Monetize Within Your Content Core Competency
When you monetize an audience beyond ads, the product must sit inside your content core, or it fails.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 80%
Sam Parr's rule for monetizing an audience beyond ads is that the new product should almost always live within your core competency — content. Advertising is the right primary monetization; when you add more, make it a content-native product (like The Hustle's Trends subscription) rather than pivoting into software or physical goods. The reason is that selling something outside your core turns a content company into a product or software company, which demands an exceptional product, a leader who deeply understands it, and an intersection where your audience trusts not just you but the new thing — many more moving pieces. Unless the founder is to content what Zuckerberg was to Facebook's tech, the out-of-core product almost always fails (BuzzFeed's Tasty cookware is the cautionary tale).
Origin
Sam Parr learned it building The Hustle's content-native Trends subscription while watching media companies fail when they pivoted into software or physical products.
Core principles
- 01Advertising is the right primary monetization.
- 02Additional products should be content-native.
- 03Out-of-core products become a second, harder business.
- 04You need audience trust in the new thing, not just in you.
How to run it
- 1
Keep ads as the base
Treat advertising as the correct primary way to monetize a content audience.
- 2
Test the core-competency fit
Before launching a new product, ask whether it sits inside your content competency (like a research subscription) or outside it (software, physical goods).
- 3
Confirm the operator and the product
If it's out-of-core, require an exceptional product and someone who understands it deeply enough to run it as its own business.
Watch out Selling outside your core turns a content company into a product/software company with many more moving pieces.
- 4
Check audience trust in the new thing
Ensure there's an intersection where your audience trusts not just you but the specific product you're now selling them.
- 5
Prefer content-native monetization
Default to products that fit the 'ikigai' of your content competency, like Trends, over unrelated bolt-ons.
Pro tip Sam's Trends ($300/year research subscription) worked because it was content-native to The Hustle's audience.
In the wild
Sam built Trends, a $300/year subscription with a weekly research email and a community, which succeeded because it was content-native to The Hustle's audience and taught him the value of collecting revenue up front.
→ A profitable, on-core product that deepened monetization without leaving the content competency.
Sam and Alex cite BuzzFeed making ovens and a cookware brand via Tasty as the classic out-of-core failure — a content company adding the complexity of a physical-product business.
→ A cautionary example of monetizing outside the core competency.
Common mistakes
Pivoting into an unrelated product
Selling software or physical goods outside your content core silently makes you a second, harder business you're not built to run.
Assuming audience trust transfers
An audience trusting your content doesn't mean it trusts an unrelated product you bolt on; the trust must extend to the new thing.
Is it for you?
Best for
Media and creator businesses deciding how to monetize an audience beyond advertising.
Not ideal for
Teams with a genuine, dedicated product/software leader who can run a truly separate business.
From the transcript
“You will almost always want to make money in ways that fit within like the ikigai of your company's core competency.”
“You're pivoting from a content company to a product company or software company. It's really, really tough.”
From the episode
The Step-by-Step Playbook We Used to Build a $100M+ Newsletter Business