In publishing, quality always matters more than quantity. But when a company manages to do away with both, it tends to make a name for itself. Take Condé Nast, which publishes 21 print magazines; Hearst Produce 19. Online, Gawker Media has 24 blogs. These impressive results all come from traditional media companies, but another publisher from an uncertain industry is up for the challenge with nine journals of its own: First Round Capital.
First Round Capital, which focuses solely on seed-stage funding for companies including Uber and Refinery 29, was founded in 2004, but it didn't start publishing until 2013. It initially posted no. regularly on my blog, First round review , summarize facts and turn them into articles whenever possible. The company's goal is to enhance its reputation by gathering details about these events from successful entrepreneurs. The content seemed to resonate with readers, so after a few months, the company known for funding other people's projects decided to invest in its own publishing efforts.
In the summer of 2013, First Round hired Camille Ricketts, a former journalist working as a content strategist at a nonprofit, to run the site. She started out as a freelancer, handling all the interviews, writing, and ideation herself. This role gave her immense autonomy, but it also led to an unusual situation that has shaped the editorial direction of the blog. Since Ricketts, now head of content and marketing at First Round Capital, was the sole contributor at the time, she decided not to use the dash line to avoid the awkwardness of having to include her name. each article.
“I don't want people to feel like there's a filter standing between them and the subject of the article,” she explains. “I really feel like people need to think they're hearing directly from that person. ”
That philosophy has been deadlocked ever since. Most of the articles on Round One Review are filled with helpful quotes and tips from the biggest names in the tech industry — a perfect example is this 4,000 – part from about how Stewart Butterfield used customer feedback to grow Slack into a billion dollar company.
But with its approach to constantly highlighting other companies, First Round still needed some elements of its own brand and point of view. When Magazines got ready for a redesign in February, Ricketts and Brett Berson, the company's Vice President of Platforms, thought about how to organize all the articles in a way that brings in readers from across verticals. Definitely a more comprehensive experience.
“How do people read Reviews?” Ricketts said. “They can't just skim, because if you're a sales professional or a designer, there's a lot of stories that won't be relevant. So how can we make it easier for people to discover one story and, from there, find all the other stories they're really interested in. Tags are the standard way people usually approach that question, but we wanted to do something a little off the beaten track. ”
From that point on, First Round Review turned a blog into nine digital magazines tackle everything from management to fundraising to office culture. There is even a magazine about women in the tech sector with in-depth lessons learned from leading female experts at companies like Facebook, Google, and Airbnb.
Switching to nine magazines is a smart branding strategy, not a move intended to make Condé Nast look down on himself. The site only runs a total of two new stories per week, but the redesign still shows how a publication can use subtle tweaks to stand out in a crowded arena.
Over the past few years, venture capitalists have really begun to take an interest in publishing. As Jay Acunzo explained in July , entrepreneurs looking for capital now have more options than ever thanks to the proliferation of smaller VC firms. As a result, investors have turned to blogging and social media as a way to showcase their expertise and thought leadership.
“Because so many talented entrepreneurs are attracted to this idea that if they work with a particular VC they will get all these great services in return, it becomes a big selling point. for VCs,” said Ricketts. “If they see great content coming out from the First Round and that we are really savvy on a few things and we have a lot of relationships, then they will be more likely to work with us in a great way. straight."
But now that content marketing is the new norm for investors, the mere act of publishing may no longer be enough to win new business. Companies still need a specific edge to attract startups. In the First Round Review, the biggest differentiating factor was how the content focused on others, regardless of whether or not they were affiliated with the First Round.
“We admire people who are incredibly good at what they do,” explains Ricketts. “Meanwhile, I think at many other VCs, the content they focus is less on the operator side but more on actual investors talking about where they see the market and where the trends are going. develop."
She emphasizes that there is no better way than the other; they are just different. Investors like Fred Wilson — with the AVC blog his — and Marc Andreessen — with tweetstorms for their 400,000 Twitter followers — have enjoyed much success and exposure leveraging their own personal insights. But for a site that publishes only twice per week, the First Round Review has already had a significant amount of traffic. Over the past three months, it averaged more than 250,000 unique visitors per month, and time on page reached more than four minutes per reader. According to Ricketts, the content has even begun to help close deals (though she declined to name specific companies that have been solicited by the articles).
Despite her steady success, Ricketts told me she's still struggled with time management ever since, until recently, running her entire editorial operation. In June, First Round hired another editor to help run the site, and as a result, Review can begin publishing three stories per week in the future. But beyond his day-to-day responsibilities, Ricketts wants to focus his attention on potentially long-lasting pieces of landmark content.
At the end of July, Round 1 announced “ 10 Projects of the year , ”A data storytelling initiative reveals VC trends based on corporate investments over a decade. For example, the report shows that “companies with female founders perform 63 percent better than our investments with an all-male founding team. This is one of the rare times when the company writes about its own experiences and opening up its books has paid off — the long-form project has racked up nearly 7,000 shares online. society.
And as to whether First Round will add any more magazines, Ricketts believes nine should be enough for now. “We want to be a benevolent actor in the tech ecosystem,” she said. “Too many smart people in the industry have so much that they can share and teach people, but they just don't have the time to do it. So we made it our mission to lower the bar so they could share all this wisdom. ”
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