Is The New York Times about to bet $330 million on the value of community?
The company is reportedly in talks to acquire Letterboxd, a social platform where roughly 30 million movie enthusiasts review films, share recommendations, follow one another, and discuss their favorite movies.
What makes Letterboxd worth hundreds of millions of dollars?
The New York Times already knows how to produce content. It has journalists, editors, critics, and an enormous publishing operation. If it wants more movie reviews, it can hire more critics.
It could also build its own movie-review website, complete with ratings, lists, and social features.
But it can't instantly reproduce what Letterboxd has spent years developing: a network of movie lovers who share recommendations, discover one another, participate in conversations, and keep coming back.
Letterboxd's value doesn't come primarily from content that the company produces. It comes from providing a space where members create value for one another through their shared passion for movies.
Members have spent years recording the films they've watched, building lists, sharing reviews, and following people whose opinions they trust. Even if another company offered the same features tomorrow, why would they abandon all of that?
Community Creates a Barrier to Entry
When you build a business around content, you're competing with anyone who can produce similar content. And as the tools for creating and distributing content become more accessible, that competition keeps growing.
A competitor can copy your content strategy, launch a similar website, or offer many of the same features. But they can't simply copy the relationships, trust, and shared experiences that your members have developed over time.
That's a barrier to entry, even for a competitor with enormous resources.
The New York Times may be willing to spend $330 million to acquire an established community. But you don't need millions of dollars or millions of members to start building one.
You need to identify a shared mission that gives people a reason to come together and create value for one another.
In my free Beyond Content: Find Your Community Revenue Opportunity workshop, I'll show you how to identify that opportunity for your own audience.
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