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[upbeat music] And I think you have a chance to galvanize that into community people who are future-focused, wanna build better workplaces, understand the value in that, and have similar roles in achieving that.
So yeah, I think it will be one day. Yeah. I think a lot of companies pay lip service to this, to be honest with you.
[upbeat music] Welcome to the Rebooting show. I'm Brian Morrissey.
One of the key themes I see right now in publishing is the flight to focus. The page view era was premised on a lot of flimsy connections.
Just about all brands got sucked into playing the SEO and Facebook games in order to grab traffic with what tended to be pretty undifferentiated content. The world didn't need all of those Game of Thrones recaps.
But I believe right now we're seeing the start of a new crop of publishing brands that are putting themselves at the center of important communities and serving a real need.
The best areas are at intersections, particularly areas that are undergoing a lot of change.
In business, that's often driven by technology, but can also be driven by societal shifts, government regulation, and other external factors.
The future of work is one of the most fertile and fascinating business areas out there right now.
It's in such flux, and when the pandemic began, it became obvious that this would be a long haul, and I quickly became obsessed with the idea of what changes on the other side of this, and became something of a maximalist, in fact, in believing that many areas of our lives would be reset or rebooted, if you will.
And I think we're seeing some of that, although if I'm being honest, I have to say it's been a lot patchier than I expected, and many people just wanna go back to how things were.
But now when it comes to work, the pandemic caused a reset when, combined with the labor shortage coming out of COVID, it's made clear that we're not going back to normal.
I saw some statistics, uh, just earlier today cited by Derek Thompson, who has a great podcast by the way, that showed that basically every industry halted by COVID, whether it's restaurants or cruises, have more or less returned to normal, except for a couple, like movies and offices.
Anyone who's been to New York City recently and has gone [chuckles] to Midtown can tell you that people are definitely not back in the offices, and I don't think that's changing anytime soon.
And the future of work story is beyond just the, the return to office. It's about how we work and how we balance work with our lives. It's a fascinating area, as I said.
This week, in order to understand more about it, I'm speaking with Jay Lauf. Jay is a co-founder of Charter, a new brand exploring the future of work.
And I wanted to talk to him because he, along with his co-founders, Kevin Delaney and Aaron Graue, have backgrounds with the biggest names in the publishing world, Condé Nast, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Quartz, more.
You know, but they've gravitated to an area that to my mind is niche, and they've decided to start a new brand rather than joining an existing legacy brand, and I wanted to find out more about that.
So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Jay, and please let me know what you think by sending me a note at bmorrissey@gmail.com. [upbeat music] Jay, welcome to the podcast. Really happy to be doing this. Thanks, Brian.
Yeah, happy to be here. Really appreciate being connected again. Y- yeah. And I just wanna go, for those who don't, like, know the background of Charter, just...
'cause I think it, it's interesting with where, in my view, where part of media is going, because you were the publisher at, at Wired, the publisher at The Atlantic, part of the founding team, and then the publisher and co-CEO at Quartz.
And Kevin, co-founder, I remember reading... I, I was always jealous of Kevin.
I always tell him this, 'cause he was the best reporter in the sort of online advertising beat when he was at the Journal and I was, like, this cub reporter. [laughs] I was like, "Oh my God, the guy's amazing."
But, like, you know, he's had this long career at, at the Wall Street Journal, and then was your partner at Quartz. And then Aaron Graue, the other co-founder, was in The New York Times.
You guys have great pedigrees in media. Thank you. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you're doing a kinda niche publication in some ways. It's a big niche, but I think it says something about it.
So explain a little bit first, like, what Charter is and why... You could've done so many different things, why you, you wanted- Yeah... to do this. Yeah. Well, it... and yeah, Kevin's...
that, that, that way you just described Kevin is, like, the universal reaction I get out in the world. If he wasn't such a, a, a great guy, he'd be easy to hate, 'cause that is the reaction to Kevin everywhere I go.
[laughs] And actually to Aaron. So firstly, I guess, Charter, just to quickly explain it, is a media and insights company that's focused completely, exclusively on the future of work.
And the mission that we see is to basically help anybody who owns the talent agenda, regardless of your role. That tends to be C-suite on down through senior, senior management levels.
Even certain individuals are catalysts inside organizations, but if you have y- ownership o- of the workplace experience, the talent agenda-What we're designed to try to do is to help you transform the workplace to be more fair, to be more functional, and to actually be more coherent with where the world is, is headed.
And I think all three of us in our own independent ways...
So Erin is unique inside the company as well because not only did she do a stint at The New York Times, but she actually spent some time in the chief people officer seat at Away, the, of the travel startup, and so has seen a lot of this stuff from a front row seat.
But I know each of us in running a team, running a company over time, we're desperate for a playbook, a handbook, a guide to how you build a culture, build a company, establish policies, run things in a way that was coherent w- with what I was just saying, where the world is headed.
