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Since launching TheSkimm in 2012, Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin have grown their weekday newsletter to reach 6 million people and counting — and every step of the way, they’ve heard all kinds of reasons why their business wouldn’t work. Email is dead, women is too narrow of a market (really?!), the list goes on. But they haven’t let that feedback hold them back from taking risks, even when they were so worried about making ends meet they lived off of big batches of pasta salad.
In fact, rather than succumb to all of the doubts, they reframed the negativity: “Thank you for letting me know right off the bat that you don’t understand my company or my vision.” Boom. It showed them exactly who they didn’t need to waste time trying to woo or win over; that wasn’t the audience they were trying to cultivate, so they didn’t waste the energy fighting to chase it.
It’s one of several takeaways from Weisberg’s and Zakin’s interview with business expert/self-help guru Marie Forleo, as the duo opened up about what it took to make the leap from full-time jobs in news to launching a Monday-Friday email newsletter that gave people a wry, one-page glimpse at the world’s biggest stories (and the occasional off-the-wall topic for watercooler gossip, because hey, we’re human). If you’re thinking of starting a business — or you’re trying to grow one — this interview’s a must-watch. But first, a few of my favorite takeaways:
Make Loyalty Part Of Your Launch Program.
TheSkimm boasts an incredibly large subscriber base for an email newsletter, especially since the average user hits “unsubscribe” after about 20 emails. About 20 percent of its annual growth comes from its Skimm’bassador program, a group of brand advocates that get to be the first to try new products and provide feedback. They also score free Skimm swag, and are eligible for a Skimm scholarship, and can be featured in the newsletter as the Skimm’r of the week.
The cost to join? You have to get 10 people to sign up for TheSkimm’s newsletter. Simple and effective, yet Zakin and Weisberg caution that it’s a slow growth strategy. You can’t create loyalty overnight.
Dissect Your Voice Right Away.
As you grow your business, at some point, you’ll have to hand over the reins. You can’t do everything, so it’s important to get a strong grasp right away of what your business is, what it stands for, and its voice. They painted a picture of who TheSkimm was, as if the business were a person, and the audience they were trying to reach. (Early on, to ensure their writing stayed conversational, they’d write each day’s newsletter as if they were talking to a few specific friends.)
Who are the people your business wants to reach? How well can you define that person’s interests, the way he/she talks, and thinks?
Respect The Inbox.
This seems to be a bigger issue for major corporations than startups, but it’s worth saying: Nobody wants to be spammed. Avoid sending emails multiple times a day, or expanding into several newsletters at once. All of those topics sound interesting to the reader, sure, until he/she’s hit with a dozen a week — and starts frantically searching for the “unsubscribe” button.
Don’t Become A Slave To The Algorithm.
As important as it can be to focus your energy on growing your business in certain areas — there are only so many hours in the day, after all — TheSkimm’s founders are big on not focusing all of your energy in one area. Social media’s a set of distribution tools, and as the recent Facebook algorithm change showed publishers everywhere, it can give and it can taketh away. Their advice is simple: “Don’t build your company on someone else’s algorithm.”
Be a player in that space, but don’t let your company’s identity be consumed by the platform. An Instagram influencer’s only as powerful as his/her reach is. Ditto for YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Check out the whole interview here:
