{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"NC Tweener Talks","title":"Three Companies, One Brand: Building Offline Over 13 Years with David Shaner ","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2715,"description":"This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. In this episode, we focus on Offline’s origin story and business evolution, not AI (yet).\nHighlights from Part 1\nOffline has effectively been three different companies under one brand\nEarly versions tried to reinvent Meetup, and failed\nA city-guide app reached ~3M people/month but couldn’t monetize\nConsumer businesses can look successful while quietly breaking\nSubscription was the first model that truly worked\nRestaurants don’t want “deal seekers”, they want incremental revenue\nOffline works because it optimizes excess capacity, not discounts\nCOVID forced a near-shutdown, and a total rethink of operations\nToday, Offline runs across 10 cities with ~600 restaurants and ~10,000 subscribers\nMost founders only hear about the winning version of a company. This episode shows the cost of getting there: years of pivots, wrong turns, false confidence, and learning, sometimes the hard way, how markets actually work.\nOffline didn’t succeed because of a clever growth hack. It survived because David kept learning, iterating, and refusing to confuse traction with sustainability.\n\nWhere to Find David Shaner:\nLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/\nOffline Media: https://www.letsgetoffline.com/\n\nWhere to Find Scot Wingo: \nLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ \nTweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ \nX: https://x.com/scotwingo\n\nTimestamps\n00:00–02:30 – Introduction & what this two-part series will cover\n02:30–05:30 – David’s background, NC State, and discovering entrepreneurship\n05:30–08:00 – The original idea: human connection in a screen-first world\n08:00–11:30 – Era 1: trying (and failing) to reinvent Meetup\n11:30–13:30 – Era 2: city guides, millions of users, zero monetization\n13:30–15:40 – Era 3: subscriptions finally click\n15:40–17:30 – COVID, near shutdown, and survival\n17:30–23:30 – Why restaurants accept discounts (the airplane seat analogy)\n23:30–25:30 – Why Groupon failed restaurants — and why...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UEzoK7N1siD9YRaSVBWfZ8B3suSS2aonEIZ5NwBH1Gs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NjBh/YWVhZTA4ZTUyY2Fl/MDdhNzQwZWFhNDI4/MDc3Zi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}