And that's across a lot of different vectors from, you know, obviously hybrid and remote work that was even beginning to burgeon e- all the way back to my Atlantic days, multiple generations in the workforce, the fight for racial justice, social justice, pay parity, all the way up to things like climate change.
What we, each of us independently always felt like, where is the go-to source for how to do this right and do this well, and never found it. So when... I think Kevin really led the way on this.
It was an itch he's had to scratch, and I can elaborate on how that began. But when the three of us kind of came together to discuss what Kevin's idea was, we felt like, wow, there's a real opportunity here.
There's a white space to, to do something that is important, meaningful, and sustainable, which is what kind of prompted us to launch into this thing. Yeah. I know Kevin and I did a Clubhouse. This is truly- Mm...
dating it, in, in the beginning when it was still Reset. And it was funny 'cause one of the questions that came in was, like, it was about the TAM. Yeah. Right [laughs]?
And it was like, "How did you determine the TAM and decide this was the area to go in?" And like Kevin- Yeah... like paused, and he was like, "I didn't.
This was something, I was a self-taught manager, and I just figured that there was a ton of other people who were just like me and needed to figure this out."
[laughs] And I just loved it because it's the divide of how, to me, like, how a journalist thinks about, like, making a product, and you need a little bit of both, but the, the more, like, engineered view of media.
And I do think that at least in part of media i- it's more focused and stuff like this, but it's more personal in a way. 'Cause, like, w- the way you're describing it is personal. Y- yeah, in some ways.
And I mean, I think it's not an uncommon sort of founder's story, right? It's like you're wrestling yourself with an issue, whatever it m-may be. My, my...
I always tell my wife she should start a company one day because she's one of these people, there will be a problem that's driving her crazy.
She'll come up with a solution, and about three months later you see it on Shark Tank or something. And I think it's very similar.
Born out of our own frustrations and eagerness to have something that is like what Charter is becoming, the idea starts. Kevin had a lot of ways to go with this, I think, at the time. He could have written a book.
I think he debated this. Do you write a book about that? That's a very binary thing. It's like you spend two years writing a book, and if it's not a home run- Yeah... have you just wasted two years of your life?
So he started the Reset newsletter that you're aware of and talking about, I think as a way to tease out ideas that he has had and had been sharing with me over the time we worked together at Quartz for a lot of years.
What became really clear right away early on is it was really resonant. There were really influential people who were reading it and responding to it.
There were clear target audiences who were reading and responding to it. So as we started to talk and met Erin, it became clear that, hey, there's more than just a personal pet project here.
There's an actual business to be had and a, and a big problem to address, and that's how we launched into it. So I don't know if that's personal- Yeah... or if that's how all of these kinds of ideas start.
Well, maybe it's not per- it's, it's organic- Yeah... right? I think it is that. Like, so I just think that it's more organic than going out and being like, "There's a big- Right... total addressable market here.
Here's the white space. Here are the competitors.
And i- we're gonna take funding, and then we're going to, like, do this for distribution," and all this sort of thing, whereas I do think that you're seeing more of these things that were personally driven- Mm...
projects that resonated with a specific community and then became businesses. We just two weeks ago, I guess when this airs, I did a podcast with Sherry Hu, who started Water & Music.
It's at the intersection of, of business- Yeah... and tech and music. And similarly, she started a project just as a, as more of a creative outlet, but recognized that there was a community here that needed to be served.
So I think it's, like, cool that these kind of brands are being born more organically, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like we came out of this overly engineered, like, genetically modified media era. Right. Right.
There, there were clear mechanisms to grow. The barrier of entry was low. There were clear sort of levers to pull, tools to deploy to grow a brand. Yeah. And, and, right, so you just did it. Yeah. I think that's true.
And y- at the heart of this, I do think great brands in the media space do start with a journalistic idea, which I do think is more organic and idealistic necessarily than a business plan per se.
I think you need the business plan- Yeah... clearly, and this is certainly born out of that.
As you know from talking to Kevin and in the past and just knowing him, Kevin is nothing if not, uh, sort of earnest and intellectually rigorous about what he's doing, and I think that's an important element to what Charter is.
[upbeat music] The first takeaway here is the importance of starting with an idea. Jay talks about scratching an itch.
It's a truism that this is how great products are built versus approaching media the way a management consultant would. But I think it's a valuable one to keep in mind.
Great media brands are not born out of spreadsheets. [upbeat music] So why did you wanna be part of this? I mean, you could have gone in a lot of different directions.
I wouldn't have been surprised if I got some emails that you were named the CEO of some established media company. Why start from scratch? 'Cause there's a lot of bad parts to it [laughs] if you think about it.
