The Pomp Podcast
340: Greg Isenberg On Building Consumer Internet Products
- Greg Isenberg's path from Montreal's underground internet economy through StumbleUpon and Islands to founding Late Checkout, a product studio that acquires and builds internet communities.
- The critical importance of momentum and sustained growth in social platforms; once a social company loses steam, recovery is nearly impossible.
- Unbundling large platforms (Reddit, LinkedIn, Zoom) by identifying trending communities and building complementary products or services tailored to their specific needs.
- The power of finding audiences first, then building products for them—inverting the traditional startup approach of building first and searching for customers.
- No-code and low-code tools have democratized product creation, enabling founders to test multiple ideas cheaply and rapidly without venture capital or engineering degrees.
- Specific business ideas including work-from-home equipment boxes, Substack job boards, creator-branded physical products, and live-stream subscription services targeting niche communities.