Diya Sagar, an investor at Lupa Systems, talks with Monetizing Media's Eric Cohen-Peckham about her thesis that investors are approaching film production companies with misaligned expectations, creating pressure for short-term wins without enough risk tolerance and long enough time horizon to develop massive new IP franchises and a content empire t…

Our guest for this episode is Justin Dauer an internationally renowned design leader, author, and speaker from Chicago. He often engages with the AIGA's speaking events, is interviewed in Forbes magazine and Medium's "Forge" publication, and pens articles for Aquent, CEO World Magazine, and A List Apart. He speaks internationally on culture and des…

We dive into the realm of design education and the pivotal role teachers play in preparing the next generation of designers with Mona Alcudia, resident design professor at University of Philippines Cebu, product designer, former manager at FabLab and design director at Unosinotra. Join us as we explore the transformative power of education in shapi…

Eugene Chung has been on the investor side of the start-up world at Warburg Pincus and Morgan Stanley before entering the creative world's of Pixar, heading Oculus Story Studios and founding Penrose Studios. Eugene knows the spatial computing space really well and through this episode he gives thoughts and comments on the current state of the Metav…

Katie is the CEO of Hearst UK. Overlooking brands such as the Cosmopolitan, the Runner's World and more. Some would call her a veteran in the media industry a title she herself reluctantly use. Her background as co-founder of Tortoise and previous roles at News Corp as CCO of WSJ and C-level roles at The Times and The Telegraph certainly builds to …

Leading intellectual property attorneys Bobby Ghajar (Cooley LLP) and Felix Hilgert (Osborne Clarke) share a lawyer's perspective on the rise of generative AI within the media & entertainment industry. Can AI companies be barred from training their models on copyrighted content? Can content creators copyright and monetize content they create using …

Zach Tarica is the Co-Founder & CEO of The Forest Road Company, a leading investment firm specializing in lending to independent film productions. In this episode, he joins Monetizing Media host Eric Cohen-Peckham to explain the types of funding producers need to secure, the role of tax credits offered by different governments, and how his firm eva…

Francis is a rockstar in design and arts field who have shown his artistic creations in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Bangkok and many more. He also has been published in international design publication for his work on repurposing trash to iconic fashion design and art installations. In this episode, we dive into Francis' background a…

Which skills are in high demand within entertainment C-Suites and which are falling out of favor? How is executive compensation 💰 changing and how does it vary between different parts of entertainment (music, film, TV, games, etc) and different geographies? Are companies starting to look down on executives working remotely? Monetizing Media's Eric …

Andrew Kotliar (Partner at MEP Capital) and Ivar Combrinck (Managing Director at Salem Partners) join hosts Eric Cohen-Peckham and Edward Lindqvist to discuss how investors value what different types of entertainment IP (intellectual property) are worth and what the current market is for different types of IP rights. Think: buying ownership of indi…

Video games involving NFTs and cryptocurrencies were supposed to be the future. In 2021 and 2022, investors poured $3.6 billion and $3.7 billion, respectively, into gaming-related crypto companies. Then...it collapsed. Axie Infinity went from over 1 million "daily active wallets" to just 9,000 in January 2023, and the top 10 web3 gaming tokens lost…

Josh Ludmir, a partner at law firm Greenberg Traurig who specializes in contracts between media companies and talent, talks with Monetizing Media host Eric Cohen-Peckham about how one of the most common contracts in the industry is evolving. >> The Personal Appearance Release gives a media company or advertiser permission to use the name, image, an…

Chris Peterson (CEO of Modish Media, former president of Kindred Media at LionTree, and former EVP Podcasting at iHeart) discusses the state of the podcast industry with investors Eric Cohen-Peckham and Edward Lindqvist. // See more resources for media & entertainment businesspeople and join the newsletter at MonetizingMedia.com // Cross-posted wit…

Lux Capital's Danny Crichton joins media investors Edward Lindqvist and Eric Cohen-Peckham to discuss their first impressions of OpenAI's Chat GPT and the shock it is creating across the industry as creatives and businesspeople realize their jobs are about to change (or disappear). Just how good is generative AI right now and what is a realistic ti…

Oj Hofer is an established designer in the fashion industry and has designed clothes for past presidents, senators, congressmen, congresswomen, celebrities, and socialites. And he doesn’t stop there. He has attained a professorship in Kanji Calligraphy and achieved a master's in reiki natural healing therapy. He practices Taiji, Chigong, Kenjutsu J…

Johan proves that you can learn design skills in the least likely place. In this episode, Johan shares how his experience in the Swedish Army shaped his leadership skills as a designer.He started his career serving the Swedish Army and later transitioned to a graphic designer and later led the design team in one of the largest logistics companies i…

