The cautionary tale of Mic.com

A Digiday article talks about the cautionary story of Mic.com. It started in 2012 and across its lifetime has raised ~ $60 million. From 2012 until 2019, it has pivoted its Niche and Formats multiple times, each time struggling to find a moat.

• 2012: Posts on policy-making for progressive, young audiences.
• 2014: Posts on news for progressive, young audiences from Social (Facebook).
• 2016: Posts on news for progressive, young audiences from SEO.
• 2017: Videos on news for progressive, young audiences from SEO.
• 2018: Content agency but eventually laid off the majority of its staff.

There are many such stories of badly selected niches:

• Quartz which grew out of The Atlantic was The Economist but free.