Our Business Model
Maximum Fun’s business model dates to 2007, before anyone had any idea of how to make money from podcasting. And truthfully, our business isn’t about podcasts. It’s about making stuff that people love.
The key insight that Jesse had over 15 years ago was that if you make something that matters to people, people will want to support it, to make sure it continues and thrives. This is the basis of MaxFun’s membership model: every month, thousands of MaxFun members contribute between $5 and $200 towards the continued existence of their favorite shows. Most of that money (typically 70%) goes towards the shows that the members choose to support. The remainder stays with MaxFun, to pay for our expenses (thank-you gifts, rent, technology, transaction fees, etc.), and allow us to make investments in the future of the business.
Subscription models are very common now, but they weren’t in 2007. Crucially, a community-supported model influences other aspects of how we run the business.
- We prioritize the needs and interests of our audience. Because our audience directly supports our work, we remain accountable to them, and we try to serve their interests whenever possible. Everyone at MaxFun wants to do the right thing. Knowing that we need to do right by our community in order to succeed makes it that much easier.
- Our shows have to matter to people. The key attribute of a MaxFun show is “people care about it enough to support it financially, if they have the means.” Shows on the network don’t have to appeal to the widest possible audience — they can do fine if they provide something essential to a specific group of people. This means that we avoid shows that feel generic and we avoid shows that people listen to but don’t actually value. And honestly, it is much more interesting to do work that people care about. It means that we care about it, to.
- Our model is one of slow, continuous growth, not big swings (and misses). Increasingly, the entertainment business is about placing a bunch of bets, and if you lose too many bets, you go bankrupt. This is not our model. We ask people for ongoing support, and we understand that they are paying, in part, for the continued existence of our company. We don’t bet the business on anything. This doesn’t mean that we avoid creative risks: one of the joys of podcasting is that you can do an awful lot with the right set of skills and a bit of creativity. But it means that we focus more closely on the quality of the work than on producing a large volume of shows and hoping that one of them is successful.
We supplement our membership revenue with a thoughtfully-managed advertising program. We sell our ads ourselves, limit the number of ads that our audience hears, and we have high standards for the advertisers we let on the network. We also go through every line of advertising copy to make sure that people aren’t making outlandish or harmful claims.
Advertising revenue is important — it can be a meaningful amount of money for our shows, and it can provide MaxFun with additional funding for our investments, as well. But advertising revenue is extremely volatile (a fact that is especially apparent in early 2023), and when done wrong, ads can feel hostile to the audience.
We believe that advertising works best for everyone — our community, shows, and advertisers — when it is respectful of the audience. And we do our best to make sure that this is the case.
Our other business lines include merchandise and events, but as of early 2023, these are much smaller and less-developed. All the same, you should definitely pick up a t-shirt from one of your favorite shows. And please keep in touch with us for opportunities to meet with fellow MaxFunsters at live shows and other events.