By Mark Stenberg --> This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here .
Over the past few years, I have spent a good portion of my life documenting how content-to-commerce models fall apart.
The concept is simple in theory: a media company combines its audience with a commerce operation, creating a flywheel that monetizes twice—first through advertising, then through sales of the products. But in practice, it rarely works.
Last December, I reported on how The Chernin Group’s bet on the model unraveled in spectacular fashion at Food52, Hodinkee, and The Pro’s Closet, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs in the process. Before that, I tracked Recurrent Ventures as it raised $300 million to build a content-to-commerce empire, only to later retreat from the affiliate business that once powered it.
So last week, when Recurrent sold one of its editorial brands, Outdoor Life, to a new fund promising to supercharge its commerce business with AI, my first instinct was skepticism.
After talking with two of the founders, I am still skeptical. But the pitch is more considered than I expected, and it warrants a closer look.
The newly formed fund, called eFormed Ventures, acquired Outdoor Life from Recurrent on Oct. 7 for an undisclosed sum.
The firm, which is based in beautiful Bend, Oregon, is backed financially by a handful of family offices, has about 25 employees, and plans to keep all of the roughly 10 staffers it inherits from Outdoor Life, according to managing partner Tom Beusse.
As is often the case with content-to-commerce plays, the thesis makes perfect sense on paper.
Enthusiast publishers like Outdoor Life inspire readers to buy gear, then send them away at the moment of purchase through affiliate links. Last year, Outdoor Life drove more than $20 million in purchases, according to Beusse. But affiliate commissions top out around 14% to 15%, and Amazon roughly halved its rates this spring , so Outdoor Life would likely only bring in a few million in revenue for generating those sales.
To capture a larger portion of that sale, the publisher wants to inspire those sales and facilitate them on-site, which it plans to do with a proprietary AI platform, called Resonance.
The technology will tailor product recommendations and pricing based on factors like seasonality, location, and shopping behavior, theoretically surfacing products and offers to consumers at more opportune times. The AI will not be used for editorial, according to Beusse.
“We are not buying a commerce business that is about to start,” Beusse said. “We are just directing it differently.”
The company has spent the last few years building Resonance and has been testing the technology on the Field & Stream storefront since January, which it has access to thanks to a licensing arrangement.
In that time period, the storefront has posted triple-digit growth, though it is still early, according to managing partner Mike Morford.
When I mentioned to Morford and Beusse that I had covered content-to-commerce models critically in the past, they were aware of the challenges.
Still, according to Morford, the problem has always been execution, not the concept itself.
“Content to commerce works for the consumer,” Morford said. “Just not the businesses.”
When I reported on the Chernin Group and its application of the m…