Curious Beginnings of Techmeme Ride Home
How serial entrepreneur Brian McCullough launched one of the most popular podcasts in the tech industry.
The Techmeme Ride Home podcast, which is hosted by serial entrepreneur Brian McCullough, provides digestible summaries of the top tech news stories of the day in 15–20 minutes. In less than three years, the show has become the seventh most popular tech news show in the US and was one of the top industry-focused podcasts recommended by Forbes.
But who is Brian McCullough and what’s behind the show’s growth and success?
About Brian McCullough
Brian McCullough’s entrepreneurial journey began in the professional services industry helping job candidates write impressive resumes. He started his first business ResumeWriters.com as senior at the University of Florida in March of 1999, after struggling to write resumes for himself as he was graduating from college. View an early snapshot of the website.
According to Brian’s LinkedIn profile (as of Dec. 17, 2021), he launched four more businesses over the next 14 years.
- WhereAreTheJobs.com (2003–2004)
- WhoToTalkTo.com (2005–2006)
- TheJobBored.com (2007–2012)
- ResumeWriting.com (2009–2013)
Brian has since exited all these businesses, aside from ResumeWriters.com, suggesting that it’s still worth hanging on to.
The history of the internet
After exiting his previous ventures and with his first baby on the way, Brian decided to start writing a book about the history of internet in 2013. The inspiration hit him after attending tech Meetups and events in NYC. He realized that the next generation of startup founders and programmers knew nothing about how the technology that they so heavily rely on even began.
The project was also inspired by his dad, because he wanted “to explain why the computer in his pocket is more powerful than anything involved in the moon landing and how it is Facebook lets him know in real time what his college roommate had for lunch today.”
First adventure in podcasting
To keep a record of his research and interviews, Brian drew from his early blogging days and experience as a newspaper journalist to create the Internet History Podcast. This would allow him to use audio recordings to promote his book later on and receive immediate feedback on his work. This decision would prove prescient, as the show immediately attracted a dedicated following and would help launch a successful career in podcasting. Brian had 1,000 subscribers within the first week and each episode was downloaded 10,000 to 25,000 times by March 2019, which earned him a couple thousand dollars a month in ad revenue and sponsorships.
The podcast also led to once in a lifetime opportunities like an interview with co-founder and first employee at Amazon Shel Kaphan, in addition to interviews with the first engineering team at Netscape and the inventor of the browser cookie Jon Mittelhauser. Additionally, Brian was also selected for the first TED Residency Program in 2016, because of the show.
In the meantime, Brian mentions becoming so absorbed in the podcast that he almost forgot about his book, How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone, which he eventually published in October of 2018. The first print of the book sold out and he’s fairly confident that the podcast helped drive sales but doesn’t have a way to measure the impact. He was surprised that a glowing review from prestigious media outlets like the Wall Street Journal would only lead to an extra 500ish sales, suggesting that his supporters and fans accounted for the bulk of the sales.
An important lesson that he took away from the Internet History Podcast is that you don’t have to be an expert with a degree to share research on a topic that you’re passionate about. Anyone can sit down with a mic and read a script summarizing their fascinating research.
Techmeme Ride Home
Sometime around the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, Brian was approached by a media outlet that invited him to host a weekly podcast show summarizing tech-related news. He mentioned the opportunity in passing to his friend Gabe Rivera, the founder and creator of the popular tech news site Techmeme.
*Side note… If you haven’t heard of Techmeme, Brian’s partnership with Techmeme is something you might gloss over. This is an important detail. Techmeme is an enormously influential site in Silicon Valley, with notable subscribers like Mark Zuckerberg, Sunder Pichai, and Satya Nadella.*
Brian thought it would be better to create a daily show since tech news moves so quickly. The podcast could share short but informative summaries of the top tech stories of the day, like Techmeme, but for busy commuters who did not have time to read the news or scroll through headlines.
Gabe welcomed the idea and they agreed on a revenue sharing model. Similar to a franchise, Brian would own and produce the podcast and provide a percentage of earnings to Techmeme to use its brand. Hence the name, Techmeme Ride Home. The first episode launched on March 6, 2018.
The Techmeme brand, combined with the ability to announce the creation of the podcast on the site, immediately caught the attention of a large audience. This helped Brian fill all of his ad spots within 3 months of the launch, giving him a half million dollar run rate.