W- w- yeah, well, I, I...
listen, I had the benefit, I'm very w- well aware of my good fortune here, is I took a, a very intentional sabbatical after I stepped off my time at Quartz in 2020 that happened to coincide randomly with the, the pandemic, which, you know, sort of wiped out all of my glamorous travel plans but really forced me, I think, to do the things I intended to do.
And that gave me a chance to think, I think to step back and have a little bit of perspective.
I joined some, uh, startup advisory boards across a variety of actually different things that were not all media just to keep my brain going and to, and to think about it.
What became clear to me, Brian, was exactly that. I had zero interest inGetting a job in media just to get a job in media, regardless of how well it paid. I didn't wanna manage decline, that's for sure.
That's not interesting. But the three criteria that I came to that I realized were important for me were, one, to do something meaningful.
I'd been spoiled by my time at Wired, at The Atlantic, and Quartz, each of which I think they were doing something additive and interesting and meaningful in the world, and that fulfillment you get from that is, is hard to replace, one.
Two, clearly wanted to do it with people that I respected and trusted.
You spend way too much of your time at work with other people that are not your family who you love, you damn well better really like and respect and trust them.
And then lastly, and this was a more calculated thing, I don't think I realized this until I actually had the time during sabbatical to think it through, is I wanted to do something that I thought had a high chance of success, which I realized when I went to The Atlantic from Wired years ago in '08.
People forget this, The Atlantic was left for dead. I would go to cocktail parties out here in Connecticut, its own home country, with sophisticated people. I'd say, "I work at The Atlantic."
People would say, "Oh, The Atlantic, that's that sailing magazine, right?" This is at, back in '08. Literally, that was- [laughs]... like the reaction I would get.
But I could see as a 10-year subscriber and knowing the business, I'm like, it was just an under-marketed, like, incredible jewel.
So what I started to realize is the different steps I'd taken along the way had high chances of success. So those are my criteria.
It's something meaningful that I can be proud of with people that I respect and trust and that I think has a high degree of success.
And I guess maybe lastly, I've long had an itch to scratch to just try to do my own thing. I have not done that before.
I've always worked for another owner, a media company, and, and the chance to kinda go out and do our own thing was really exhilarating to me.
So let's talk about that and how you and the team are thinking about growing this intentionally. Mm-hmm. Because I think it's interesting having the experiences at far larger companies- Mm-hmm... right?
And, and managing far larger companies and then writing about [laughs] the future of work and stuff like this. You can really design it how you want to design it.
So firstly, how are you guys thinking about differentiating in this space? Because it seems like, I remember three years ago, like I sort of sketched out this idea for a future of work publication that we never launched.
It got, ended up getting launched after I left. Timing is everything. You gotta just go for it.
But there's a ton of people covering this right now, both specific publications, with people obviously are running to this 'cause it's a major issue, and there's also a lot of money to be had- Yeah... let's be honest.
Yeah. Yeah, so I think it, it's a few things. One is r- relentless focus on the subject matter. So I do think that there's a lot of media that covers it as a subset of what they do. It's additional to what they do.
It's a special report potentially. Really, it's all we do. It's a laser focus on that.
I do think the other part of the differentiation is Kevin genuinely is a unique and uniquely quality journalist who has an, an incredible reputation, and therefore access to other great journalistic talent and also thought leadership talent in this space, so that's one of the, the central tenets of this.
Two is trying to use our company as a laboratory for some of the ideas that we're trying to put out in the world, so we're trying to walk our talk. Here's a good example.
We're 10 people across the organization, and of those 10 people, we have one in LA, one in San Francisco, one in Ohio, one in Philadelphia, one in Washington, one in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan.
Nobody lives and works in the same place, and so how you manage that group is a thing that we learn from.
And then lastly, the thing that we're at the front end of building, and I will frustrate the hell out of you, I think this, with this, Brian, because I know you like to, you know, try to get into the details, is we're still in the building and planning phase, and I can talk a little bit about this.
Building out y- a B2B offering, a, an enterprise membership basically, that helps, again, the owners of the talent agenda actually begin to bridge research into practice.
So it's not just about reportage on the subject matter, but it's also gonna be about trying to provide actionable information and tools to implement some of the ideas that you're gonna learn and be exposed to from Charter.
So those are primary differentiators for us, I think, across the- Yeah... what the business is. [upbeat music] My takeaway here is that it's always a good idea to overlay an area of interest with an area of need.
The future of work is a crowded area. I think just about every business publication has some version of a future of work section or publication. But there is always space to go narrow and deep in a subject matter.
That alone is a differentiator for those who don't have a passing interest in the future of work from a sociological perspective, but have to understand it to do their jobs.
So I, I, I find that interesting 'cause, like, it's a different type of media product that I study it from afar myself- Mm... just mostly to try to steal ideas.
[laughs] But [laughs] i- it's a different kind of media product than you've built before. Explain the sort of differentiation that you see there.
