Courtesy of Sammi Cohen.
This story originally appeared in La Fronde’s Sept. 29 newsletter.
Sammi Cohen is one of business media’s rising stars right now. She’s built a loyal following with her podcast, Social Currency, and her YouTube channel has more than 100,000 subscribers. Now she’s making her biggest bet yet: a live business show called Social Commerce Network (SCN), which she’ll co-host with former Greycroft principal and Snap alum Alaina Hartley.
SCN launches Oct. 6 and will air three days a week across YouTube, X, TikTok and Instagram. The show will focus on the consumer brands, companies and business stories shaping women’s lives, with Sammi betting there’s a sizable audience that traditional business media still isn’t serving particularly well. She impressively built her own studio in Los Angeles to film the show and has a team of five people working behind the scenes.
I caught up with Sammi about what women are missing from business media right now, what to expect from SCN and why brands are increasingly interested in creator-led media businesses.
Your existing audience is roughly 70% women. What have you learned about the kinds of business, tech and financial stories women actually want that you don’t think are being served elsewhere?
Women want the business story behind the companies they are already engaging with and the products they already buy. Our audience is founders, executives and high-earning professionals who make most of the purchasing decisions in their households. When a consumer packaged goods brand gets acquired or a tech company comes out with a new consumer AI product, they want to know why it happened and what it means for their lives, both personally and professionally. Most business media platforms cover those stories as a footnote to tech and finance, or they talk about women as a demographic to sell to instead of as the operators, builders and investors they actually are.
You’ve cited TBPN as a show you admire, but in what ways will SCN offer something new for audiences interested in business and finance?
The TBPN guys proved there's a strong appetite for live news that feels more like a show rather than a lecture. Ultimately, consumer business (what we'll be covering) is the most fun, exciting and action-packed vertical of business. Our show will be purposefully broad in scope: we'll cover a Shopify earnings call and a viral TikTok product with the same seriousness, because for our audience they're both incredibly relevant and connected.
In what ways do you think you and co-host Alaina Hartley will complement each other when interviewing guests?
We come at a story from different sides of the table. I spent my early career at ALDI (the German grocery chain), and then five years at Amazon in logistics and luxury fashion, so I enjoy asking the operator questions about how something actually gets built and shipped, and the strategy behind key decisions. Alaina's background is shaped by her time at Greycroft, Bain and Snap, so she brings the investor lens, the strategy lens and a deep understanding of platforms.
What story are you most eager to cover — or what guest would you most like to have on the show?
The beauty of our show is that it airs 3x per week. There is a never-ending supply of incredibly juicy stories to cover. I can't choose just one, that's like asking me to choose a favorite child! And luckily for us, I'm bringing 15 months of experience with me from the podcasting world, since I've been running my podcast Social Currency, I've had the pleasure of interviewing iconic names such as Reid Hoffman, Evan Spiegel, Jennifer Wong (CEO of Aritzia), and many others, so we will be building on this list for SCN.
You’ve already signed sponsors for SCN’s first year. What are brands looking for from creator-led media businesses right now that they may not be getting from traditional outlets?
Trust is the ultimate form of social currency today. With creator-led media, the host has a real relationship and two-way communication with their audience, so an integration lands as a recommendation instead of an interruption. Brands also want flexibility today. Creators are incredibly adaptive and agile, which allows them to offer the most relevant types of ad placements with their audience.