After creating The Volume more than three years ago, Colin Cowherd has overseen the company’s rise in the digital media landscape. There were some sacrifices along the way, however.
During an appearance on the House of Strauss podcast, Cowherd shared that he doesn’t take a salary from the company he founded, and it has made all the difference in the network’s rise.
“When I built The Volume, my takeaway was I didn’t want to take a salary. We created — very quickly — multiple revenue streams. And I wanted to build a really, really good management and support staff. So it’s very easy lifting for me,” Cowherd admitted. “I set it up so it’s a light lift. I put my money in the first three years of the company into management and it’s been very fruitful. Logan Swaim is my CEO. He’s remarkable.
“We have a really good group all over the country, and it’s allowed us to grow very quickly. This management team allows us to pursue and land a Shannon Sharpe,” continued Cowherd. “He’s going to need multiple producers and a big support system. If I was gobbling up all the salary, we wouldn’t be able to do that. So I think I was in a pretty unique position that I could build a company while having two corporate entities paying me.”
Colin Cowherd added that his timing was right while launching The Volume, as it coincided with many job losses around the nation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This stuff doesn’t come easy. It’s really hard. My theory was ‘Build a really strong management team’,” he shared. “I also got really lucky. Because of COVID, a lot of really talented people were on the beach. Companies cut back and it gave me the opportunity to hire people that would have never been available without a pandemic.
“But companies cut back and I’m sitting there thinking ‘That person’s available?’ I was able to grab eight to 10 people that I never would have been able to land. The pandemic — in a strange way — was the birth of our company. And in a strange way, we were very fortunate that it allowed us to compete for some people that we otherwise could not have.”
