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For anyone interested, this 5280 article (Brad Howell sent it along) has some details regarding the demise of print magazines (like Beta) and other layoffs at Outside Inc (which owns PB, too).
https://www.5280.com/2022/05/outside-inc-makes-significant-staff-cuts-s…
this snippet is most revealing
Outside Inc.’s public relations firm did not respond to a request to make Thurston available for comment and instead provided 5280 with a written statement. “Outside has grown tremendously over the past two years, with 20 acquisitions and a quadrupled paid membership to over 800K paid subscribers, but growth often necessitates change. In line with what many in the media industry have seen as the future of media, we are making a concerted shift from a high volume of print to a greater focus on immersive video and digital storytelling. With this shift, Outside made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce headcount. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has played an active role in helping the brand progress towards our vision of being the leading platform for outdoor content, services, and activity.”
Thurston told Outside Inc. employees via the video meeting that current economic conditions made it more difficult in the short-term to move the company from private ownership to a publicly traded company and forced the cutbacks. The savings, Thurston said, would give the company more operating “runway” in the meantime.
casimiro also had a good article about it on adventure journal - https://www.adventure-journal.com/2022/05/thoughts-on-outsides-layoffs-…
so is it really that the stock market takes a dump, investments tank, and purse strings are tightened by venture-capital owners, so heads roll? i realize magazines aren't selling, but IMO, "immersive video and digital story-telling" seem more staff-intensive and costly to create than a few print mags a year if there is any significant volume of output (more than 1 project a month). having worked in print at decline for a couple years, former co-workers and i often laugh at how "easy" we had it back then compared to the never-ending treadmill of internet content now.
regardless of why Outside dropped the hammer, it's a bummer to see friends and colleagues negatively impacted by corporate decisions.
edit - i'm forever grateful that Vital is privately owned and independent. i talk to my boss (Brad McDonald, owner) daily and am happy to say he's a bike nerd. in the nearly 12 years since he agreed to embrace some kooky, speech-bubble-filled website about mountain biking (littermag) and give its creator a career, there has never been a conversation about "operating runway" or pleasing an outside investor. while very practical and sensible, he also lets us run and have fun. Thank you, Brad!
https://www.5280.com/2022/05/outside-inc-makes-significant-staff-cuts-s…
this snippet is most revealing
Outside Inc.’s public relations firm did not respond to a request to make Thurston available for comment and instead provided 5280 with a written statement. “Outside has grown tremendously over the past two years, with 20 acquisitions and a quadrupled paid membership to over 800K paid subscribers, but growth often necessitates change. In line with what many in the media industry have seen as the future of media, we are making a concerted shift from a high volume of print to a greater focus on immersive video and digital storytelling. With this shift, Outside made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce headcount. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has played an active role in helping the brand progress towards our vision of being the leading platform for outdoor content, services, and activity.”
Thurston told Outside Inc. employees via the video meeting that current economic conditions made it more difficult in the short-term to move the company from private ownership to a publicly traded company and forced the cutbacks. The savings, Thurston said, would give the company more operating “runway” in the meantime.
casimiro also had a good article about it on adventure journal - https://www.adventure-journal.com/2022/05/thoughts-on-outsides-layoffs-…
so is it really that the stock market takes a dump, investments tank, and purse strings are tightened by venture-capital owners, so heads roll? i realize magazines aren't selling, but IMO, "immersive video and digital story-telling" seem more staff-intensive and costly to create than a few print mags a year if there is any significant volume of output (more than 1 project a month). having worked in print at decline for a couple years, former co-workers and i often laugh at how "easy" we had it back then compared to the never-ending treadmill of internet content now.
regardless of why Outside dropped the hammer, it's a bummer to see friends and colleagues negatively impacted by corporate decisions.
edit - i'm forever grateful that Vital is privately owned and independent. i talk to my boss (Brad McDonald, owner) daily and am happy to say he's a bike nerd. in the nearly 12 years since he agreed to embrace some kooky, speech-bubble-filled website about mountain biking (littermag) and give its creator a career, there has never been a conversation about "operating runway" or pleasing an outside investor. while very practical and sensible, he also lets us run and have fun. Thank you, Brad!
