This week’s startup is building a newsroom service to help startups, VCs, and brands create and distribute research-driven journalism.
🤫 …PS, with Daily Dropout, you can sign up for their exclusive early access here
⚾ The Elevator Pitch:
The line distinguishing media from brands is blurring. Just this year, Coinbase announced it is hiring a 30 person media team, A16z entered the publishing space with Future, and Hubspot acquired popular daily newsletter the Hustle. VCs and brands are building (or buying) their own newsrooms, realizing that producing quality journalism is an amazingly effective customer acquisition channel.
But what if you can’t afford an entire newsroom?
Stacker makes producing and distributing great content easy. Their data-driven newsroom creates and syndicates stories to more than 3,000+ media properties, including MSN, Newsweek, Tribune, Hearst, Lee Enterprises, and Nexstar, and reaches millions of readers each month. Studio - their “newsroom as a service” solution - leverages their editorial capabilities and proprietary newswire to help brands create and distribute stories at massive scale. Without building an in-house editorial team or newsdesk, companies can produce newsworthy, data-driven storytelling and reach new audiences through built-in distribution across authoritative local and national news sites.
Stacker’s homepage
👇 The Drop Down
Site: https://studio.stacker.com/
Schools: Duke University, UCSB, Boston College, Syracuse
Founded: 2017
Stage: Bootstrapped
Tech trend: Media
Traction: $3M+ ARR; 3,000+ publisher partners; 1M+ onsite readers
Team: Founders previously exited via acquisition from Amazon; On Deck fellow, ex-Airbnb, & former media executives (Associated Press, Thrilllist)
Noah Greenberg - CEO & Co-founder
Tommy Gamba - COO & Cofounder
Sam Gross - VP of Research & Co-founder
Melanie Vernoia - VP of Partnerships & Co-founder
🔍 Our analysis
- 📊 Stories that stand up to scrutiny
We’ve all read through click-baity articles that are fluff or downright misleading. We know why. Creating research-backed content is hard. Stacker provides a team of researchers to analyze public and private data sets to identify timely topics and trends that help contextualize current events. Their sources? Public and private datasets, including United States Census Bureau, Statista, Barchart, Foursquare, and more. - ✍ Content marketing is king
Apple’s privacy-related updates and cookieless future are forecasted to drive digital ad costs by 60%. Stacker’s solution allows companies to invest in tried-and-tested content marketing, a proven avenue to drive organic growth. Just ask Coinbase, Uber, or virtually any other unicorn who has their own blog. Content marketing is a $400B+ market that will continue to grow. - 🧠 Attention economy
Writers are competing for a shrinking share of readers’ minds. Stacker focuses on engaging lists, ranking, and galleries, which creates a better hook for eyeballs. Moreover, their articles can simplify “dry” topics, such as public policy or science.
🤝 Learn more about Stacker
- Check out Stacker Studio if you're a company investing in content marketing & organic growth!
- Stacker is hiring! Reach out to learn about roles on the team
- Check out a few examples of their news stories:
- Best movies of all time
- The most extreme temperatures recorded in every state
- Milestones in women’s history
- The evolution of advertising