I mean, 'cause where I see you guys going is not in the typical direction of, okay, we're gonna sell ads, we're gonna sell subscriptions, we'll do events.
So you do some of that stuff, but it's pretty clear that you want to have more of, like, a SaaS approach. Yeah, and I think I've gotta...
I, I'm always hesitant to use that because, like you, I could be skeptical of the use of the latest buzzword. [laughs] But I think you're right. Like, a SaaS approach, sure. Are we a SaaS company?
No, I'm not gonna claim that, but, you know, a SaaS approach, which is- [laughs]...
a recurring revenue model, a, a self-serve opportunity, and one that can, you know, both scale and be predictable, I think is at the heart of what we're trying to do.
What's gratifying about a lot of what you both write about and talk about on these podcasts is it reinforces my own inclination, which is that any one of us in this media business needs to just recognize that multiple revenue streams are, if not a necessity, an important piece of the mix.
There's no getting around that. So I'm not dogmatically gonna say, "We're not gonna do advertising. We're only gonna focus on building this SaaS thing."
Matter of fact, we are self-funded to this stage through advertising. Basically, through sponsorships.
We've had some great blue chip companies who have, um, generously supported us all throughout last year, and therefore have allowed us to operate, and that'll always be a piece of it. But I think you're right.
It's about super serving a, a specific audience, and I think it's also about getting as close as you can to indispensable to that audience.
So the difference, you're asking how is this different from what we've built and done before. You could claim Wired and Quartz were, I, I don't know if you'd say niche, but they're in a specific category.
But they're also big general interest brands. The same with The Atlantic.And I think there's obviously a place in the world for those things, and those can be and have proven to be sustainable l-long-range businesses.
There's some new ones that are launching that are, are really impressive and surprising. Puck is, is a great example, stepping into a very crowded space in my mind, but doing it really well in, in a differentiated way.
What is interesting about this for me is answering that question. You know, I've always said, "What do we do to become indispensable?"
Because when you're discretionary, you might be the last thing on somebody's subscription list or the last brand on an ad campaign, and the minute times get tight, you're the first thing off because you're discretionary.
And I don't wanna be discretionary. I wanna be that thing that stays on the plan, that stays in the budget regardless of the ups and downs of a, of an economic cycle. Yeah.
And I think also what's interesting is designing these businesses, like, they have to be right sized to some degree. I'm sure you've had the experience.
Like, it's easy, particularly as you diversify revenue for media companies to get very far-flung, and it requires a lot of people. Ads are great, but if you become an ad machine, it sort of overwhelms everything you do.
Even in a niche area like at Digiday, like, the events just, like, overwhelmed what the company- Yes... was about to some degree. Talk to me about how you are very intentional about building a lean enough infrastructure.
Totally. And you're right, it can really pervert your plan to have to suddenly be chasing the, the scale required for that or the team that's required to build those kinds of things, and you're right.
So I think classic element of a startup is clean canvas to paint on, no legacy cost to undo. You can start to build in a more disciplined way right from the start.
And so I think that's a bit of what we're doing, is trying to be really careful about two things. One is not biting off more than we can chew. What are the things that we can focus on being really excellent at right now?
And that's obviously the newsletter, great journalism, or again, you know, in the, in development phases of building out something that I think will be the initial offering of a membership and focusing really strictly on those things.
We've done some events. For example, as a young brand, we'd love to have a podcast. I think they're incredible marketing vehicles. I would love to be doing an event a month because there's high engagement there.
We've actually seen really great conversion from events to our subscribership. But events, as you've said before in your own experience with Digiday, are difficult and, and onerous to execute.
They require a ton of time from pockets of the organization you, you don't expect.
I think those things will come in time, but so in the early days, it's about focusing on what are the core things that we wanna do and not allowing ourselves to get distracted with much else.
So you're right, we're definitely doing that- Yeah... from the get-go. You gotta pick your areas to win at, I always say. You know, I don't know, I'm probably not original. I think that's right.
I think one of the other things in our dynamic that's maybe unique to our dynamic is we've got three founders with three sort of distinct skill sets, and Aaron Grau, I will say, uh, who is our co-founder and COO, is incredibly strong on just sort of organizational theory and, and organizational best practices, and I think is really helping us be disciplined in making decisions that will impact the bottom line over time.
Yeah. And I think what's also interesting with the three of you is that there is a thriving area in having one foot in the doing and one foot in the media writing about it, right?
So, like, the, the fact that all of you have a lot of experience managing [chuckles] and designing workplaces and Aaron having, like, literal experience as that's her career, her position, I think it provides a different type of media than let's hire a bunch of journalists that can cover fires, that can cover sports, that can cover the future of the workplace.
Yeah. There's room for everything, but I just think it results in a different product 'cause there's more, like, empathy with whatever community that you're focused on.
