The Rise of Media-First Investors

-Scarcity? Let’s see: how many opportunities do you get to invest with your favorite podcaster? Right.

-Authority? I would say so, although it’s not a traditional authority based on title or degrees.

When Patrick O’Shaughnessy was asked about his most important career advice, he said to “learn in public, fanatically.” I agree. Because in addition to learning, you pre-sell the world on whatever ambitious project you dream up next.

In his book Influence, Robert Cialdini outlined the “universal principles of influence” as reciprocity, liking, authority, social proof, scarcity, and consistency. Let’s see how many of these apply to a podcaster approaching investors in his regular audience about a fund:

Until now, people making the transition into the extremely competitive arena of professional investing through research, writing and meeting the right people were one-off occurrences. But I would not be surprised if we see more of this in the future.

-Reciprocity? Check. You’ve been getting something of value for free.

First, as Sean O'Neill wrote, the “ability to propagate a viewpoint at scale is a new function in financial markets, and it is a big deal.” Firms like a16z are building media platforms. Individual VCs are present on Twitter, podcasts, and YouTube. Their ability to shape and amplify the narrative around portfolio companies can affect hiring, availab... See more

-Social proof? You bet.