David Theus

Years ago I dreamed of owning several publications and even acquiring some smaller AM Radio markets. This was about the time when names like Paxson and Clear Channel started to make the move into both AM and FM markets and barriers of entry were nearly impossible to penetrate unless you owned your own bank. Their idea was to buy one market after another, until they owned them all, creating for themselves a network, when combined were massive and full of “subscriber based” distribution for their advertisers.

Well here we are some twenty to twenty-five years later and the medium of choice is the web. Who will be the media moguls of tomorrow like those before us? Who will be able to capture the presence and one day rule this vehicle just like the days of not so old air waves and ink? Just when I think there is nothing else to be invented or I’m too old to maximize my efforts on a new venture, along comes a great idea.

As long as I have been around print, radio, and television, the secret to success has been distribution. It’s one thing to own the prime share of markets like Atlanta, Chicago, or even L.A., but what if you could own the market share of say, North America, or the Western Hemisphere? What about the world for heaven’s sake, could it be done?

World domination is probably a goal a little too broad to consider right at this moment, but if you could capture niche after niche along the way, why not? What if you could own the market share of those people who are pet owners and specifically owners of Labrador Retrievers from all over the world for starters?

What about every person who is interested in working on their own cars or completing home improvement projects? About how many readers or subscribers as we called them in the old days might you have access to then? Starting to get the picture? Let me throw out one more twist if I may. What if you were able to not only own one of these markets, but several of them? Who knows, there might even be car owners who like to work on their own cars that own Labrador Retrievers as well.

Can you imagine the cross marketing capabilities that start to happen with this scenario? I wonder if big business would like to get their hands on this group of readers and or subscribers; my answer is a definite yes. The strategy currently is not for big businesses to use their own money on the developmental or cocoon stage of these ideas, but for you and me to do so. After success in eminent, they purchase and brand it as their own.

Having said that, hold on boys and girls, buckle your seat belts, we are fixing to jump right onto the world wide web, the internet highway, the speedway of progress that runs on CAT 5 and Fiber. Forget the days of having to buy expensive license from the FCC or having to have enough cash flow to cover the first five years of postage, paper, and printing costs associated with any publication. It’s every man for himself with a good idea and a reasonable server to host him. To coin a phrase, “…to infinity and beyond” (Buzz Light-year, Pixar)