You can work your employees to death, but they are usually paid the same as when they have it "easy".
Actually making a physical product like a magazine has a more variable "cost per content".
I never saw a copy of BETA, but did love Decline when it was around and still have some copies kicking around.
If Racer X ever goes down for the count, it will be a sad day.
Few thoughts...
1) Multiples have compressed and valuaitons have changed across the board. While tech has been most impacted by this, everything feels the pressure.
2) "Digital Content" has always been a slippery slope. On one hand it *sounds* like tech, on the other hand it isn't scalable in the 0-1 kind of way a true tech platform is in that it requires internal creators (editors, writers, storytellers) to do the heavy lifting. Valuations have always been a moving target when there is an element of user engagement (pinkbike, vital, outside etc) but the core offering is editor based.
3) They are always going to try and find the "sweet spot" between costs & revenue. Can we "pareto principal" this? (IE, get 80% of the results for 20% the cost)?
4) Yes, the venture community has completely changed their tone the last few months. 8 months ago was the wildest private fund market (maybe ever). Now its looking like a cold, dark, recessionary period where raising money and extending runway is next to impossible without showing things like layoffs, profitability and a true understanding of where your business makes money. Put another way, you need to show the venture backers that $X of money in = $X of sustainable dollars out.
The real issue, IMO, is the often unrealistic expectations those in venture have to make their portfolio work. IE, they invest in 10 companies and they expect 9 to fail with 1 100xing. They need unicorns or decacorns all the while ignoring what otherwise could be a sustainable, great business because its just not going to be what theyw ant. This results in pretty haphazard management styles, benchmarks and OKRs.
Just my $0.02.
Long time Inside Line listener, but joined Vital specifically to comment. I saw this a few days ago but the MTB world doesn’t seem to have picked up on it, until now. Thanks for making the post.
It’s not very clear, but is this the total demise of BETA, or just the print version? I had my reservations about PB being bought by Outside as did many others.
I'm sure there's lots of us who'd love to kick in a few bucks a month if it means more of your excellent Test Sessions.
There were over 1,000 companies from various US exchanges which went public in 2021, which was more than double that of 2020 and more than quadruple that of 2019. There was a frenzy to grow quickly (even during a pandemic) either organically or through mergers and acquisitions, to prime up for a potential IPO a little later. It was an opportunity for owners to cash out, especially after some of the mouth-watering valuations for many internet and media companies made at the beginning of this year.
Unfortunately, global supply chains have not improved, product shortages are still a real thing, inflation is still surging, Covid is still here, and Putin's ego still needed stroking. Thanks to all of this, companies are now being warned to prepare for a recession. The usual playbook is: find the parts of your company which generate negative cash flow and try to sell it, if you can't, then you'll have to get rid of it.
What I'm thinking is that running a magazine may be a lot cheaper but if the print side of the business doesn't generate any revenue, then the guys holding the purse strings will want it off the balance sheet.
Vital tends to keep things fresh and fun, even if I stalk the forum more than a healthy amount some days, I learn so many things that I haven't run into yet that end up pertaining to my day to day either riding racing or working in the industry, so thanks for giving us the weird stuff spomer
I do miss the soundtrack to the slide shows though, that song was relaxing as hell.
PB isn't a community or a resource anymore, it's a commercial entity (seemingly populated by some of the worst humans on the planet)
Either way, as we head into what is most assuredly a recession following the biggest bike boom the world has ever known, I wonder what will come.
In quick order there were large layoffs, conversion of print titles to on-line only and complete shut down of titles.
A friend was a founder/editor of one of the titles and was kept on initially but his experience eye opening/horrific.
https://bikebiz.com/factory-media-liquidated/amp/
Then after suffering massive losses they were re-sold and gutted again.
Then after suffering losses they were sold again.
These were all well established successful (small scale) publications run by passionate informed people.
This all seems very familiar.
Post a reply to: On Beta's Demise and Outside Inc - Thorough Article from 5280