Foundr Journal publishes in-depth interviews with the world’s best entrepreneurs. Our articles spotlight key takeaways from every month’s cowl characteristic. We talked with Lauryn and Michael Bosstick about constructing The Skinny Confidential and their media empire. To learn extra, subscribe to the journal.
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When Lauryn and Michael Bosstick speak in regards to the corporations they’ve based, The Skinny Confidential, HIM & HER, and Pricey Media, they don’t discuss year-over-year income or MVPs. What they do love to speak about is the neighborhood they’ve constructed during the last 13 years by way of their weblog, their spin-off podcast, and their podcast incubator.
To start out, they didn’t analysis new verticals for alternatives to monetize. They didn’t search for whitespaces in varied industries.
As a substitute, their success began just because Lauryn didn’t need to shell out 800 bucks to hitch a sorority.
In 2011, Lauryn was in school and in search of a neighborhood. When the sorority got here knocking, hand outstretched, Lauryn turned to running a blog as an alternative, asking herself the questions each entrepreneur asks: How can I create this and do it higher?
“On the time, bloggers had been running a blog about what they had been carrying and their nail polish coloration and their mascara model.”
“And I used to be like, ‘Wait, how can I do that and never simply make it about me? How can I make it about different folks, too? I would like their secrets and techniques and tips about the weblog.’ And that’s how the Skinny Confidential was born.”
Lauryn blogged seven days per week and spent two hours every day responding to readers’ feedback. But, she didn’t make a penny off the weblog for 3 years.
What she was doing was constructing a neighborhood, listening to her readers, and creating an area for conversations and connections.
Since then, she and her husband, Michael, have spun off a podcast, The Skinny Confidential: HIM & HER. She has revealed a e book, The Skinny Confidential’s Get the F*ck Out of the Solar, and launched a skincare line.
From the podcast, Michael has grown a podcast incubator, Pricey Media, which focuses on girls’s voices and narratives.
A concentrate on neighborhood and viewers has helped Lauryn and Michael construct manufacturers with unbelievable recognition. The weblog garners greater than 2 million impressions monthly, and the podcast presently boasts greater than 90 million downloads.
HIM & HER: Increasing Their Neighborhood
The Bossticks launched HIM & HER six years after the weblog. In every episode, Lauryn and Michael share their views on varied matters and produce on visitors from all walks of life, from well being gurus to staff of the Bunny Ranch, a authorized brothel in Nevada.
It was born from a necessity to attach with the Skinny Confidential neighborhood—and an evening of margaritas.
“I began to see that the viewers was craving extra intimacy, and so did Michael,” Lauryn says.
“And so we had been drunk in Cabo off margaritas, and he mentioned, ‘Let’s launch a podcast.’”
It was a loopy concept. On the time, podcasts had been solely starting to catch on, and nobody actually knew if there was a option to monetize them.
Just like the weblog, it was a labor of affection first and a income stream second.
Additionally just like the weblog, they centered on their core viewers. They’re all the time tuned into what sorts of content material their viewers desires. They take heed to suggestions and incorporate questions that come from listeners.
It is a technique Lauryn sees loads of corporations ignoring, to their detriment.
She makes use of a bar analogy for instance. “You see loads of younger guys go to a bar, they usually get fascinated with a lady that they’re pursuing, they usually concentrate on that. After which unexpectedly, there’s one other fairly woman standing there, they usually cease specializing in the one which they had been focused on. They go to the following one. Then there’s one other one, they usually go to that one. I feel folks do that in enterprise an excessive amount of. They begin to develop a buyer base or neighborhood, and that neighborhood begins to get somewhat bit vested, and [then they’re] like, ‘OK, acquired them, no extra specializing in them, no extra catering to them, I’ve acquired to go get another person.’”
Lauryn and Michael host the present eight occasions each month, they usually’ve by no means missed a present. Every present explores matters that straight deal with their viewers’s pursuits and ache factors, which implies they cowl a wide range of matters.
“So it actually began with us offering the content material, not essentially from what we needed to speak about however from what they needed us to speak about,” Michael says. “And over time, we’ve maintained that actually shut connection.”
They hold an in depth eye on analytics not solely from the podcasting channels however from social and e-mail, as properly, to get a great learn on the visitors and matters the viewers is responding to.
“I feel so many podcasters make a mistake, the place they don’t put the viewers first,” Michael says. “They both put themselves first or the visitor or the model. We actually put the viewers first and know that by doing so, they’re going to assist us in return by listening and sharing and rising.”
Launching Their First Product Utilizing the Energy of Neighborhood
Just like the weblog and the podcast, the Bossticks had been deliberate of their first product launch: a face curler that reduces swelling.
The concept got here to Lauryn after she needed to endure double jaw surgical procedure, a process that left her face swollen for 3 years. Her solely saving grace was an ice curler she discovered on Amazon for $10.
When she blogged about it and included it in her retailer, it turned a high vendor.
“I observed that my neighborhood was obsessive about it as a result of folks get up swollen on a regular basis—you’re hungover, you have got puffy eyes, you go on a aircraft, you get puffy. Individuals are puffy, and nobody was speaking about being puffy,” she says.
Lauryn did discover flaws with the curler and so determined to launch her personal. It took 4 years and several other conversations together with her viewers earlier than she had a product she was able to launch.
She gathered a goal group of customers and talked to them day by day in regards to the growth of the product. From there, she launched a Fb group and grew it to 60,000 girls. She posted photos of her product and growth and solicited suggestions.
The ice curler offered out twice within the first two months after launch and have become the primary product in a skincare line with a cult-like following that features the primary facial razors and shaving cream for girls.
“It’s just like the ice curler on crack,” she says. “It’s freezing chilly. Guys adore it. Grandmas adore it. Canines adore it. It’s simply all the things you need to get up to as a result of it freezes the shit out of your face and makes you simply tight and eliminates the puff.”