100%, and I think that becomes more important the more focused you are.
So I think if you look at an Axios model and you've got experts within Axios who are trying to cover a specific space, the closer they are to having lived in that space or worked in that space or being networked in that space, the more value they can provide.
With us, again, exactly, if you're talking about how to build the workplace of the future in a really authentic and effective way, I think we're well-equipped to do that.
We've run these workplaces, we've thought about these workplaces, and we've served different roles within these workplaces that have, again, we've been our own test lab in some ways, both prior in our careers and currently trying to build this out.
And the best part, as I always say, is the advantage of, for instance, my focus area is people building sustainable media businesses as I'm trying to do it myself.
So I'm trying to figure something out, I just ask people smarter than me, like you, Jay. [laughs] But in the same way you're building a workplace, you can just ask all these experts. Totally. Right. Exactly.
I mean, we've got access to some of the best minds fairly consistently, and you learn a lot from that.
And part of being in the media business that I think has always been a real privilege is it's like being in an extended university.
I feel like I'm smarter every day when I leave at the end of the day than I was when I came in.
Just from being in the milieu, being, being, having access to the kinds of people that we all get to talk to and push ideas around with, that's a real adrenaline rush that I've always felt from this industry in general.
Feel it here at Charter, have felt it in my other roles as well. Yeah. Anytime I've ever spoken to any journalism class or young journalists, like, I've always said the news is, it's a great business.
Media's a great business if you're curious. It just is. It still is. Yeah, it's hard, but it's still- I agree... a great business. Totally.
[upbeat music] My third takeaway is the power of embedding yourself within a community. I find it interesting when a publishing brand can be simultaneously inside the subject matter but also serve the observer role.
I think it gives you a different kind of perspective and empathy than the typical journalistic lens that is strictly the observer.
Obviously, it doesn't work for every area, but there's a lot of upside to blurring the line between observer and participant. [upbeat music] I have no regrets going into it, that's for sure.
[chuckles] So you're 10 people now. Explain the sort of breakdown of that 'cause I think how you design an organization for this kind of media product is different than others because the content is driving the product.
So explain how you're thinking about that. Uh, so not surprisingly, of the 10, there's a plurality that are content creators. So we've got two editors, Kevin, who does a lot of the grunt work on that.
While he's running the company, he's also getting his fingernails dirty in the journalism. Yeah. How does he read all those books? He's the fastest reader and retainer I've ever met. He reads those books every week.
It stresses me out. Tell him it stresses- Sure. It's like when you're on a Zoom call with him, you see the books piled up behind him for the week, and you... It stresses me out too. So I just ignore it.
[laughs] Sometimes I just, I shut off the camera when I'm talking to him. So you've got a writer. We've got some full-time on the staff. It's f- about four journalists. We have an engineer.
We have a designer.We have me running the ad sales and the marketing team, among, uh, the other things that I do. I now have a partner and associates.
We're beginning to expand that a little bit, and then Erin really runs the company as the COO.
She's running, uh, standing up, like, I think really sophisticated and terrific HR practices, is also leading the, uh, product market fit work.
And then lastly, we have a role that I have wanted, Brian, my whole career, and I highly recommend it, and we've never had it.
We have a chief of staff who's just this brilliant woman who really helps sort of expand what our own capabilities are as founders, and also helps really run the company. It's just a...
It's a luxurious but an important role, so that's sort of the lay of the land. Can you explain that role? 'Cause it sort of popped up, and I think most things come from Silicon Valley.
But it sort of popped up, I think, from Silicon Valley, but it's become a lot more common. And I remember when it first popped up, I, of course- [laughs]... rolled my eyes at it. [laughs] But it stuck around.
Explain exactly what a chief of staff is. Well, I think it's probably different at every organization.
At our organization, and the thing that I've been hungry for, sort of y- I think they need to be v- incredibly smart and sophisticated and very organized. Uh, there, there are two sort of main things here.
One is as a trusted sounding board for the founders, 'cause you can get inside your bubble, and sure, you're gonna have arguments and discussions among founders, but it's easy for you to all start to fall into a certain group think over things, and I think having somebody who sits inside that conversation who, like, puts their hand up and says, "Hey, guys, hold on.
Let's keep you honest on this thing," that's an incredible role that, that Alicia on our team serves, number one.
Number two, I think all too many times I've been in these high-level brainstorms at the executive level where you come up with a lot of good ideas or decisions or pathways forward, and then you're called into 40 meetings over the next three days and nothing gets operationalized because it doesn't get pushed down through the organization.
And I think a part of it is recognizing our own strengths and weaknesses. I think Erin is really terrific at leaving those meetings and pushing things down through the organization.
I might be less so because I tend to be, wanna be... For whatever reasons. We can get in... That's a whole separate podcast. [laughs] It's for subscribers only. [laughs] I, I'm willing to do it, I think.
