The Early Days of ArtMap Inc.

Opening up about the company behind , , , , and that you just might have read before. Hacker Noon Extra Newsfeed ART + marketing My Student Voices P.S. I Love You more publications . All in all, it is up to 14,000+ contributing writers, 450,000+ subscribers, and 11,000,000+ monthly minutes reading. Today, I’d like to share the details, milestones and failures of the last 20 months that got here, as well as, a bit about where this business is headed. AMI is a blog network AMI Notable Things Before AMI Summer 2006 First job after high school — moved stacks of newspapers from the printer to the trucks from 10pm to 5 am six days a week. Got paid $5.35/hr. Was my first taste of the sweet, sweet nectar of the story distribution business. Summer 2010 First job after college — was the last reporter on the payroll. Got the invaluable experience of titling AP advice columns, paginating pages, editing obituaries, processing obituary payments from the bereaved, writing the occasional human interest piece, and waiting for a story to break while the beat writer was busy or out of office. My pay had almost doubled to $10.65/hr. I lived in my parent’s basement like a boss. January 2015 story began when . SmartRecruiters went from 7 to 100+ employees while I was there; from seed funded through Series B. But companies change. People change. Wanted my own thing. I bought my stock and moved on. Much thanks to SmartRecruiters Founder for hiring me and working together the early days of market traction and company development. Additional thanks to my colleague , who taught me a ton about the evolution of internet marketing, and I was fortunate enough to collaborate on projects with throughout the growth of my own company. The tech startup education on work ethic, weathering storms, creating growth, and strategic thinking was invaluable. A great introduction to the tech industry, and a fun ride. AMI I left my first job in tech Jerome Ternynck Paul Andre de Vera Founding the Company February 2015 — May 2015 I started to target the company stage that I had the most fun working as an employee — the early days of high growth startups. I was a bootstrapped early stage startup serving venture backed early stage startups. ArtMap Inc. We wrote key messaging documents for early stage companies. Led their content strategy, content production and social media. Every customer had similarities and differences. There are some stages all startups must go through — like , measuring ROI by channel, or simply determining what the crux of their company story is. We structured six month deals with equity components. We were acquiring clients by reputation. I was building a portfolio, working for my equity, and making enough money to . This is picture that we attached to all marketing proposal emails: acquiring your first ten customers hire my writer friend John Marshall Photo credit, . Kerouac Alley, . Scott Heimerman North Beach San Francisco CA We live in a time — we thrived on the challenge of elevating startup stories above the noise. These startups went through s and of the world. My main philosophy was to work with the brightest budding entrepreneurs I could, then make their words better and stories bigger. when everyone’s got a mouth and no one listens Y Combinator Techstars Our first customer got . One customer’s company died. Most of them are still chugging. Another raised a . And one got bought by one of tech’s big 5. I’ll write more on this time later, but for now, onto how media became the business… acquired by KissMetrics $5M Series A June 2015 It wasn’t a pivot that happened in one day. When you’re a young business growing by revenue, you have to balance how to pay the bills in the short term with how you envision growth will happen in the long term. I made the (wrong) assumption that Medium dotcom would be the next important blogging platform. The design, the backing, the clean interface. I had no special connections, just a taste for curation, getting the best to contribute. It’s how the internet should be — an equalizer of information for the rich and the poor. I started . It started no differently than, ART + marketing this is our company’s blog. September 2015 (as in Craig from Craigslist) contributed an . I thought ‘wow, maybe is bigger than . My editorial philosophy is the internet will be the internet, but if you can attract the good voices and stories of the internet, you can make quality destinations. craignewmark old school nerd story this marketing other startups I continued to take on marketing clients because it’s San Francisco and I got bills to pay and mouths to feed. How appealing would it be to tell stories for the sake of the story itself? As a marketing agency, you are marketing company story. If stories could be the product, the content would apply to a larger community. More truths takes perspective closer to the whole truth. And if the long term business was serving and growing other startups — wouldn’t I be more effective at my job with an owned media arm? That’s what I thought. Amplify what is working. their October 2015 Got our first office. It was 200 some square feet on the sixth floor of The Flood Building on Market Street. Was great to have a base of operations. November 2015 Meeting marketing clients, making $$$. Continued chugging along… December 2015 Revenue was still 100% driven by consulting. Our expertise on corporate blogging was making the rounds, and we did some work for tech unicorn and a public company. It wasn’t exactly what I set out to do, but the order of stories is never known in the beginning. Just like how I think in