A Media Business Model Built by Geeks

There are media companies, technology companies and media companies that want investors to think they are technology companies.

Then there’s Priceonomics, a Y Combinator-backed San Francisco-based company that raised $1.5 million in seed funding way back in 2012.

While Priceonomics came barreling out of YC eager to build a big technology business by creating price guides telling people how much used goods should cost, they failed to acquire lasting customers. But the company developed an unexpected expertise: generating traffic. The site’s founder, Rohin Dhar, started a company blog, where he’s written stories like how “Human Beings are Totally Going Viral.” The traffic from people searching on Google followed.

As the company ramped up its editorial operation, it landed on a unique business model: data scraping. Priceonomics charges $2,000 to $5,000 a month for companies that subscribe to its data scraping services, typically to follow data from a particular company, like the number of reviews that a company is receiving. Twenty-percent of the company’s revenue currently comes from sales of its first book, “Everything is Bullshit,” which includes expanded blog posts and other data-based investigations.

The Information talked with Priceonomics founder Rohin Dhar about his company and the intersection of media and technology. Edited excerpts below.