We can talk offline.
But, you know, y- so there, there's so many more dimensions to it than just that, but I think it's those two things are kind of critical components that I've always been hungry for, that keep you honest, not the ideas, reshape them, make them better in the room, and then make sure that when you're making important decisions, that they happen, that they are signed, that they get through the organization, and our chief of staff is just tremendous at doing that.
Okay, so right now the newsletter's the main product. How many people get it? We have 56,000 subscribers, and growing at a good... Like, you know, it's, it's fun. We're, we're finally, like, at a flywheel...
[laughs] I don't know if flywheel overstates it, but we're growing at about a- Yeah. [laughs]... 30%-a-month clip right now, Brian, which is great. It's... You know how that is, like, when you finally get there.
Oh, my gosh. So we're at 56,000, and I, I'll make the prediction we'll be at 70 by halfway through this year. Okay. So I mean, you can sell ads at that level. I mean, you obviously have partners, which helps, right?
Explain how you're thinking about that, 'cause again, you don't want the ad sales to overwhelm the organization. I know we've talked about it before. And it's not like you've got 10 sellers out on the street.
So explain how you're selling it, 'cause I mean, what I wonder is are you selling on a CPM? That's what I wonder. No.
I'm selling it as on a flat fee basis at this stage of the game, and I think I'm able to do that for a couple of reasons.
One is the scale is what it is, so there's not the, like, the incredible scrutiny on a CPM at this level of scale, number one.
Number two, it's kinda clear who, w- between the subject matter and who's reading it, who the target audience is. It's... I'm not reaching the general populace.
We're reaching C-suite, and as I said earlier, anybody who owns the talent agenda, and that tends to be senior VPs, directors in things like HR, operations, a little bit of IT. So the audience is quite clear.
So the proposition is quite, is, is very clear.
I think we're in a moment, mercifully for us, that where a lot of companies want to be seen as thought leaders in the future of workspace, whether it's Workday or a Google product that's designed to be that, or you're some company that sits adjacent to that, whether it's a technology company or a services company, but you wanna make sure that people understand that you understand where the future is headed in this arena, and you've got something meaningful to say.
So the proposition is simple, easy, clear. I don't have to cast an incredibly wide net and chase... I'm not, I'm certainly not after Toyota and Heineken to run ads in Charter.
It's very clear who the target accounts ought to be. And luckily and mercifully for us, we had a handful of really good blue chip companies, Cisco, Citrix, among them, Anaplan, PayPal.
You know, we're grateful for these companies who have supported us from the beginning. At this stage of our existence, I have a finite amount of inventory.
Our web inventory is published on time.com in a partnership that we have built with them. We can talk about our partnerships. So there's not a ton to attend to there just yet. Right.
But I wonder, are the dynamics different in this type of media that you don't think you'll eventually get pulled into the CPM and, like, where do we fit on the spreadsheet?
'Cause it doesn't sound like people are putting you on a spreadsheet. Yeah, probably not. Listen, I, I, I think the bigger you get, yeah, you're gonna end up on a spreadsheet at some point.
I think that's relatively unavoidable for all of us.
But again, going back to that construct I was saying, if you're indispensable, if you are essential to a certain group, and I would put your user base first, you know, the audience.
If there's a certain audience for whom you are indispensable, you're likely to be closer to indispensable to the advertiser as well.
And so again, you think about in that dynamic, all right, I've got a future of work budget that has ballooned over the last two years because the topic is so massive.
So I am Cisco, and I've got tons of thought leadership, and I can spread that budget all over the place 'cause I've got so much money.
Yeah, I wanna run in, in the Wall Street Journal, I wanna run on the Fast Company thing that they're doing over here, I wanna run an HR dive, whatever it might be, and I wanna run with Charter.
That budget shrinks, and now you've gotta suddenly think about, okay, I need to be in the places where it really matters. Like, I do still have a budget for future of work.
It's just not as big as it used to be, so where are you gonna spend that? The objective for me would be to be, like, the clear place that, spreadsheet aside, this is automatic.
Now let's talk about these other 10 options that we've got. Yeah. That's where you wanna be. Got it. Me too.My takeaway here is something that bears repeating.
Advertising and subscriptions aren't an either/or proposition. Even if a publishing brand wants to be based around subscriptions eventually, advertising can serve as something of a bridge to getting there.
And so long as you have a defined and high-value audience, you can do quite well with advertising.
It's no surprise that Punchbowl, for instance, has a far bigger advertising business than subscription business just a year or so in, and that's because a lot of companies need to reach its influential audience.
I think the same thing applies here with Charter. [upbeat music] Let's talk about growth and how partnerships play into that because obviously, you know, when it was reset, it started to get traction, right?
