19:19] Obviously when you're looking at an industry, you're going to say, Hey, what kind of revenue is this industry producing overall? And. It's easy to go straight to advertising and look at that as being the revenue generator. But there are also obviously lots of other ways to generate revenue, by, just saas products within the space. I was thinking also like the subscription programs like Patreon what revenue indicators are important to look at. 

[00:19:47] Chris Cunningham: [00:19:47] From a venture perspective in our firm, we won't invest in any business that basically has any level of seasonality to it. Ad [00:20:00] budgets come for Christmas and we're going to power around that. Or that's ad tech that's basically ad tech is when you rely on an agency or a brand to support your revenue targets. That's too risky  from our perspective at C2V subscription businesses rock, if you can get people to pay on a monthly, get them in at some sort of price point and to increase that sort of that lifetime relationship from a revenue perspective, that's the holy grail. So saas sub, a reoccurring business, that you, you can annualize revenue. That's much more attractive.

[00:20:37] Again, Heather, I'm answering this from a venture perspective, as far as companies that we would invest in or not invest in. And again, but those businesses, Heather,  it's not always a B2C relationship. In a lot of cases you could find a B2B play where a podcast enterprise B2B offering is being sold to [00:21:00] another podcast software, but there's they're paying them a month, a monthly fee. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So from a revenue, monetization subs and software as a service, software for a service, which is obviously what saas stands for that's more attractive. 

[00:21:17] Um, Listen. Advertising as a whole that's what the world is always going to gravitate to because that's what they understand. The challenge there is, it probably only works for such a small percentage that are willing to either spend the money or take the audio ads or the sponsorship.

[00:21:36] Very, Very difficult channel. One thing on top of that, Heather, that I would add is, I think for some people, the ability to monetize your podcast may not be the objective or the goal. Maybe there's a flywheel. Again, I don't know, you know, the idea of having a show and the value for listeners and guests and that whole thing could be driving something [00:22:00] else that is relevant to your business, right? So you don't, so it's almost like it's a sunk cost, in the short term. But you're indirectly recouping your time as a host, I'm just sticking on the host side. So I think there's. It does. I think it depends on what you're trying to do if you're not a mega name, as far as how you make money, for sure. 

[00:22:21] Heather Osgood: [00:22:21] For sure. And then I tell people that all the time, because I think oftentimes podcasters, they feel like ad revenue is the only way they can make money. And I'm like, gosh, there's so many other ways you can make money besides selling advertising.

[00:22:32] And advertising, like you already alluded to is very difficult. Like it can be super finicky and the ad tech is so valuable and so important and there hasn't been a lot of it in this space. And so the more we can get in my opinion, the more that we can get the better the whole industry will be, because it will propel us to places that we're not. You know, we're just not there yet. And it's so crazy to me because we look at the industry and we're like, Oh my gosh, we're doing so amazing. We're going to hit these huge [00:23:00] milestones, but then you look at digital and you look at TV and you're like, Oh, we're not paying like our ad revenue is still almost barely non-existent in comparison to digital and TV. So it's interesting. 

[00:23:11] Chris Cunningham: [00:23:11] I think you're right. But the good news is that, that period, which I lived in from getting the internet to be taken seriously, took 15 years. Like it literally took, before people would start spending against this thing called mobile. I lived it. I started a company and it took, years and we're there now.

[00:23:33] I don't have the data in front of me. But the percentage is huge. My point is this vertical, this opportunity slots into, can slot into the bucket that's already been carved out that's not traditional. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Like print magazine I don't think we're gonna be on, on that radio. I think we're going to agree that those budgets should be declining. I think there's a 50/ 50 split on broadcast [00:24:00] and the value there, but the point is the internet sort of media budget is big. It's billions of dollars. So I think the good news for the podcast industry is you're tapping into that. Versus the what that bucket had to do. I wish I could think of a great analogy, but I suck right now. I can't think of one. But you get the idea. 

[00:24:18] Heather Osgood: [00:24:18] Yeah, no, absolutely. I totally agree. Yeah. It's essentially if if you were trying to get water and you went to a Creek or you're going to a river, whereas they're going to, we're going to get more water. So yeah, totally agree. Now I'm curious. We've we look, I feel like people constantly are like, Oh my gosh, like podcasts are booming. And we're in this like great time. And I founded my company five years ago now. And at that time I felt like it was really growing, but now obviously it's growing so much faster and doing so many more things.

[00:24:49] I'm really interested in what your opinion is about the life cycle of where we're at. And. Are we at the peak? Are we like just [00:25:00] starting up the mountain? I know that's obviously, Hey, if you had a crystal ball, you could tell us exactly, but I'm so fascinated with podcasts and what fascinates me the most about it is that they started in 2004. It's like podcasts are not a new thing. They have been around for a really long time and yet, like, why is it now all of a sudden that we feel like they're growing and where are we in the growth cycle of the industry? Any ideas. 

[00:25:25]Chris Cunningham: [00:25:25] Hard one. Can we use baseball? 

[00:25:28] Heather Osgood: [00:25:28] Sure. I know, I know nothing about baseball, but yes, go for it.

[00:25:32]Chris Cunningham: [00:25:32] We're like in the, I think, the third or fourth inning of a nine inning game. But we're early. We're it's it's definitely early. I think we'll see consolidation. I think we'll see things go away. We'll see emergence of new ideas, both around distribution, both around consumption. What I don't know, if you look at Google and Facebook and sort of these others like, Amazon. The big four, which, I [00:26:00] mentioned Scott Galloway earlier has, you know, famous, famous as a book that wants to break them up.