Never settle for a job that you’re not fully excited about. Listen as Oliver Bayani talks about where curiosity and opportunity led him - jumping from journalism to UX design, and now to UX writing.Resources Steal Like an Artist - Austin Kleon Strategic writing for UX - Torrey Podmajersky Because Internet: Understanding the new rules of language - …

Happy accidents can happen in design too. In this episode, Darliza shares her unconventional path from patent engineer to content designer. Listen in as she shares her tips, ideas and strategies which led her to one of the biggest companies in the world, Meta.You can find Darliza in the following links: https://adplist.org/mentors/darliza-dar-juan …

This episode features how Dax, a graduate of Industrial Engineering and an experienced customer service representative, engineered his way to design. He narrates how mentors and professors influenced his career path and helped him get the push he needed to become a full-fledged UX designer.

Stephanie Solomon (CRO of Foreign Affairs) and Danny Crichton (Head of Editorial at Lux Capital & former managing editor of TechCrunch) talk to Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about the strategy and business models of long-form political/policy magazines where top government officials, CEOs, and policy experts debate how to tackle the world's ma…

Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham interviews Neal Rothschild, Director of Audience & Growth at Axios, about Axios' audience development funnel. That is, its tactics for bringing readers to their site, converting them into newsletter subscribers, retaining them as engaged newsletter readers, and converting some of them to a new portfolio of paid ($…

Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham is joined by Lewis Silkin partner Cliff Fluet, a leading music industry attorney, to break down which segments of the music industry are hot (or not) with dealmaking right now and why. Covering the gold rush to buy music catalogs, live music's navigation through the pandemic, consolidation opportunities among indi…

Soundcloud VP of Creator Jeff Ponchick talks with Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham about the music company's strategy to provide a tiered offering of services to indie musicians while leveraging their consumer-facing streaming platform for data to inform A&R and marketing. Soundcloud now competes with cross-platform music distributors and label serv…

DEALS | Joost van Dreunen (investor / advisor / Superdata founder) and Mike Sepso (Vindex CEO / fmr Activision SVP) analyze the Take Two/Zynga, Microsoft/Activision, and Sony/Bungie acquisitions Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham. Why did they make sense, why did they happen now, and how do they reshape the industry? Also, has gaming bifurcated into s…

Eze Vidra, co-founder of seed stage VC firm Remagine Ventures, and Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham discuss trends and challenges in the "creator economy" as investors and entrepreneurs have flooded into the market. From the increased priority among many creators to own their own audience and be less beholden to major platforms like YouTube to cr…

echo3D Co-Founder & CEO Alon Grinshpoon talks to Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about how his company is enabling developers to create and deploy AR/VR and other 3D apps/games on the cloud so they don’t have to be downloaded to be used, can be updated in real-time, and can work with high-performance across a wider range of devices. // Keep up w…

In 2019, Salone Sehgal left London Venture Partners to launch a new VC firm focused on seed stage gaming startups in India. She talks to Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about why India's gaming ecosystem offers big opportunity, why Indians are spending a lot more on In-App Purchases than in the past, the game mechanics that are most popular amon…

How do you break into the design industry without a design degree? You will find the answer in this episode where Cris Go talks about her journey from being a singer and performing artist to becoming a UI/UX designer at Investagrams, a Philippine-based finance tech education platform. She shared her values that got her her first design job, and how…

For our first episode, we are joined by Debbie Dabuet, a good friend and master’s degree classmate to talk about how she got into design coming from a psychology background. She shares her tips on how to navigate through application interviews and her design process when things get awry.

Monetizing Media’s Eric Peckham discusses the frontiers of where media brands are attracting and engaging a community around their content with Boye Fajinmi. Boye is a co-founder & president of The Future Party, an LA-based media and events brand targeting professionals in entertainment, tech, marketing, and other creative fields that invested earl…

Pico's President Jason Bade and Chief Revenue Officer Rodolphe Ködderitzsch talk to Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham about the current boom in creator monetization tools and their work to make Pico the central CRM, analytics, and monetization solution for creators to manage their fan relationships and independent business. // Join the Monetizing Med…

Eric Peckham dives into the rapidly growing webcomics industry with Michele Wells, the former editor-in-chief of DC Comics who recently joined leading webcomics platform Tapas Media as Chief Content Officer. // Join the Monetizing Media newsletter and find more resources at MonetizingMedia.com