And I remember when it was like 10,000, now it's 56,000, so that's good.
Explain the growth strategy 'cause, I mean, I think there's a lot of people out there who wanna jumpstart growth, and there's definitely, there's definitely ways to do that.
It's a little harder nowadays with ads and whatnot, but explain how you guys are looking at growth because you wanna build a sustainable business, and, like, it does take time. It, it does.
I think so, so part of it is, will be patience I think is gonna be required here, and again, that's back to your whole point about cost control on the economics is making sure that you can grow at a sustainable rate, so that's one thing.
I also, again, I think you're right. We, we don't have to focus on 10X exponential growth because you need, need to hit a certain amount of tonnage to matter to advertisers and to be able to deliver on ad campaigns.
That's the other piece of this, right?
The, it's not just that you matter and show up on the spreadsheets or show up in the meetings, but then once you've sold a package to someone, you've gotta be able to deliver all those impressions.
So we're not in that game.
I think we're much more focused on engagement, making sure that we're reaching the right people, and that those right people feel like we are, again, I'm gonna keep using the word, you know, indispensable, that they engage with us, that they, um, respond to what we're doing in the world in a positive way.
That's the first thing. But you do need and want some growth.
I mean, in the vision of the business plan, right, the market, the, um, media side of this company really becomes a marketing funnel for an enterprise membership. And so you're gonna wanna grow that for two reasons.
There's growing the media business itself, but there's also the more people you're engaging, the more opportunity you have to get them to subscribe. So there's that piece of it.
And the ways we've done that have been multifold, just like you need multiple revenue streams. So a lot of it's been organic. It's Kevin's reputation.
It's the network I, I think of the three founders, um, that we all have. A lot of people have picked it up from that. Word of mouth has spread it.
We've had a, a really interesting partnership with Time that I mentioned earlier, and the whole objective of that for us is less about revenue and much more about they've got a 70-million-person platform and are interested in putting out more business content.
And so we're getting exposed to that large audience, and they promote us a lot, and a lot of those convert over to subscriptions.
And we have definitely dabbled in marketing where you end up largely on Facebook given the CPAs there. Those are fine.
The quality is, is not nearly as strong as the other sources, so you want it to be part of the mix, just not all of the mix. Okay.
So the Time partnership, is that original content, or are they republishing content that you've already sent out? Yeah, no, it, it's, it's a bit of both. It's, so it's content that you'll find in the newsletter.
So for example, Kevin's book review you'll find on time.com in addition to in the newsletter. Mitra Kalita's column that comes out every Tuesday, which hopefully people are reading, brilliant thinker and journalist.
Former classmate of mine. Ah, there you go. She probably leaves that off her bio- [laughs]... but that's fine.
Well, so those are things that we publish on Time, and then we publish some original content on Time that's not necessarily gonna make it into the newsletter that is maybe designed to be a little bit more accessible than the, some of the wonky stuff you might find in the newsletter.
What I think the key for us is that we're not gonna lean into that heavily and try to make ourselves a mass product, but it does help create exposure, drive them over to Charter where they subscribe.
Did I get this confused, but are you involved with the Information's newsletter network? Yeah. E-e-exactly. I was just gonna say it's...
We're really proud at this early stage of the existence of the different partnerships we have. So we have the one with Time, which was driven by them, actually. We, we have good connections there.
I know Keith Grossman incredibly well from years of working together at Wired. But they've come to us with a proposal that ended up in this partnership.
The Information is actually more about leveraging their homegrown ESP, which can enrich data.
They've got a lot of ways in which you can segment your subscribership that is gonna lead us to incredible, uh, ability to target in varieties of things, inviting people to events, getting them the right kind of B2B product.
So we were invited to join that. I don't know what their long-range plans are there, and I think together the more data in the system is gonna make the system smarter.
But we've had great relationships with Jessica Lessin over the years at the top. Kevin knows her really well.
And so we're really excited about that 'cause I think they've done a masterful job of exactly this, growing subscription-based media.
So we'll be able to leverage a lot of the, the homegrown advantages that they've built there. And then the only other one that we haven't touched on that I think is...
Well, there are two more, but one, one that's interesting as well is MIT Tech Review just recently had reached out to us. They do an annual conference. It's, I think, about five, six years old. It's called EmTech Next.
It's in June. And it looks at the intersection of technology and the future of work. And they've been hungry for an editorial partner.
They've obviously got technology covered, but a lot of the access to certain thought leaders and ideas in the future of work I think they were looking to enhance.
And so they invited us in to co-produce this event with them, which is creating both some commercial opportunity and a great way of us getting our brand out at a big conference without putting an onerous stress on our own team.
[laughs] Without actually planning and organizing- Correct. Yes... a big conference. [laughs] Exactly. Yeah. I feel like you guys might have been scarred by that. What was it, the Next Billion? The Next Billion.