curating a publication, you don’t know what the story almost is until it’s live. If you build exactly what you set out to build, you didn’t learn from the experiences along the way. Seeing how great young companies grow was very inspirational. ART + marketing passed 6,000 subscribers. January 2016 I decided it was time to apply our approach to more verticals. We hacked together some tech that automated messages to writers about the opportunity to publish here which, greatly accelerated our recruitment of writers. It was like having a mechanical extension of myself. We launched 15 more publications across many different verticals. February 2016 We literally recruited and published 1,000 contributors in 9 days. Basically all I did 20 hours a day was read, edit, review and publish submissions. The concept was to accelerate our outreach, and see what stuck. Then, Medium changed their terms and conditions and shut down tech that was helping us to recruit writers within Medium. We can control what we can control. Looking back, this definitely impacted resource allocation — away from technology development and toward community management. March 2016 Every publication has an interest. We want to be up front with ours. The Trump campaign phenomena also seemed like a realistic possibility because of how effectively he manipulated news cycles. We used our platform to pledge support for Bernie ( by ) and tried to be transparent about the how of the Trump Phenomena was not just a fad ( by ). 10 Reasons Why Conservatives Should Start Supporting Bernie Sanders Immediately Kimball Mortensen Pity Porn For Racists: The Media Wants You To Feel Sorry For Trump Supporters. Don’t. Oliver Willis I was very excited to . I love cartoons. And she’s made them for the New Yorker, and just about ever other reputable cartoon publisher. It’s a little known fact that I started a novel loosely based on ’s impact on Catholicism, China, and WWII. publish lizadonnelly Tintin April 2016 had its first month that exceeded one million minutes reading. also . AMI Upworthy republished one of our top stories We moved our publication URLs off Medium.com, and onto our own domains: Hacker Daily on Medium.com became . HackerNoon.com Future Travel on Medium.com became . FutureTravel.today ART + marketing on Medium.com became . ARTplusMarketing.com Fit Yourself on Medium.com became . FitYourself.Club Keeping Stock on Medium.com became . KeepingStock.net P.S. I Love on Medium.com became . PSiLoveYou.xyz Student Voices on Medium.com became . MyStudentVoices.com Small Business Forum on Medium.com became . SmallBusinessForum.co Don’t Panic, Just Hire on Medium.com became . 42Hire.com Responsible Business on Medium.com became . ResponsibleBusiness.co Healthcare in America on Medium.com became . HealthcareInAmerica.us Festival Peak on Medium.com became . FestivalPeak.com Movie Time on Medium.com became . MovieTime.Guru Extra Extra on Medium.com became ExtraNewsfeed.com You can probably guess by the colloquialness of the domains above which sites took off. Sometimes success is making it easy for the brand to come out of another’s mouth. Or maybe some stories are just better than others. Ultimately, I wanted to build on my own land — as much as that is possible as a small operation without venture investment. May 2016 Sold our first sponsored content series: . I’m on the fence about the value of sponsored content… Is it really more honest than banner ads or email sponsorships? I want to add value. I want to be sustainable. I want less ads — that are also honest about being ads. The Mighty Collection Ads can exist to accredit value created. Is the author thumbnail not an ad for the author? Is the Medium thumbnail in the upper left hand corner not an ad for the blogging platform I use? Is my URL not an ad for ? AMI June 2016 We published , ’s story from raising $300,000,000 in to the failure of his company (Fab). I think it’s the best startup failure story on the internet. Makes me think, could fail, my next company could fail, and the company after that, but someone like me can still overcome and hold their head high. But that’s not me. I’m building the AMI Network. Jason has already built companies. That’s the thing about perspective, yours is also more valuable to you. We also completed a rebrand across the entire family of publications. led this project — and that’s where all the logos you see today originated. Rebounding From Epic Failure Jason Goldberg venture capital @AMI Designer Tom Snow July 2016 Travelled to Vietnam to give a on the future of media, called TEDx Talk “Horizontal Storytelling.” Found out I was going to be a father 😄 Living wage had to raise ☹ This led to some difficult decisions 😣 I halted customer acquisition marketing services for , continued to serve existing marketing service customers, cut back expenditures as much as possible, and accelerated effort into the fastest growing section of my business: . ArtMap Inc. the publications I realized I had to get rid of my first office — in the Flood Building on 4th & Market Street. Used to really, really love my walk to work from North Beach down Powell Street. Also, I had to layoff the first person who believed in my company enough to join; much respect and gratitude for all the work put into this company. Basically had to force revenue closer to income, and that meant less total income, while doubling down on the high growth areas of the business. I became leaner and more profitable in the short-term. John Marshall Employee turnover can be tough. But you’re never the only one battling it. One of top stories of the month was about . And the end — and intangible