Ride Home Media
The model for Techmeme Ride Home was so successful that Brian began envisioning a universe of Ride Home podcasts across every vertical. To make this dream a reality, he partnered with a veteran of Hearst, James Welsh, to start Ride Home Media. Since the founding of the company, they launched Election Ride Home in April 2019 to cover the presidential primaries and Celeb News Ride Home later that year in December. They stopped producing both shows in March and April 2020, around the same time that they launched Kottke Ride Home.
At the end of 2019, Ride Home Media received $1 million in seed funding from Tiny Capital, giving the company a total valuation of $3.8 million. Techmeme Ride Home was the company’s primary source of revenue. In 2019, Brian was charging $30-$35 CPMs (~50,000 downloads per episode), compared to an industry average of $18-$25 during the same period. Around 60% of his ad inventory was through direct sales. He also has several relationships with different agencies to fill ad placements. He uses Anchor’s dynamic advertising placements to fill any unsold spots, which is rare. A small percentage of the show’s listeners pay $5 for an ad-free subscription.
That covers the most recent information that I could find on the company’s revenue. Ride Home Media likely charges more for ad placements now, given the massive growth in the podcasting industry in recent years, which has pushed up CPMs.
The company has also branched out since those initial interviews and reports. In May 2021, they launched SpaceCasts, a live audio collective with well-known contributors like Alex Kantrowitz, Ken Yeung, Matt Navarra, and Chris Messina. The collective operates on a revenue sharing model by divvying up profits based on the number of downloads of each contributing show.
More recently, the company created Ride Home Fund, which is an early-stage investment fund for startups. Brian announced the fund to investors in an episode of Techmeme Ride Home and invited startups to send their pitch decks a few weeks later. As of this writing, the Ride Home Fund has invested in 14 startups in less than two months.
Key takeaways
There are many factors behind the success of Techmeme Ride Home. Most obviously, the Techmeme brand has a strong reputation that enabled the show to immediately attract a large (and valuable) audience. A reputable brand will help you immediately get ahead of competition, especially given the proliferation of mis- and disinformation.
Another key factor is the host, Brian McCullough. Brian has over 20 years in the industry and has cultivated an expansive network that consists of influential contacts. This speaks quite highly of character. He’s managed to avoid burning bridges in a relatively exclusive and tight-knit industry.
Brian’s also a talented communicator. He delivers concise and informative summaries of the top stories that are trending in tech. By threading information from stories that he’s covered previously, there is a sense of coherence and consistency that can easily get lost in the dynamic world of tech journalism.
Lastly, Brian moves quickly when he sees an opportunity, but he also doesn’t waste time on projects that aren’t working. He took this approach within the job services industry with his five websites and you can see this pattern emerging again with the Ride Home franchise. Brian capitalized on the verticals that were working and immediately dropped the ones that weren’t. On the other hand, one could argue that he spread himself too thin. The projects may have succeeded if he had invested the appropriate amount of time and resources before launching another one. Regardless of the interpretation, Brian’s business decisions appear to have largely worked out in his favor, opening more doors than closing them.
