E5: "The Business of Building a B2B Media Company" | Sean Griffey, Industry Dive

Erik Torenberg sits down with Sean Griffey, CEO and Co-founder of Industry Dive, a business journalism company that reaches 14 million executives across 32 publications, and was acquired by Informa for $525 million. Riverside.fm is a presenting sponsor of Media Empires. Go to https://creators.riverside.fm/MediaEmpires + use code MEDIAEMPIRES for 20% off individual plans.

Media Empires is part of the Turpentine podcast network. To learn more: www.turpentine.co

In this conversation, Erik and Sean discuss the story of how Industry Dive came to be, how Sean evaluates acquisition deals and talent in the media space, and what Sean would do differently if he started building Industry Dive in 2023.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Episode Preview

(01:13) Sponsor: Riverside.fm

(02:29) The story of Industry Dive

(04:58) The evolution of business media

(07:05) What did everyone miss in the consumer media space?

(08:17) Business media models and their tradeoffs

(12:27) Industry Dive's value prop

(15:34) How Sean evaluates acquisition deals

(18:40) Choosing a media platform

(22:35) What Sean would do differently if he started Industry Dive today

(28:22) Sean's dream acquisition

(29:42) Building a viable initial audience

(34:12) Substack

(36:56) Data worth collecting and evaluating in media

(40:42) Advice for evaluating talent in media

LINKS:

IndustryDive: https://www.industrydive.com/

TWITTER:

@seangriffey (Sean)

@industrydive (Industry Dive)

@eriktorenberg (Erik)

@MediaEmpiresPod (Media Empires)