Gimlet 21: Diversification of Worry

October 7, 2016·35 min·2 clips

Alex Bloomberg's wife says working together at Gimlet means every single worry — kids, work, aging parents — is now a shared worry.

The mic feels strange again. Alex Bloomberg starts with the awkward little ritual of checking levels on the way to work, then says Startup is back for season four. He sketches a two-part season. Lisa Chow will later take over a seven-episode story about a startup the listener probably has not heard of, with a founder the listener probably has. First, Alex stays close to home. His shorter three-episode arc returns to Gimlet Media, the company he and Matt Lieber started two years earlier. The mood is not exactly celebratory. A spreadsheet says they are still on pace for roughly $7 million in revenue, but spending has moved closer to $10 million. That gap sits in the room. Matt and Alex can see the burn rate nearing its peak just as new shows are almost ready, expensive and still not public. The worry has receipts. They had projected this anxious point earlier, and the numbers are landing about where the chart said they would. Still, knowing it was coming does not make it feel better. What changes the mood is the audience downturn, bad news they had not built into the plan. The tape gets blunt. Under the financial nerves, Alex notices a slower fear: choices made back in mid-2015 are only now showing their consequences. Back then, confidence made sense. Gimlet had raised $6 million, launched three hits, and seemed to have proved the bigger idea could work. Now that same ambition feels heavier. Launching several complicated, ambitious, expensive shows at once may have come from optimism, but the bill arrives as anxiety. The episode turns the business problem into something more personal. By the closing tease, someone is crying over the thing they are trying to build, and the question is whether something meant to help has gone wrong.

As heard by us

Gimlet's scaling plan meets its cash burn, launch pressure, and falling audience numbers.

Gimlet's growth story turns into a tighter, more uneasy look at what happens after a startup decides to scale. Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber are still aiming at their revenue plan, but costs have crept higher, cash burn is near its peak, and the expensive new slate has not…

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Press play if you want the moment growth starts to feel expensive.

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