Yes! We've talked with that founder, and he certainly let us know it's a hard business. I think the important thing for us to find an audience for the content we're starting with. We identified a niche within black audiences that we think is particularly underserved, and we're trying to meet their demand. If we can get them, it gets us to a pretty decent level, and with that MRR, we can move into another niche, and then another, and then another...
I had an idea this morning for a referral mechanism to help with building an audience- what if you gave subscribers the ability to share a specific show with a friend for free? The friend would have access to that whole show (or maybe just a season) beyond the 7 day free trial and would presumably be coming back repeatedly to the site to watch it, giving them the opportunity to see other content they're interested in and subscribe.
As a subscriber it's easier and more fun to tell people about the site because you can get your friends watching the same fun show with you without the barrier of them having to subscribe up front.
I guess it would be hard to stop people from using a feature like this to watch whatever they want without having to subscribe - but maybe a subscriber would only get a limited number of 'shares' that refresh when the sharee converts. That way someone who's sharing multiple shows with the same friend would have a limit but someone whose shares are bringing in new subscribers would be equipped to invite more and more people.
