- Backfilled: 2026-09-04 from meeting notes (Michael ruled 2026-09-04 that the public log carries the whole company history)
Decision
Megaphone is intentionally run at breakeven. Founding Journey and all other holding-company expenses net out against each other, so sponsorship revenue is pure profit. Q4 2024 expenses were trimmed in anticipation of a lighter sponsor quarter.
Context
Ad budget for the newsletter had been pulled earlier in 2024 to fund Megaphone’s engineers (2024-08-16 weekly). That reduced newsletter growth and renewal performance. By October the structure was explicit: software reinvests everything, the newsletter carries the company.
Consequences
- Sponsor pipeline becomes the number to watch each quarter.
- Newsletter paid acquisition waits on an SEO plan and a clear sponsor outlook before budget returns.
- Sets up the 2025 debate over how to monetize each subscriber (see 2024-11-26).