Interview with the founder of Wirecutter

[Potatoe]

I don't have a ton to say about this, but I thought it was an interesting listen, hearing about their content strategy and where some of their competitors / copycats fell short. This guy started out working for other sites as a writer, noticed where there were some opportunities in the niche, then left behind a salaried job at Conde Nast salary to start The Wirecutter, hired dozens of staff, and didn't have to take on any investors. It sounds like he's pretty hands off now while the machine takes care of itself (Says he's waiting for the right moment to dive back in). It's not all that far from the path I'd like to follow, so it was definitely relevant to my interests, maybe someone else'll find it interesting.

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/23/11998404/brian-lam-wirecutter-steve-jobs-gizmodo-iphone-podcast

Update: Just realized he's the editor from Gizmodo who got his hands on that lost iPhone a few years ago and got the phonecall from Steve Jobs "Hi, this is Steve Jobs, I'd like my phone back." LOL

 

[backwoods]

I've always been intrigued with The Wirecutter as they really took the Consumer Reports model and tweaked it into the ultimate affiliate cash cow. Bloomberg also did a recent interview with Brian that is worth a read.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...te-found-a-new-way-for-publishers-to-get-paid

Here is the TL;DR from both articles that I found interesting:

- Company is based on about a 1,000 pieces of content.

- Each Wirecutter post takes between 20 to 200 hours of research and testing.

- They mastered the process of updating articles (nobody else was doing this and most still don't)

- The site has a staff of about 60 and posts only a few dozen articles a month, yet it’s profitable. Last year, the Wirecutter drove $150 million in e-commerce transactions, Lam said.

-The Wirecutter only has 22k Facebook fans

-Social media is more finely attuned to news or viral videos. People use social media and news often when they want to waste a lot of time. People come and find us when they want someone who is really focused on helping them spend money wisely. Having said that, we waited 3 years before we even bothered with a social media person because we were hyper focused on doing one thing—making sure we recommend awesome stuff. That was it. Everything else was word of mouth.

- Unlike many digital media startups, the Wirecutter has no outside investors. And its traffic is relatively small: it had 622,000 unique U.S. visitors in February, according to ComScore, a fraction of major tech websites like the Verge. The Wirecutter isn’t focused on traffic. It wants readers to buy products it recommends, so it takes its time, Lam said.

-Took Brian about 4.5 yrs to "hand-off" the business to his employees

 

[Ryuzaki]

The Wirecutter crew deserves whatever success they find. That site is seriously incredible. The amount of work they put into their content is oustanding. We should all be modeling ourselves after them.