No, I, my, my scars go long, are long before- [laughs]... the Next Billion. My scars, well- Okay...
the, the, I have a great story about the first Next Fest, Wired Next Fest in San Francisco, in which I was literally in a suit, still working at Condé Nast, sweeping the floors of the venue before the doors opened with a giant push broom.
Anyone listening who thinks that they wanna get into events 'cause it's glamorous about the cocktail parties and stuff- Yeah... let me tell you, it is not glamorous. High wire. It is not.
They- [laughs] High wire scary stuff. But-It's high stress, and it is at some point you're gonna be carrying something. But the- I don't know if it's a sign, I don't know if it's equipment- Oh, yeah...
but you're gonna be carrying something. You're gonna get dusty and dirty. [laughs] There's no question about it.
But listen, but, you know, the reason we all keep doing them is when they work their magic, there's no substitute kind of for what they bring to the party. Yeah. So anyway.
[upbeat music] My final takeaway is about the importance of partnership.
Starting from scratch is hard, and the only way to avoid the sins of the past and the scale era is for new publishers to get their infrastructure the right size.
That means not building everything on your own, and playing more of a general contractor role and finding the best partners so publishers can focus on what the product really is, which is the content itself.
[upbeat music] But so let me ask you this, and then we'll wrap it up. It might be a little cliche, but I think a, a lot of the most powerful brands are embedded within communities, right?
There's real communities, and then there's sometimes make believe communities. There, there's audiences that are passed off as communities. Is this a community? I, I think it has the potential to be. I'd...
It'd probably be overstating it to say it is a community now, depending on how you're defining community. But yeah, I think what you've got is a like-minded set of people.
So you're gonna be a charter person if you're, one, obsessed with getting the employee in the workplace experience right.
And again, th- that could be anybody from someone who's running an ERG to just that shiny smart person on your team who's always driving you and your leadership to be better.
And clearly this is an urgent topic, and we didn't even talk about some of this data, right?
But it's like more than 50% of the C-suite will tell you that their number one challenge post pandemic is talent attraction and retention. It's not a sideline issue anymore, it's a front and center issue.
Just last week, Adobe just released a study that says great resignation's not over or overstated.
One third of people who did not change their jobs in the last six months report that they intend to apply or change their jobs in the next 12 months. Yeah.
And I think for nine months in a row now, 4 million people have quit their jobs. So this is a really poignant issue, number one.
And so I think there are a lot of people inside the organization for whom this is a necessity, but it's also a passion. They wanna get this right. That's what it was like inside Quartz, that's what was driving us.
And I think you have a chance to galvanize that into community. People who are future focused, wanna build better workplaces, understand the value in that, and have similar roles in achieving that.
So yeah, I think it will be one day. Yeah. I think a lot of companies paid lip service to this, to be honest with you. We've all been part of company meetings, HR goes last.
And the people just, I think too many times fell back on cliches, like all our value goes down the elevator at the end of the night and stuff like this.
But the pandemic was a giant wake up call on a few fronts, and this is definitely one of the biggest. No question. It's a real thing. I think you're right.
Everybody gave lip service because th- they could kind of skate by.
You know, L- Linda Gratton I think will say things were frozen prior to the pandemic, the way we talked, the way we thought about doing things, and then the pandemic unfroze everything.
And then you look at that against the backdrop of, again, the big social trends in, in the country. Look at Bob Chapek at Disney.
It used to be if you were a CEO, your PR flax would basically tell you, "Don't comment, don't weigh into these issues anymore since this, the risk is too high."
Now, the risk of not actually saying something is too high because you've got employees who expect and demand that you're gonna say something.
So I think everything about the workplace is changing from the top on down in genuine, meaningful ways. And that is our expectation.
You're going to need a trusted resource to help you shape your beliefs and priorities, figure out what you need and want to do, and then bridge that research into practice, and that's what Charter's designed to do. Yeah.
I like that you guys actually have a charter manifesto, whatever you, you call it, that you publish, because I think every brand should do that.
You should make clear what you stand for and then deliver on it, like, every day. But it's good to actually have, have that to refer back to.
And I think a lot of places honestly couldn't write that because they don't stand for anything. But that's my take. Yeah. Well, I think that's fair. Awesome. Jay, thank you so much. It's been great to reconnect.
Thank you for doing this. Yeah, Brian, thank you for the work you do, seriously, not just to come on this podcast. I think the work that you do is, is indispensable for me, frankly.
So keep it up and look forward to, uh- Awesome... to seeing you around. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jay. I'm looking forward to doing more of them.
And I wanna hear from you about what you like, what you don't like, and the kind of guests you'd like to hear from. Uh, my email again is bmorrissey@gmail.com.
Also want to let you know that, "The Rebooting Show" is produced by Podhelpus.
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[upbeat music] [laughs]