References and Additional Resources
“About The Author. Brian McCullough.” Internet History Podcast. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/author/brian-mccullough/
AEIdeas. “‘How the Internet Happened’: A Long-read Q&A With Brian McCullough” American Enterprise Institute. March 1, 2019. https://www.aei.org/economics/how-the-internet-happened-a-long-read-qa-with-brian-mccullough/
Betubiza, Cynthia. “Meet Our First Class of TED Residents.” TED News. April 25, 2016. https://blog.ted.com/meet-our-first-class-of-ted-residents/
Bishop, Todd. “Can Your Podcast Make Money, After All? Pioneer Square labs Spinout Glow Debuts Tech Platform Podcast Memberships.” GeekWire. June 10, 2019. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/can-podcast-make-money-pioneer-square-labs-spinout-glow-debuts-tech-platform-podcast-memberships/
“Brian McCullough.” Podchaser. https://www.podchaser.com/creators/brian-mccullough-107ZzmXKDY
Carman, Ashley. “A New Collective Will Share a Podcast Feed To Make Money Off Clubhouse And Twitter Spaces.” The Verge. June 1, 2021. https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22461737/twitter-spaces-clubhouse-room-collective-spacecasts-podcast-feed
Duran, Harry. “190 Brian McCullough — Reporting The Daily Tech News.” Podcast Junkies. March 2019. https://podcastjunkies.captivate.fm/episode/190-brian-mccullough-reporting-the-daily-tech-news
Forbes Technology Council. “16 Tech Leaders Share Their Favorite Industry-Focused Podcasts.” Forbes. April 26, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/04/26/16-tech-leaders-share-their-favorite-industry-focused-podcasts/?sh=329a4df07d76
McCullough, Brian. “Startups! Send Your Pitch Decks (And How ANY Listener Can Participate).” Techmeme Ride Home. September 26, 2021. https://play.acast.com/s/techmeme-ride-home/gid%3A%2F%2Fart19-episode-locator%2FV0%2FVwJ3iEQeX8h3Y0kAJOpLGeuw4wDc65eWeng3kmZ76yA
McCullough, Brian. “Ride Home Early Stage Fund (And How To Maybe Invest In It).” Techmeme Ride Home. September 5, 2021. https://play.acast.com/s/techmeme-ride-home/gid%3A%2F%2Fart19-episode-locator%2FV0%2Fy9JxTFerdB0Ga5JnUjevn7KD-dQzos3arBculVkrBTI
McCullough, Brian. How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone. Liveright. October 23, 2018. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631493072
McCullough, Brian. “My TED Talk Is Live.” Internet History Podcast. November 22, 2016. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2016/11/my-ted-talk-is-live/
McCullough, Brian. “History In The Digital Age.” TED. July 2016. https://www.ted.com/talks/brian_mccullough_history_in_the_digital_age
McCullough, Brian. “Netscape’s Rosanne Siino.” Internet History Podcast. June 24, 2018. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/02/amazon-technical-co-founder-and-employee-1-shel-kaphan/
McCullough, Brian. “Amazon’s Technical Co-founder And Employee #1, Shel Kaphan.” Internet History Podcast. February 1, 2015. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/02/amazon-technical-co-founder-and-employee-1-shel-kaphan/
McCullough, Brian. “Chapter 1, Supplemental 4 — An Interview With Jon Mittelhauser.” Internet History Podcast. March 27, 2014. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2014/03/chapter-1-supplemental-4-an-interview-with-jon-mittelhauser/
McCullough, Brian. “This Podcast Is An Interactive Project.” Internet History Podcast. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/about-this-podcast/
McCullough, Brian. “Who Is Behind This Podcast.” Internet History Podcast. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/who-is-behind-this-podcast/
Owens, Simon. “Why Techmeme Launched A Podcast.” The Business of Content. June 18, 2019. https://medium.com/the-business-of-content/why-techmeme-launched-a-daily-podcast-d7ed192a8bea
Ride Home Fund. https://www.ridehomefund.com/
Rivera, Gabe. “You Should Immediately Subscribe to Techmeme’s New Daily Podcast.” Techmeme. March 6, 2018. https://news.techmeme.com/180306/podcast
Rowley, Jason D. “Ride Home Media Raises $1M To Build ‘Summary-As-A-Service’ Podcast Network.” Crunchbase. December 9, 2019. https://news.crunchbase.com/news/ride-home-media-raises-1m-to-build-tldr-as-a-service-podcast-network/
Shipper, Dan & Nathan Baschez. “#25 — Behind The Scenes Of Our First Ad Deal.” Talk Therapy. September 2, 2020. https://every.to/talk-therapy/25-behind-the-scenes-of-our-first-1046509
Surden, Esther. “History Of The Commercial Internet Brought Into Focus By Brian McCullough At Princeton Tech Meetup.” NJ Tech Weekly. March 14, 2019. https://njtechweekly.com/history-of-the-commercial-internet-brought-into-focus-by-brian-mccullough-at-princeton-tech-meetup/
Werzel, Charlie. “Meet The Man Whose Site Mark Zuckerberg Reads Every Day.” BuzzFeed News. March 19, 2017. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/meet-the-man-who-shapes-techs-narrative
“Who Are We?” ResumeWriters.com. https://resumewriters.com/about.html
Originally published at https://curiositysphere.com on December 18, 2021.
