Flying Under the Radar with Flightradar24 and Fredrik Lindahl - [Making Media, EP.34]

Today, we’re speaking to the CEO of Flightradar24, Fredrik Lindahl. Flightradar24 might not qualify as a traditional media company but it does attract millions of people to its content every day and I, for one, am a huge fan. It is the clear leader in flight tracking globally and its stats are wildly impressive. They track around 250,000 flights every day and have over 4 million daily users. Their app – which tops many charts – has been downloaded 75 million times. Perhaps the most impressive fact, though, is that they lean on their community to help track all of those planes.  All of that rolls up into a great business, which generated nearly $20 million in pre-tax profit last year. We get into the whole story and how the business has grown in this discussion. Matt joins me for a debrief at the end. Please enjoy this conversation with Fredrik Lindahl. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Scribe. Scribe is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Making Media and the magic behind the Colossus transcripts. One of the best decisions we made at Colossus was transcribing all of our audio into a searchable transcript library. We had been using another provider up until the summer of 2022 but we were constantly having issues with accuracy if our audio was just the slightest bit impaired. Whether it's training sessions, internal Q&As, or for media purposes, the value of transcripts is huge. And we are not alone. Scribe is the transcription service that powers all of S&P Global - like CapIQ - and the client list includes our friends at Tegus. Go to joincolossus.com/scribe to unlock 150 minutes of free transcription and test their capabilities. ----- Making Media is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Making Media, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @ReustleMatt | @domcooke | @MakingMediaPod | @JoinColossus  Show Notes (00:03:52) - (First question) - Exploring FlightRadar24's global tracking network and its technical complexity (00:02:15) - FlightRadar24's growth from local to global via volunteer networks and Raspberry Pi (00:08:44) - Challenges in Africa and Cuba due to low population and bandwidth (00:09:56) - How FlightRadar24 evolved from a SEO tool to a standalone flight tracking business (00:12:57) - Why their tech-heavy team prioritizes UX/UI and data quality (00:15:15) - Setting themselves apart via a user-friendly design and quick media responsiveness (00:17:12) - Striking a balance between info depth and usability (00:18:21) - How the real-time data and sheer volume of planes make FlightRadar24 addictive (00:19:54) - Adapting from one-off payments to subscriptions was a risk that ultimately paid off (00:29:59) - Using programmatic ads due to diverse, international user base (00:25:01) - Started B2B due to inquiries, serving aviation and other industries (00:27:01) - How EasyJet integrated FlightRadar24's SDK to offer real-time flight tracking in their app (00:28:12) - FlightRadar24's content serves two goals: promoting hosting and engaging users (00:30:07) - Why covering contributors, professionals, enthusiasts, and casual users is central to their strategy (00:32:33) - Providing relevant data to media without speculation, allowing accurate reporting (00:34:45) - Engaging media and users through crowdsourcing, receiver hosts, photos, and tracked flights (00:36:07) - Looking at Weather Underground, AllTrails, and MarineTraffic for crowdsourcing and comparison (00:37:56) - Considering price comparison, but competitive OTA space requires clear user intent (00:40:04) - Debrief