Andrew Sugerman, President of Sketchy, talks with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about the intersection of education, entertainment, & gaming. Sketchy takes the learning technique of memory palaces as the basis of entertaining, interactive video courses for medical students. Backed by $30M from TCG Capital, they’re now rapidly expanding to new …

TopFan CEO Jeff Kohn and Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham discuss strategies for entertainers and entertainment franchises to own their audience, better engage super fans, and increase lifetime value (LTV) of super fans. TopFan is a platform for musicians, sports teams, movie studios, and others who have large fan bases to create online community…

Exploding Kittens co-founder & CEO Elan Lee talks with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about the $13 billion (and growing!) tabletop games market and his company's expansion strategy within it. Elan was a longtime video game executive who rose to become the Chief Design Officer at Xbox before leaving in late 2014 and launching Exploding Kittens …

James Ruben, the founder & CEO of Hellosaurus, discusses the children's 'edutainment' landscape and his company's platform of interactive videos with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham. Previously the Head of Product at HQ Trivia, James launched Hellosaurus last year as a subscription video service for children ages 2-8, partnering with top YouTube…

Artie founder & CEO Ryan Horrigan talks with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about his company's platform for creating multiplayer games that can be shared and played with just a link on social media, without having to download an app. By bypassing the app stores and platform-specific restrictions and enabling games developed in Unity instead of…

The fashion industry is moving into the virtual world, with a growing economy of digital clothing to be bought and worn by our avatars on social platforms, in games, in VR, and more. Adriana Hoppenbrouwer is at the forefront of this as a Co-Founder & Commercial Director at The Fabricant, an Amsterdam-based digital fashion house. The Fabricant sells…

Meet Cute founder & CEO Naomi Shah talks with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham about building an audio-first scripted entertainment startup. Meet Cute is building a dedicated following around 15-minute romantic comedy podcasts. Since December 2019 they have released over 200 shows. // Join the Monetizing Media newsletter and find more resources a…

Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham discusses the business of Roblox game development with Joe Ferencz, the CEO of Gamefam. Gamefam is a leading game studio and the first dedicated game publishing company on Roblox. // Join the Monetizing Media newsletter and find more resources at MonetizingMedia.com…

Miles Perkins of Epic Games' Unreal Engine talks the use of game engines for virtual production in the film & TV industry with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham. Virtual production is the frontier of Hollywood visual effects, reshaping the production process and letting creatives explore ideas for how to shoot a scene with real-time changes to a v…

Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham discusses the trend of one-person newsletter businesses with Polina Marinova Pompliano. A former journalist at Fortune Magazine, Polina is part of a recent wave of content creators to launch their own freemium subscription newsletters using the Substack platform. She shares her steps in growing The Profile, the so…

Andrew Kotliar of MEP Capital discusses debt and equity financing for films, music catalogs, podcasts, live events, and more with Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham. Key points of conversation: case studies on past deals, deal structures to reduce risk, the Covid-19 pandemic's impact on financing films and live events, and supporting the growing wa…

This episode features a case study on The Local, a collection of English-language news sites in Europe that saw paying subscribers surge from 11,000 to 26,000 during the first 4 months of the Covid-19 pandemic. James Savage (CEO of The Local) walks Monetizing Media host Eric Peckham through The Local's bundling and pricing strategy, conversion funn…

Unsplash co-founder & CEO Mikael Cho talks with Monetizing Media’s Eric Peckham about how his startup explored business models for their massively popular platform for free stock photography. // Sign up for the Monetizing Media newsletter at monetizingmedia.com

Sweet Capital partner Pippa Lamb sees a realignment in social media from general purpose social apps to niche social apps dedicated to users who share a specific interest or demographic. She talks to Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham about why this is happening and how she is analyzing new social media startups as an investor.…

Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham talks with Arlen Marmel, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TCG Capital, about burgeoning startup opportunities in the social audio space.

Rosebud co-founder & CEO Lisha Li talks with Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham about how Rosebud AI-generated photos and videos of real-looking humans with impact the entertainment industry. // // Sign up for the Monetizing Media newsletter at monetizingmedia.com

XTR founder and CEO Bryn Mooser talks to Monetizing Media's Eric Peckham about how documentaries have rapidly become a lucrative business due to their massive popularity on Netflix and other streaming services. He breaks down his company's strategy for financing non-fiction content and what to expect in the space over the next couple years.…

The Monetizing Media podcast dives into the business of media, entertainment, & gaming through conversations with leading entrepreneurs, executives, and investors in the industry. Subscribe to this podcast to hear upcoming episodes with guests like Unsplash CEO Mikael Cho, XTR founder Bryn Mooser, Sweet Capital partner Pippa Lamb, and more. Hosted …