Ep. #695: David Tao on Creating the “ESPN of Strength Sports”

2021-02-01

I’m often asked about how to make money in the fitness space. One obvious route is becoming a coach or personal trainer. This can be done in-person or online, but if you can help people get into shape, build muscle, and lose fat, and know how to market yourself, you can earn a decent income. And I’ve talked before about building an online coaching business and becoming a successful coach. Another path, though, is content marketing. This can be monetized in various ways, but it all begins with creating hig...

I’m often asked about how to make money in the fitness space.

One obvious route is becoming a coach or personal trainer. This can be done in-person or online, but if you can help people get into shape, build muscle, and lose fat, and know how to market yourself, you can earn a decent income.

And I’ve talked before about building an online coaching business and becoming a successful coach.

Another path, though, is content marketing. This can be monetized in various ways, but it all begins with creating high-quality content that provides value.

This is also something I’ve discussed on the podcast with the likes of Lou Schuler, but today’s episode is a bit different.

Specifically, I’m having a fireside chat with David Tao, the founder and CEO of BarBend. In case you’re not familiar with BarBend, it’s a hub for all things strength related: news coverage, training and nutrition articles, product reviews, and more. And David isn’t a new kid on the block—he wrote for Fortune and Greatist.com before creating Barbend and turning it into what it is today.

So, who better to discuss building a media business than someone who found a gap in the market, and carved out their own niche by creating unique, valuable content and grew it into the premier news source on strength sports.

In this episode, David and I talk about . . .

How he seized an opportunity to “scratch his own itch”
Why creating content is hard and the biggest mistakes creators make
The importance of staying top of mind
The beginning of BarBend as a news outlet and when he realized it could be successful
Monetization (advertising and sponsorship)
His biggest mistakes that turned into lessons
His game plan for the future
And more . . .

So, if you want to learn how David created a strength sports content empire from scratch, listen to this episode and let me know what you think!

8:01 - What was the opportunity you saw?

16:29 - When starting out, should you focus on quality over quantity?

324:35 - How did you start out?

30:04 - At what point in that first year did you see signs of life?

38:07 - How did you go from having a great idea to having a viable business?

49:34 - What are some of the worst decisions that you made that later became great lessons?

59:16 - What are your future plans?

Mentioned on The Show:

BarBend Website: https://barbend.com/

BarBend Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbend/

BarBend Podcast: https://barbend.com/podcast/