After selling his previous company, Giant Media, in 2014, media veteran David Segura took a break before reuniting with former team members to launch Glassbox Media in 2021. 

Drawing on 15+ years of experience spanning AdTech and content creation, David assembled a team with proven chemistry to target established podcasters with monthly downloads typically between 200,000 and 600,000 (larger ones as well) who excel at content creation but need specialized expertise in monetization and audience growth.

The New York-based podcast network expanded quickly, but after a year, an important realization changed their direction.

“The insight driving this business forward is that we wanted to work with podcasters specifically because they’re doing content consistently, but it’s episodic,” explains David. “At our peak, we had close to 100 podcasts under long-term exclusive contracts, but then, we realized that most of the revenue was from 12-15 podcasts.”

Hence, Glassbox Media cut 70% of its creator partnerships and ended up generating nearly 15 million monthly podcast downloads and 10 million video views. The company deliberately reduced its roster from nearly 100 podcasts to 30 core shows, challenging a typical startup growth philosophy while increasing revenue.

“When I started my first company, it was like an ad exchange. Now it’s almost like a network meets talent agency,” says David. “The creator economy is about the creator. We wanted to take an opportunity to work not just with awesome creators but also with creators trying to build media franchises.”

The company released many podcasters from their contracts and narrowed their focus to creators they could truly help with their connections to advertisers like BetterHelp, Butcherbox, and Rocket Money, along with new entrants to podcast advertising such as NerdWallet and Heineken.

A Creator-First Approach

The podcast industry’s creator-centric nature required Glassbox to develop a more complete support system than traditional ad networks provide. “You have to cater to them. You have to build a model that is even more high-touch,” says David about their approach to working with podcasters.

This high-touch model includes multiple services designed to allow creators to focus solely on content creation. “What enables them to focus on producing a great show, researching it, and doing the work. And for the most part, that’s what they love. That’s what they’re passionate about,” David notes.

For monetization, Glassbox uses its relationships with both established podcast advertisers and brands just entering the space. Unlike traditional advertising, podcast campaigns are heavily performance-driven. “Brands like Quince, Butcherbox, and Rocket Money are tying promo codes not just to Glassbox but to eight of our podcasts that they greenlight for a plan. And they’re measuring how many sales or subscriptions these podcasts actually drive,” explains David.

Beyond advertising, Glassbox helps the growth of the audience through cross-promotion. “On the growth side, what that means in the world of podcasting is we do barter and promo swaps, meaning that the best way to grow a podcast, ironically, is other podcasts,” David explains. This approach includes arranging promotions between Glassbox shows and what David jokingly calls “frenemies”—competing networks with whom they exchange inventories and trailers to drive growth.

The company also manages the technical backend that creators often find burdensome. “The less sexy part of our business I think it’s really important is ad operations, meaning that we’re responsible for making sure that hosting is done, making sure that those podcasts are disseminated everywhere,” David says. This includes the work of “appending attribution trackers that all these media agencies care about because they want to measure performance and sales that your podcasters are responsible for.”

Notably, Glassbox offers financial guarantees to podcasters who sign exclusive contracts. “We know if we’re asking people to sign with us for a contract, it has to be more than a good story and some level of trust. There needs to be some hard facts and figures so they can make long-term business and personal decisions,” David emphasizes.

Results Through Focused Partnerships

As David shares, Glassbox’s strategy has yielded results for its partners. Gary Arndt’s “Everything Everywhere Daily” provides a good example of their impact. 

“When he first signed with us, it was on the top end of that range [200,000 to 600,000 downloads], and now it’s well over a million, not quite 2 million but close,” David shares.

While David credits Gary’s work ethic for much of this growth, he points to this success as proof of their model. “I think it also proves that our model works, because not only are we monetizing him and taking him to new heights, but, you know, he’s been public about it, unsolicited from us. He actually published a case study on LinkedIn, which demonstrated the growth that he’s experienced.”

The company’s approach to brand partnerships follows the same performance-focused method. They’ve found success by showing that podcast advertising drives measurable results. 

“We love them, we’re going to continue working with them. But I and a lot of other people are waiting for those same advertisers to jump in fully,” David explains, referring to major brand advertisers who are still testing podcast advertising rather than fully embracing host-read endorsements.

Building on Creator Trust

Glassbox has found that trust-based referrals drive growth more effectively than any sales strategy. “A lot of what has driven our growth to date has been referrals. If you think about it, like, who do creators trust? Other creators,” David observes.

According to David, this referral-based approach works well because it allows potential partners to hear honest feedback from current Glassbox creators. “We rely a lot on case studies, and then we can’t always share the data. But we do invite creators to speak to our creators, and usually they’re pretty open and transparent. They’ll talk about both the good and the bad and share financials,” he explains, adding that this transparency helps build the credibility needed for long-term partnerships.

The trust-based growth strategy fits with how podcast advertising works, where audience trust affects advertising effectiveness. “There are a lot of independent studies that go way beyond this. Research from Nielsen or IAB shows that podcasting in particular—because the audience has so much affinity and trust in the host—tends to show that performance is much higher because even when it’s not, they treat it like a personal recommendation,” David notes.

Long-Term Value Creation

Unlike many podcast networks focused solely on monetizing current episodes, Glassbox takes a longer view of creator value, with David observing that podcast catalogs have the potential to be as valuable as music catalogs of household names, such as Queen, Michael Jackson, and Nirvana. 

“We believe that on a long enough timeline, some of our podcasters’ catalogs, whether it’s Gary’s “Everything Everywhere Daily” or Dabney Bailey’s “rSlash,” have a lot of value because we monetize the whole catalog, not just new episodes,” David explains.

This perspective places Glassbox as a partner in building lasting creator businesses. Therefore, the company works across multiple podcast genres.

“We have a lot of respect for creators and influencers, but the insight driving this business forward is that we wanted to work with podcasters specifically,” David emphasizes. “Unlike some podcast networks out there, we’ve made a deliberate decision not to just focus on one or even two genres. We have podcasts that are very big in the true crime sector, comedy, society, and culture, you name it, basically everything other than sports.”

As David elaborates, this strategy helps them create more value for advertisers seeking diverse audiences while avoiding the limitations that can come with category-specific focus. “We thought we’d be shortchanging our creators by doing that,” he notes about the decision to remain genre-agnostic.

Selective Growth and Industry Changes

Having exceeded $3 million in revenue last year, Glassbox is focused on continued selective growth, with gaming emerging as one of its fastest-growing categories. “We want to continue selectively adding amazing podcasts in all categories. One of our fastest-growing categories is gaming,” says David.

The company’s revenue goals remain ambitious but grounded. “We did over $3 million in revenue last year. Can we exceed 5 million? I want to, but the proof will be in the pudding,” David states.

David sees untapped potential in the podcast advertising market, particularly as major brand advertisers become more comfortable with the medium. “I’ll be super excited when, if I could snap my fingers or in a year or two years, when all those people I just mentioned, Nissan, L’Oreal, AT&T, are all buying a tremendous amount of host-ready,” he envisions.

The ongoing shift toward video podcasting represents another key opportunity. “The thing that’s changed a lot, and I think it’s good we knew this was happening, but now we’re experiencing it, and there’s been a big shift towards video,” David observes, adding that this change creates new monetization options for creators and areas for Glassbox to expand its support services.

For creator economy professionals watching the space change, Glassbox Media shows how sometimes going smaller is the most effective path to building something bigger and more valuable. “Whether your reader is a creator, an executive, or a professional in the creator economy, they should know that it’s doable,” David encourages. “The time to do it is now.”