A show for company decision-makers drew 70,000 viewers and $5 million

Jordi Hayes, who previously ran a business arranging deals between advertisers and online creators, and his co-host John Kugan built a daily tech talk show to about 70,000 viewers an episode and $5 million from sponsors during its first full year in 2025, tracking toward $30 million in 2026 with 11 employees. They built it for at most 200,000 founders, investors, and executives, which they say is big enough because those viewers approve large business spending.

Their first rule is to sell time, not views. They sell sponsorships only by the year, for a fixed dollar amount, not for a price for every thousand views people see. They show a projection for the year and the sponsor locks in a fixed price, so if the audience grows beyond the projection the extra views are a free bonus. That gives the hosts predictable cash to hire and to build a studio, and it saves a tiny team from constant ad sales while live three hours a day.

Think of the sponsor as a Formula 1 backer, not a billboard buyer, Hayes says. Take fewer, larger deals, and put the company everywhere for a year: on the show, on video clips, on shirts, and at in person events. The hosts say they love advertising because it keeps the show free for anyone.

That only works if the audience is narrow and rich. They aim at a maximum of 200,000 founders, investors, and executives who run companies and approve spending on software, cloud computing, and computing power for artificial intelligence. They assume those viewers already know what Amazon Web Services and SpaceX do, and they never slow down to explain the basics.

Then they push the ads in front of people who normally avoid ads. Before an interview with Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, they read him a live ad for Ramp, a corporate spending startup. Sponsor logos stay on screen during interviews, and every one minute clip ends with a full ad read. A clip may get only a few thousand views, but they treat it like trade press for a niche industry, passed from one buyer to a competitor.

They also changed the shape of the ad. They said a 90 second live read would make viewers immediately bail, so they offer about 250 twenty second reads instead, built on repetition. They memorize the lines and flash a sponsor graphic with a button, fast enough that a viewer does not reach for a phone.

The most valuable ad slots they have to sell go to companies that sell software, cloud, or computing power to other businesses. People in the audience can commit $5 million annually to software, or $20 million of cloud services, or $50 million of computing power, but can buy only one sleep aid, or maybe two.