A column
Series Teardown
Content series that are unusual in format and have the evidence to show they work. One series per instalment: how it started, the mechanics underneath it, the production reality nobody posts about, and what a founder or a fund can take from it for their own show.
No. 3 · 14 Oct 2026
Series Teardown: what Hot Ones actually sells
Ten wings, ten sauces, one celebrity, and questions that get more personal as the heat goes up. Everyone knows the format. Fewer people know that the show is the sampler and the…
No. 2 · 14 Oct 2026
Series Teardown: how Subway Takes turned a MetroCard and a hot take into an Emmy-nominated show
A microphone clipped to a MetroCard, a guest on a New York train, one question: what's your take? Kareem Rahma built a show that is cheap to make, impossible to pad and easy to…
No. 1 · 14 Oct 2026
Series Teardown: how Career Ladder turned a stepladder into the most copied format on TikTok
A man on a ladder guesses a stranger's job in two minutes. That is the whole show. Here is where it came from, why it holds, what it costs to make, and what a founder or a fund…