Acast // Ross Adams

Quality Investing

In today's episode of the Quality Investing Podcast we will be profiling Acast and I will be joined by Acast's CEO Ross Adams.

Today's sponsor is Stream by AlphaSense. Stream is an on-demand library of over 25,000 expert interview transcripts. Stream eliminates the time, money and hassle that comes with conducting expert calls and interviews. My research strategy that I employ at Asheville Capital is focused on finding key qualitative datapoints that point to a business being competitively advantaged or not. Stream helps me execute this strategy in a practical way because they either already have dozens of calls on the company that interests me or they are able to quickly source numerous experts for me that are well qualified to answer my questions. In the six months that I have been using Stream, it has often served as a substitute for the podcasts that I used to listen to. The reason is because there seem to be more nuggets of helpful information in each of these calls that help me to better understand the topic or company that I am interested in at that time. If you have conducted expert calls in the past and are looking for ways to better allocate your time and energy then Stream might be a helpful addition to your toolkit.

2:00 - Acast Basics

6:05 - Ross Adams Interview Begins

8:55 - Making the jump from Spotify to Acast

9:49 - Acast's Evolution

11:44 - How is Podcast Content Unique?

13:56 - Podcasting and Influencer Marketing

15:55 - Podcasting is Undermonetized; Why?

19:32 - Acast's Core Value Proposition

23:26 - Return on Investment for Advertisers

26:14 - Open vs. Closed Podcast Ecosystem

29:19 - Spotify vs. Acast: Commercialization Rights

31:17 - Acast Competitive Advantages

33:03 - US vs International Markets

37:13 - New Developments

39:07 - Competitive Threats

41:15 - Short and Intermediate-Term Goals

42:29 - Acast's Culture

43:51 - Misunderstandings