Joel zieht blank für Florian Heinemann und Gero Decker

Joël Kaczmarek on building Gründerszene and digital kompakt

Joël Kaczmarek built Gründerszene and sold it to Axel Springer for under 5m euros. He launched digital kompakt in 2015 and grew it to 40,000 downloads a month by treating podcasting as an appreciative medium rather than a knowledge library. His next move is to merge digital kompakt and 5 Dinge mit 20 into themed days around a model that begins with wealth and health before reaching depth and purpose.

Takeaways

• Business podcast TKP rates run 200 to 350. Joël Kaczmarek says digital kompakt began at 600 euros TKP and now charges 350. Other business podcasts get 200 to 250, B2C podcasts 20 to 120. Non-host-read ads cost half or a third of host-read ones.
• digital kompakt draws 40,000 downloads a month. Four of its five most-downloaded episodes were made in 2021. Downloads peak in three days, then grow over one, three, six and twelve months, an SEO effect favoring timeless topics. OMR gets 80,000 to 100,000 per episode.
• Podcasts lack didactics, so knowledge libraries fail. Joël Kaczmarek names two mistakes at digital kompakt. He wanted a knowledge library across many topics, and he ignored that listeners cannot look things up later. Gründerszene was critical, digital kompakt appreciative.
• Growth runs through wealth, health, then depth. Joël Kaczmarek's model says successful people first pursue financial independence. They then turn to health and longevity, and finally to depth and purpose. The most common answer in his 5 Dinge mit 20 format was to do what you love.
• The business club failed on undefined audience. Joël Kaczmarek says the club solved the what well but tried to solve all problems for all people. The community was called Makers and Shakers, people who take responsibility and act, and its members were relatively junior.
• Cloned podcast models fail without sequential building. Gunnar, who makes the gaming podcast Stay Forever, told Joël Kaczmarek that ten podcasts trying to clone the model failed. Gunnar built it sequentially, adding elements only when the previous one worked, and earns around 20,000 euros a month through Steady and Patreon.

Joël Kaczmarek's path to digital kompakt

1. In 2008 at the d-school, Uli Weinberg taught design thinking and pushed him toward founding. Through Weinberg he met Kolja Hebenstreit, who tore his pitch apart and then offered him the editor-in-chief job at Gründerszene after one interview with Jörg Rheinboldt.
2. He built Gründerszene for four years with Marc Hoffmann and sold parent Vertical Media to Axel Springer in the fifth year for under 5m euros. Team Europe wholly owned it, with investors including Florian Heinemann and Klaus Hommels.