Smash Notes
Should I Use Rev or Upwork · My First Million

My First Million

Getting a Billion People Working From Home

We interviewed the founder of Rev.com (they transcribe audio into text), to hear how he built this into a $206M (to be precise) business. We used them to transcribe the My First Million podcast episodes, and realized how badass of a service this was. Super simple concept - create a workforce (currently 50,000) that works remotely, transcribing audio from…

Notes

  1. What Is Rev.com at 2:27

    It's a two-sided marketplace to convert audio and video to text. Full answer

  2. In bay area, for example, housing costs create pressure on people to jump ship pretty fast, switching companies every year. Full answer

  3. AI is definitely going to shrink the market in certain areas because machine transcripts are pretty good for many use cases, but they are also nowhere near… Full answer

  4. At the very beginning, the information is very asymmetric. You don't know much about the company and the company does not know your value. Full answer

  5. For most people who want to start a company one day, joining an early high-growth startup is a great way to learn across many different functions. Full answer

  6. While Upwork might be able to find you a person that does transcriptions, their value add ends there. Full answer

  7. People working on Rev enjoy the content they are paid to transcribe, so in addition to money, they are getting value from the content itself. Full answer

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