Episode Details

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When Mike Rogge purchased Mountain Gazette in early 2020, he wasn't acquiring a thriving media business. For $5,000 and the cost of a couple beers, he bought a dormant outdoor magazine brand whose main assets consisted of a URL, a trademark, decades of archives, and boxes of old issues sitting in storage. But Rogge believed the magazine's legacy — which included contributions from writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Edward Abbey — still carried meaning. At a time when many publishers were chasing algorithms and scale, he wanted to prove there was still a market for a beautifully designed print publication built around passionate readers rather than fleeting clicks.

Five years later, Mountain Gazette has grown into a profitable independent magazine with tens of thousands of subscribers who pay for two oversized print issues a year. In our interview, Rogge explained why he rejected the traditional ad-driven media model, how a subscriber-first approach allowed him to invest more into writers and photographers, and why he believes print's resurgence is tied to a broader backlash against an increasingly digital world.