How to scale an events business, own a product category, and message a niche food brand

Executive overview

Three early-stage founders get advice on scaling, competition, and messaging from BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti. The episode opens with Peretti's own reinvention story: BuzzFeed faces a going-concern notice and is rebuilding through new AI-powered apps and community-focused media.

The through-line: in a world of infinite digital content, scarcity comes from real-world community, obsession-driven products, and brands that educate rather than just label.

BuzzFeed's current situation

• Social traffic from publishers collapsed as the web fragmented across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
• BuzzFeed now drives direct traffic, investing in comments and community rather than viral distribution
• HuffPost membership is growing; legacy debt and pre-COVID leases remain the main drag
• New "Branch Office" incubator is building AI-native apps (e.g. Conjure Camera: daily photo challenges revealing unseen things)
• Peretti frames this as returning to founder mode: accepting risk while rebuilding

Motion Flix — outdoor cinema events (Anthony Cortez, Miami)

• $1M+ revenue; operates in LA, San Diego, Orlando, Tampa, Miami; clients are property managers, streamers, cities
• Core challenge: seasonal cashflow and how to scale to new cities efficiently
• Current lean: hire city operators on salary + profit share, build replicable training system with AI

Franchise vs. other models:

• Franchise: fast to scale, requires strong brand clarity and tight operational standards

• Company-owned hubs: more control, slower, capital-intensive

• Licensing: faster but harder to maintain quality

• Marketplace (Airbnb-style): highest upside, hardest to bootstrap both supply and demand sides

• Key franchise lesson from Wingstop: simple model + replicable system + brand — in that order

• Peretti's add: build a real-time platform where weather windows trigger pop-up screenings; positions the business closer to a live events marketplace

• Near-term differentiator: leverage existing property management relationships as a distribution moat competitors can't easily replicate

CatSumo — interactive cat wrestling glove (Andrew Bruce, San Francisco)

• Launched November 2023; viral video December 2023; left engineering job April 2024; $1.2M in sales by end of year
• Core challenge: knockoffs already appearing on Amazon; how to own the category long-term

Strategies for category ownership:

• Speed over perfection: first-mover brand recognition matters more than being cheapest
• Product line expansion: accessories, size variants, themed drops — already in progress after China sourcing trip
• Subscription or recurring revenue: catnip refill packs, monthly drop boxes lock in customers
• Community as a moat: a competitor product doesn't come with a network; building a media feed of customer cat videos makes the brand sticky
• Content format with high upside: Insta360 camera embedded in glove produces first-person "cat fight" footage — already tested, performed well
• Peretti: viral-first businesses risk a strong year-one followed by a drop; the answer is either sustained virality or locking customers into community/subscription

Unrefined Foods — frozen stone-milled muffins (Melissa Bermudez, Newburyport MA)

• Started late 2024; ~$30K in 2025 revenue, mostly DTC; moving toward wholesale via local co-ops and home delivery services
• Core challenge: crowded "healthy food" category; how to cut through and get word-of-mouth

Messaging and positioning:

• "Healthy" and "organic" are table stakes — not differentiators on their own
• Lead with the founder story: couldn't find food she trusted for her family, so she made it herself
• Educate on the process: most consumers don't know stone-milling preserves more nutrients than industrial milling — make that visible through video content
• Front-of-pack needs numbers: 9g fiber (30%+ daily value) is concrete and compelling; add protein to reach a "high fiber, high protein" positioning
• Current packaging ("real and nourishing") is vague — replace with specific claims and a founder voice
• The real customer may be moms feeding themselves, not just kids — Chomps parallel: product designed for gym-goers, majority buyers ended up being on-the-go moms
• Brand name "Unrefined Foods" creates room to extend beyond muffins: crackers, cookies, other grain-based products

Engagement ideas:

• Personalized messages or poems printed on wrappers for lunchboxes
• Short social videos showing the muffin interior and the milling process side-by-side with industrial equivalents

Jonah Peretti's closing advice

• Advice is somewhat overrated; tactical knowledge matters less than finding a genuine obsession
• The rare moments when the world "opens up" require someone already obsessed with the right thing — not someone who surveyed all options
• Specific regret: taking on SPAC debt to go public without raising capital — avoidable in hindsight
• The right path is one you can't help yourself pursuing, not the one that looks best on a spreadsheet