value of — Marissa Mayer’s tenure leading Yahoo Marissa Mayer tweeted it :-) August 2016 Our first month with over 2 million minutes reading. A couple of stories that helped us get there: published ( ) & , . My Student Voices Harvard University “Where Are All the Teachers of Color?” Extra Newsfeed published Hillary Clinton’s official photographer Barbara Kinney September 2016 Sold our first sponsored letter. Ho hum. I want to sell because all news reaches you because more than one source is involved, and I want honest accreditation about how that helps make the network possible. What companies make the happen? What companies make happen? sponsored newsletters AMI Washington Post AMI October 2016 We published ‘s the , where we distributed the news of the first company to serve a billion GIFs per day. A world with a billion GIFs is a better world! GIPHY STATE OF THE GIF 2016 This high growth month included our top story of the year, “ ” by . It’s been translated into dozens of languages, achieved over 16k recommendations, and . How it feels to learn JavaScript in 2016 Jose Aguinaga qualified as 2016 top ten story by Medium In other news, garnered tweets from the official accounts of the & . Tech & politics led our growth. Extra Newsfeed NYC Mayoral Office Libertarian Party November 2016 Trump is elected president, somehow. And we as a nation, were forced — as actor said— to . I wrote . And later . The political humor movement called “ ” in , led by , drove what I consider to be a sane response to Trump’s fake news bullshit. Adrian J Anchondo Own Our Shit a short letter about it bought a website TRUTH IN SATIRE Extra Newsfeed Allan Ishac Gave up a small equity stake in my company to start development on a product for brands to sponsor stories with one year long ads. Always great to work with on a tech product. Its development has actually been stop and go, but will launch soon :-) Dane Lyons That’s what happens when you fund a business with revenue — timelines change and resource limitations are more real. When I think about the future of ads — I think lower volume and higher alignment. We all have interests, and what we read says something about those interests. I’m not interested in profitably selling ice to eskimos, ketchup popsicles to a woman in white gloves, or pens to people that already have plenty of pens; I’m interested in sustainably promoting products and services that are relevant to our respective communities. I’m looking to partner with companies who understand the value of giving first. Companies who understand the value of our stories and the values of their brand. Companies that give a sh*t about branding what their potential customers are already reading. December 2016 We published ’s campaign, asking . It garnered 85 signatures from Electors of the Electoral College. Christine Pelosi James Clapper to Release Facts on Outside Interference in U.S. Election released , and 6 of them were published by us, so that was cool. We published a super serious article about making the fastest site in the world, and technical lead for AMP Project said, . Your Friends @ Medium the top 39 stories of the year the text is so good it doesn’t even gzip to less bytes Got married :-) A $0 wedding 🎉💍👰🏻 January 2017 Trump enters officer office. I can’t confirm or deny whether hell froze over or not. I moved to Colorado. We continued advocating a free internet, publishing big stories about how a free internet is one where people can express their ideas without fear. In related news, announced they were “refocusing.” I took this as, we’ve completed phase 1 (serving publishers) and are internally moving the platform towards serving creators and their own revenue. They also laid off 1/3 of their staff, primarily those in editorial & business development roles. Who is left to do the platform’s editorial and business development roles? Your Friends @ Medium February 2017 We sold our first site takeover sponsorship: on . Hired Hacker Noon Had an Extra Newsfeed story, , which was tweeted by and — the creators of my two favorite series. The post ended up with 5+ million pageviews. Why Liberals Are Wrong About Trump J.K. Rowling Seth MacFarlane March 2017 achieved — that’s the equivalent of 47 years, 11 months and 5 days. By the end of the month the subscriber base reached a total of 298,087 subscribers, which is approximately equivalent to the population of Cincinnati, Ohio. In other news tweeted story and tweeted a story. AMI Publications 24,666,309 minutes reading in 2017 Q1 MIT Media Lab My Student Voices Greenpeace Future Travel Today I formed partnership with to function as contingent sales force. BuySellAds Became a father :-) While in the hospital I continued to message writers and sponsors. There’s less time working, but really is no “time off” in the traditional sense — not when you’re the only full time person at a small but growing media company. surpassed in publication followers, which is big deal for me because I’m still waiting to hear back from about the job application I filled out the week after The Ringer was announced. Also, The Ringer left Medium. I still read it, every now and then when I remember to type in the URL. Hacker Noon The Ringer Bill Simmons As we started to attract attention of organizations like the , I got to thinking about how AMI gives back. IMHO, has always been a part of the editorial line — which later manifested itself as Case Foundation making positive impact LINKS TO CAUSES: positive impact online should create positive impact IRL. April 2017 We caught the attention of , and — which is cool because they’re two minds that I greatly admire. If