[00:26:04]With Spotify and iTunes, Apple specifically. And who else am I missing here? What I don't know is, can anyone disrupt their sort of their position and their reach? I would say no. Just given again, eyeballs and distribution and hosting and all these moves at Spotify.

[00:26:23] So Spotify to me is beginning to feel like what Google was for search, or what Facebook in the height was for social networking. So, that doesn't mean that doesn't open up room for innovation. It's just, it's gonna look different. And I'm going to just use comps that I know a language like walled garden or non walled garden.

[00:26:43] Maybe there's benefits over time that we learn that hosts and consumers like about not being on Spotify. I don't know what those are, but I could see sort of history repeating itself. As far as dominant players and the sort of the rest of the ecosystem.

[00:26:58]And what I mentioned [00:27:00] earlier, Heather, that I'm equally curious and fascinated about is what is not happening right now that will happen if we could foresee or foreshadow , both consumer behavior and what kind of content they like, or when they like it, or how has that discovery engine work based on moods or geographic location?

[00:27:20] I don't know. Like right now, I hear about all my, all my pods through my friends. But, I think just like traditional content and Netflix has done this now they've honed in on it. But, how do you discover content that you that are that's really interesting. And yeah, so the that, that's all super interesting.

[00:27:37]But both, but I wouldn't, maybe the opportunity exists, not in the Rogan Simmons. Category, but, if I had a gun to my head and said, you, you have to go start a business now around content. I don't know. I'd probably start getting creative and start trying to find like maybe a pool of people like you, in assemble some sort of vertical of value. And [00:28:00] again, try to articulate what that is. And there's maybe one around, sports or music or travel or whatnot, or, so maybe there's probably other ways to carved content away from the larger players, just absorbing everything.

[00:28:12] And I think that's our real opportunity, because if you simply throw your shows on some of these larger platforms, but you don't get the listeners you may be more inclined to to be open to different distribution. And it's not like Spotify or others are exclusive, so why wouldn't you.

[00:28:28]Heather Osgood: [00:28:28] Exactly. So I'm really Pandora always trips me out because Pandora was so much sooner to the space than Spotify was. And in my mind, I always link the two of them together so closely. And I understand what you're saying and I'm both terrified, but also totally see that that's where it's going. The reality is that. We are. And, obviously Amazon is in the space now. Google's in the space. They're and Spotify there's lots of different players that I think are trying to jockey [00:29:00] for position. Spotify obviously has invested the most and I think has the biggest, an Apple, I left that one out. But why do you have any ideas or theories on why Pandora didn't make a bigger move sooner? 

[00:29:15] Chris Cunningham: [00:29:15] Great question. So look, Spotify, I'm going to see if I can answer this. I don't know if I can. Spotify international, Pandora with US. Pandora classic radio experience, Spotify more streaming. Pandora is a great platform. I have friends that work there. They've been on my show before. It really is a better version of radio. And I think with Spotify, there were so in, in their relationship with artists, right? This is such a closer thing place. You can have a show versus you think Pandora is just listen in the background. So they seem very obvious. To me, why they would attract the talent. And I think [00:30:00] like most things, how there is, once you attract one or two, you can track three or four and you become the winner there.

[00:30:07] But to your point, there's also, I think a part of that, where there is a lack of probably strategic thought that this is something that they should do, right? Let's ignore it. Or, some of that. But, Pandora is radio. It really is radio. It's not so much streaming new artists. It's not discovering the next big hit and does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:30:31] Heather Osgood: [00:30:31] I wonder if Pandora will look back and feel like that was a big mistake that they made, that they didn't take a larger market share sooner. But to your point, maybe it just wasn't part of the roadmap, like maybe, or maybe they didn't have the foresight to see what it could potentially be for them.

[00:30:51] Chris Cunningham: [00:30:51] So I think you're right. I think there'll be a point where they look back and they're like we missed the boat there. They, I don't see how it could go in the other [00:31:00] way. It's too, today it's as too glaring of an opportunity. But maybe they carved themselves out. I think what's interesting to others who does make, who does enter this market from, from out of nowhere, who.

[00:31:12] Is there another platform, Netflix or again? Yeah. Yeah. Another streaming player, that finds a way that carves their way in. And again, if this is about getting big talent on board and you're a podcast host. Tell me if you agree or disagree, but I would think that distribution is everything, right?

[00:31:32] Heather Osgood: [00:31:32] Yeah. No, I totally agree. Yeah. So fascinating. Chris, thank you so much. I think we probably could talk for, for many more hours about this, but I know we need to start wrapping it up. If people wanted to get in touch with you, if they want to listen to your podcast, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

[00:31:48] Yeah. 

[00:31:48] Chris Cunningham: [00:31:48] First of all, Heather loved being on your show, loved your line of questions, and I think it's great that you have this level of. Enthusiasm and passion for this space. And you want to talk about it with people like me and others. So [00:32:00] that's awesome. And I think you're going to do really well.

[00:32:02] Um, I'm happy to hear from people. So podcast is superpowerspodcast.com, super powers, podcast.com one word happy to hear from your guests. chris@c2ventures.co.

[00:32:16]Heather Osgood: [00:32:16] Perfect. Thanks. Thanks for being on the show and good luck in the podcast industry. We're going to have to watch closely and see how your investments play out. 

[00:32:26] Chris Cunningham: [00:32:26] For sure. We'll stay in, touch on it, Heather. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

[00:32:29]