As we close out another quarter, it’s time to reflect on the opportunities and challenges that have shaped the last few months. This quarter brought a mix of personal and professional milestones, with a steady balance between family time and business growth. While some aspects of the market remain uncertain, we’ve continued to push forward at MarketBeat, making key strides and maintaining our momentum.
In this update, I’ll share some of the highlights from the third quarter, including exciting developments, new ventures, and a few insights into what’s coming up in the months ahead. There’s plenty to look forward to as we head into the final stretch of the year.
(ChatGPT wrote this introduction. Thanks, Sam Altman!)
Work and Family Travel
We had a relatively light travel schedule during the third quarter. After four out-of-state trips in May and June, we stayed home for most of July and August. We were able to go to a Vikings pre-season game and can mark ourselves among a few fans who saw J.J. McCarthy play this season before he got injured. We also went to Las Vegas to see the MGM Mirage before it got shut down as part of its transformation into Hard Rock Las Vegas. We plan to return to Las Vegas for a family trip over Karine’s birthday in October.
I have largely been avoiding summer conferences because it’s hard for Karine to be at home with the kids without help during the summer. Now that the kids are back in school, I went to Scalable Impact Live in Austin, TX, earlier this week. I also spoke at the Northern State University’s Technology and Entrepreneurship Summit recently and plan on participating as a featured expert at the Four Rooms Mastermind event in Orlando, FL, in November. Looking into next year, I plan to attend the Financial Marketing Summit in Jacksonville, FL, in January.
MarketBeat Update
The financial publishing industry has faced significant headwinds during the third quarter. Investor sentiment has been on the decline. The presidential election has taken the mindshare and attention of our customer base. Advertising has gotten harder due to political campaigns bidding up the cost of advertising inventory on the networks. The only public company in our space recently had a round of layoffs.
While MarketBeat is doing just fine overall, our industry has moved to a “risk off” mindset. Speculative investments are off the table for most companies in our space, including MarketBeat. We have no immediate need to make any significant changes to our budget, but we have taken a more conservative approach to advertising and new expenses, given some underlying uncertainty with some of our larger advertisers.
It’s not all storm clouds on the horizon, though. MarketBeat made the Inc 5000 list for the ninth consecutive year. This means MarketBeat has been able to grow by more than 30% per year for over a decade, which is not easy to do. There’s an outside chance we’ll be able to make the list next year, but we will only show about 60% three-year revenue growth so I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t make the list next year.
MarketBeat’s YouTube Channel has also surpassed 100,000 subscribers. We started the channel in early 2023 as a replacement for the previous MarketBeat podcast that we had going. Laycee Kluin did a great job getting our channel off the ground, and now Bridget Bennett is running the YouTube channel while Laycee is on maternity leave with her first child. We hope to continue expanding the YouTube channel in 2025 with more guest interviews and different types of content when Laycee returns from maternity leave early next year.
Otherwise, it has largely been business as usual at MarketBeat. We are getting to be a mature business where there aren’t a ton of new initiatives every quarter, but that’s okay. We have no shortage of work to do.
We Purchased The Empire East.
In what is our largest retail real estate transaction to date, Karine and I, along with Kevin Tupy and the team at Cresten Capital, purchased the Empire East. The Empire East is a retail center that started out as the New Town Mall in the 1980s, with Shriver’s and a movie theater anchoring the building. While the property has seen significant changes over the years, the Empire East remains an important part of the Louise Ave. retail corridor. We don’t expect any dramatic changes in the short term, as all the retail tenants have long-term leases, but we think there will be great redevelopment opportunities sometime in the next ten years. You can read more about the purchase here.
Otherwise, the quarter has been relatively quiet on the commercial real estate front. Projects under construction include a second strip mall at Bakker Landing in Tea, the Altitude apartment project in Rapid City, and two apartment projects in Sioux Falls (The Brixx, and Prairie Towers). We aren’t actively looking at a ton of new deals right now, but continue to have our ears open for new opportunities as they come up.
Venture Capital Update
It’s been a quiet quarter for Homegrown Capital and the angel fund network in South Dakota. This is not uncommon for the summer months, as most venture capital transactions in the Midwest tend to occur during the fourth and first quarters. Homegrown Capital evaluated several investment opportunities in Q3 but ultimately didn’t land on anything we wanted to invest our own money in. Falls Angel Fund is still on hiatus, as Falls Angel Fund III has been fully deployed, and the Enterprise Institute is focused on launching the South Dakota Seed Fund, a milestone-based equity capital source.
Washington Pavilion Partner and MarketBeat on Outdoor Music Festival
The Washington Pavilion and MarketBeat are working together to bring an outdoor music festival to Sioux Falls in the Summer of 2025. The event, known as the Lallycooler Music Festival, will occur on July 11th and 12th of 2025 at Great Bear Ski Valley, just east of Sioux Falls. Country singer Sam Hunt will be one of the two headliners of the event. The second headliner will be a rock or pop artist. We’re excited about this opportunity because it will create opportunities for local vendors (such as food trucks) and paid stage opportunities for local bands. The event will also benefit a Sioux Falls non-profit that has yet to be selected. MarketBeat will serve as the event’s presenting sponsor. You can learn more about it at www.lallycooler.com.
We sponsor a bunch of other events, too.
I am not exactly sure how it happened, but MarketBeat has become a major sponsor of several other events throughout the year. Sometimes, we really believe in an event and want to get involved with it. Other times, the right person asks us to get involved with their event.
Here are some of the bigger events we support each year:
- AI Edge – This is a conference about utilizing artificial intelligence technology that my friend Andy Jorgensen organizes. He held the first event last year and is holding the event again on October 24th. You can learn more about this event and get tickets at AIEdgeSummit.com.
- Founder’s Day – This is the annual event for Startup Sioux Falls. I started it as “Entrepreneurship Day” in 2019 and got the mayor to issue a proclamation to make it an official city holiday. The staff at Startup Sioux Falls have since taken ownership of the event, but my team remains involved in helping where we can.
- Innovation Expo – This is an annual conference for venture capital track startups. It is hosted by the Enterprise Institute, an organization that I serve on the board of. We are a financial sponsor of the event and help line up the keynote speaker each year as well.
- Levitt at the Falls – We are the season sponsor for fifty free outdoor concert events that occur each summer in downtown Sioux Falls. This was our first season as the top sponsor, and we are thrilled with how it went. We will be back as the season sponsor for at least the next three years.
- MarketBeat Open – This is a USTA Pro Circuit tennis tournament that will be held from October 20th to 27th at Huether Family Match Pointe. You can learn more about that event at marketbeatopen.com.
- SiouxFalls.Business CEO Summit – This is an annual invite-only event for CEOs and other top executives that we organize along with Jodi Schwan and the team at SiouxFalls.Business. Last year, we had executives from Dillards speak. We plan to hold the event again early next year.
- YPN Crossroads Summit – This is a biennial business conference put on by the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce for young professionals. I was the keynote speaker at the 2023 Crossroads Summit, and MarketBeat will be sponsoring the event again in 2025.
We love that we can be involved with all these events, but we are probably also at our limit for major event sponsorships until one or two of these drop off at some point in the future.
Wrap-up
If you are still reading at this point, I encourage you to sign up for my private text list, where you can hear about cool stuff happening in Sioux Falls from me directly. If you want to join that, just text “hello” to 605-636-8097.