I can contribute a fraction of how Alexis sees the front page of the internet — or how Rand is able to make sites more effectively communicate with search engines — maybe this business could justify my reality distortion complexes? Alexis Ohanian on Hacker Noon Rand Fishkin on ART + marketing Photo Credit, . AMI Generates 25M+ Minutes Reading in 2017 Q1 This is part of our platform dependency, we’re relying on to deliver newsletters. As of publishing this story, we were over 450,000 subscribers receiving our stories either from us via email or from Medium. Medium May 2017 Worked on a rebrand from to . Much thanks to for partnering up, making the transition to possible. I wanted to overcome challenge of seeming like many small media operation by uniting the brand under authoritative 3 letter acronym; AMI: in French it’s “friend,” and in Hungarian, it’s “which,” and . We also published some of my , caught the attention of & , and were . ArtMap Inc. AMI andreas milles @AMI AMI does abbreviate to our corporate entity, ART MAP INC new favorite cartoons inside the White House Amazon Amherst republished by Business Insider June 2017 We threw out first in person event, . The Inaugural Hacker Noon Party in San Francisco This led to (who in a small world connection to the company — was actually led on a hot air ballon ride in Montana by a few years earlier), reselling our ad inventory, and it was to meet so many contributing writers in person. Robert Scoble doing the Hacker Dance John Marshall Media Mobilize very rewarding July 2017 ? Probably not, lol. I need some help. We’re growing the team. Can a 1 person company be a “legit” media company We had a summer intern, who worked on developing , improving contributor communications, and managing stories for , and . Kah Yee Chiang our Facebook pages My Student Voices Athena Talks P.S. I Love You partnered as Managing Editor of . Great storyteller. He will be raising our story quality and improving our community development. You can read more on his outlook here: . Dan Moore P.S. I Love You Love is Not a Genre August 2017 We got our first . He put the radio on the internet with Broadcast.com, owns the Dallas Mavericks, kicks ass on Shark Tank, once … and reads . tweet from Mark Cuban turned a computer into a radio Hacker Noon We published novelists & Ayelet Waldman : . Proud to keep that story atop . Until all the right people step up, may just keep it atop our publication. Lately, as I consider what an actionable reader means, we’re been rotating different causes in the top navigation of Extra Newsfeed, such as , and . Michael Chabon AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR FELLOW JEWS Extra Newsfeed Charlotteville Victim Relief Fund Stop Trump’s Ban on Transgender Military Service, the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund On the revenue side, we partnered with to develop original tech to provide writers with better readers and more paid opportunities. Artur Kiulian My wife, will also be joining part-time to develop contributor relationships, execute new revenue opportunities, and simply better my business processes. We’re a family business looking to become something bigger… Linh Dao AMI Here’s a snapshot of our reading destinations. 2017 Q3-Q4: What’s Next? I need more what I think it can be. This means board of advisors, more revenue share agreements, more equity agreements, and selling a portion of the company to investors in order to spend on labor and technology. The reality is that I’m overworked, underpaid, and want to make this a more serious destinations for remarkable stories. I’ve consistently erred on the side of growth, and I’m looking for partners to help turn that growth into a better business. partners to make AMI While the US internet ad industry remains a , I’m not interested in ad revenue being ’s primary source of revenue. It’s not the future experience that’s best for the reader, writer or internet as a whole. $1 trillion yearly market AMI The path to a better internet starts with less ads that are more relevant. The storyteller and the story distributor must find a more sustainable business model. More tangibly, I will be taking initiatives to drive innovation in digital publishing. The direction of : AMI Build a larger part-time editorial team of experts Innovate on the reading list and how to find your next story Use technology to increase the volume of paid writers Increase time reading AMI Increase paid Medium’s time reading Scale coverage of events and conferences I hope to close the year with a bigger team and a more clear business model to grow digital publishing in the year ahead. AMI 2018 And Beyond In an industry driven by headlines, we’re trying to publish better headlines... that are also followed by more substantial stories. By publishing contributing writers who are professionally doing what they’re writing about, I believe we’re able to share more stories that resonate. No one knows what the future holds, but I do know that these values will drive them: Publish More Remarkable Stories Amplify the Community’s Publish Button Make Partners Smile Serve the Community Add ART Whenever Possible I want to go against the grain. This world I see today is not the internet we should be reading from. This world — where the story’s profoundness means less, and its surface level value means more — does not have to be the future of reading on the internet. This story is not trying to be a think piece or a listicle of lessons, it’s simply a monthly business log looking for partners. David Smooke AMI Contact . . . Stories@AMIpublications.com Partners@AMIpublications.com Tweet