This $50M/Yr Side Hustle Is On Track To Make $1 Billion By 2030

About this video

Sam and Shaan discuss Craig Fuller’s magazine rollup business Fir Crown, which has grown to 44 brands generating roughly $50 million in annual revenue with 18% EBITDA by acquiring niche hobby publications and monetizing them through commerce rather than traditional media. They also explore how legacy media companies like the New York Times have discovered that games now drive over 50% of user engagement in their digital bundle, and examine emerging AI camera technology that’s being deployed across youth sports leagues to film and livestream games.

Key takeaways

• Craig Fuller’s Fir Crown acquires struggling magazines in expensive hobby verticals (flying, boating, astronomy) at 3-5x EBITDA and reorients them from pure media businesses to customer acquisition channels for higher-margin commerce ventures like real estate communities and equipment sales.
• The New York Times Games division generates approximately $100 million quarterly in digital subscription revenue—more than half their bundle’s user engagement time—by unbundling and modernizing legacy crossword and recipe content into polished, addictive daily products.
• AI-powered sports cameras like Veo are enabling automatic ball-tracking, highlight generation, and cloud streaming at scale for youth leagues, representing an obvious near-term value add similar to early internet applications like restaurant menus online.
• Sam emphasizes that building AI companies requires embedding in specific workflows or use cases; generalist AI tools (like text-to-speech) risk obsolescence when larger models improve, while workflow-specific applications benefit from model improvements without commoditization.
• Successful people build peer learning groups around emerging technologies or interests (e.g., study circles on AI, South by Southwest rooms) to sharpen thinking and build network advantages before trends mature.

Episode details: published June 3, 2024 · 40K views · 49:07 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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