Discussion
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
We're Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin, Co-founders of theSkimm, a company that makes it easier to be smarter. So much happening around SkimmHQ these days -- we're so excited to be here and to answer your questions. Ready, go!
Hunter Walk
@hunterwalk · Partner, Homebrew
With so many great investors now supporting The Skimm, why has Homebrew remained your favorite of the group?
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@hunterwalk mostly because we really like their twitter icons:)
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@hunterwalk also because they yell at people for us on twitter
Hunter Walk
@hunterwalk · Partner, Homebrew
@carly_zakin can take the boy out of NY, but can't take the NY out of the boy....
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
@hunterwalk and because they join our product hunt live chats #support
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
Hey! Thanks for joining us today :)
I recently read your TechCrunch chat around growing an 'obsessive community' (loved it!) - and naturally it really interests me for Product Hunt :)
What are the biggest things you have learnt while growing your community?
What would you do differently if you had to do it again?
What are the biggest challenges/obstacles that you have had to overcome and how did you figure it out?
For others, the video is here:
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
@bentossell One of the biggest things we learned while growing our community is the value of our story. there are a lot of things that differentiate our company - our focus on routines or demographic, our customer service, etc. a lot of people in the beginning connected to the fact that we started it from our couch with no business background and grew it from there. that was surprising since we thought it was something people would think to hide.
Capri Galaska
@caprihiggins · Co-Founder @anchorxyz
Hello, Danielle and Carly! I was reading your Forbes "30 under 30" article from last year that 20% of your >1M subscribers are men. Do you have any plans to broaden your target market in the future or keep focused on female young professionals? If so, what is your theory on altering your original target market and if not how do you keep focused as different users come on board?
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@caprihiggins Hey, thanks for submitting! Big fans of Anchor:) When we started we got asked all the time why we were focusing on such a niche market (women) which made us laugh. We do not believe news is gender specific in any way but we know our audience focus and are grateful to have our growing male following!
Andrew Ettinger
@andrewett · Product Marketing, Twitter (ex-PH)
How do you respond to people who say theSkimm is written for women? As a daily(ish) reader, I usually say:
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
@andrewett We love our male skimm'rs! and we have a lot! we do not think news is gender specific and we definitely target busy people on the go. but we have a clear marketing plan and an influential demo to focus on
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
If you both had to swap lives with Tech CEOs/Founders for a week, who would you pick and why?
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@bentossell ooh love this question!! I would love to swap lives with Elon Musk for a week but then I think i'd be too scared and ask theSkimm to take me back
COSTAS ANDRIOPOULOS
@candriopoulos · https://medium.com/strictly-curious
Hello Danielle and Carly, thanks for taking our questions. 1. Where do you look for emerging trends (e.g. sources, events, websites, etc.) and 2. What kind of tools do you use to find interesting content?
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
@candriopoulos Hi Costas! We don't use a lot of tools to find articles. we scroll through a lot during the day and are reading constantly. we've used social tools to figure out what's trending bc that can be a ton of info to go through
Michelle Gifford
@santinagifford
HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION: if you were not co-founders of the skimm and joined the team after the skimm was founded, what job would you want at Skimm HQ and why? (also LOVE THE SKIMM SO MUCH and am obsessed with the fb group. how much posting in there is too much?!???)
-xoxoxo baltimore skimmbassador
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
@santinagifford hmmmmm stuffed panda skimm'r because all he has to do is watch
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@santinagifford LOVE this one. I would want our product skimm'r Dheerja's job because she gets to build all our new products.
Andrew Ettinger
@andrewett · Product Marketing, Twitter (ex-PH)
What was the hardest part in monetizing theSkimm?
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Danielle Weisberg
@dmweisberg · Co-founder, theSkimm
@andrewett Deciding when to turn on the monetize button. we knew we were building something really valuable and wanted to maintain quality even as we let in sponsors
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@andrewett creating examples of our inventory to show brands what we meant by saying they could sponsor natively
neeharika sinha
@neeeharika · Google, Threadchannel
Hello Danielle and Carly. Great to meet you here. I am a Skimm'bassador and love the community you have created. I have 2 questions for you 1) What is the hiring and growth strategy of Skimm? I would love to be a part of the Skimm family? 2) How did the transition from newsletter to App happen? Has the funding from 21st century made you wan to grow your product in different verticals? Thanks!
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Carly Zakin
@carly_zakin · theSkimm
@neeeharika SKIMMBASSADOR!!!! hayyyy...thank you for being a part of that community! 1. We are looking for people with hustle. We like to say that if we gave you a laptop, a couch, and a phone you could grow this business and we hire people we believe can do that. We are hiring a ton right now. check out openings at theskimm.com/jobs. 2. We never thought about let's create an app. we thought about how do we integrate ourselves into a diff routine and from there Skimm Ahead was born.