TheSkimm has over 7 Million newsletter subscribers, is making several millions of dollars in annual revenue, and has raised over $28 Million in venture capital funding. It all started because two founders understood a market and a problem and decided to take action and build a solution.
The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing.
- Paul Graham
Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg were producers at NBC News when they discovered a gap in the news market. They realized that traditional news formats catered to an older demographic, and they had a hunch that their generation, Millennials, wanted something different. Legacy news media was dry and boring, appealing to a crowd that was content getting their news while sitting in front of a TV at night. The younger generation, they believed, wanted something more engaging and easier to digest, and something they could fit into their busy lives at their own convenience. They wanted stories about the topics they cared about, and they wanted it delivered in a way that was different from how their parents and grandparents consumed the news.
Instead of focusing on all millennials, Carly and Danielle narrowed their niche even further, targeting the population they knew best. In July 2012, the pair launched TheSkimm, a daily newsletter tailored to millennial women that aggregated news and current events into easily digestible stories. They made several key decisions along the way that were instrumental to their success.
Email
Most digital marketing in 2012 was happening on social media or blogs. Content creators relied on organic search, SEO strategies and social sharing to drive traffic to their websites. TheSkimm's founders realized from the start that email would be vital to their growth strategy. It allowed for daily contact with their audience, and didn't leave it to chance that their fans would return to their website day after day.
This may seem trivial today because newsletters are more popular than ever. But remember that media properties like Morning Brew (2015) and The Hustle (2016), and newsletter platforms like ConvertKit (2013), Substack (2017) and Beehiiv (2021) didn't even exist yet. TheSkimm was early to the email newsletter game, and adopting this strategy was instrumental to their growth.
Brand Differentiation
Carly and Danielle had backgrounds in journalism. They used their expertise to create high quality and compelling content tailored to millennial women. Instead of the dry, formal tone used by most news outlets, TheSkimm adopted a conversational tone that was witty and fun. This unique voice was an important differentiator and became part of the overall brand strategy and identity, which was key to their word-of-mouth marketing strategy.
Marketing
Like with most startups, growth was slow at first. Carly and Danielle got their initial traction by asking friends, family and former colleagues to sign up for the newsletter and share it with their networks. But TheSkimm was also one of the early newsletters to realize the value of referral programs, which are now commonplace and a highly effective strategy for growing a newsletter's subscriber base. Within the first year, TheSkimm had grown to over 100,000 members. By 2019, their email list was over 7 million.
Monetization Strategy
Instead of using banner ads or text link ads, which could dilute the quality of the content and the brand, Carly and Danielle opted for native advertising from the start. This allowed them to write ad copy that fit within the broader context and tone of their newsletter, making the content more engaging and less disruptive to the reading experience. It also meant they could charge a higher CPM because they were working directly with sponsors and partners who understood the value of their product and their relationship with their audience.
Niche, Niche and Niche Again
More often than not, when people try to think of startup ideas, their strategy is to try and do what the competitors are doing, but better. This is almost always the wrong strategy. It's very unlikely that our little one or two person side project is going to be able to compete directly with entrenched competitors on a level playing field.
Take Airbnb as an example. The founders didn't initially try and build a hotel competitor. Instead, they built a site where people could rent an air mattress or a couch in someone else's home. By doing so, they managed to carve out a niche in the market. It seemed like such a silly idea that they were able to fly under the radar for a long time, and the hotel industry didn't take notice until it was too late.
Similarly, TheSkimm didn't try and compete directly against NBC and CNN and Fox News. Instead, they focused on a niche that these players weren't even paying attention to. By focusing on millennial women and adopting a unique style, they did something the incumbents didn't even realize was worth doing.