Keith: [00:00:00] Excited about our guest this week. This week we have the co-founder of URL media, S. Mitra Kalita. Welcome. [00:00:06][6.0]
Mitra: [00:00:07] Hi, thanks for having me. [00:00:08][1.0]
Keith: [00:00:09] So I'm really excited to have you, especially this week because you published on multiple platforms a pretty big article that a lot of people in the media world have been talking about, titled A Woman of Color Cannot Save Your Workplace Culture. Let's start there, and then we'll backtrack and talk a little bit about your old media, but let's start there. What was the impetus for this article and what's the conversation that you've been having since? [00:00:31][22.1]
Mitra: [00:00:32] Sure. Thank you for noticing that. And in some ways, the article that you referenced. While I'm loving that it's getting such dialog and conversation started, I was actually surprised by it because having worked in spaces of trying to diversify newsrooms and more broadly corporate culture for decades now, much of what I wrote felt like something people have perhaps been whispering about within certain communities. And really, my takeaway from this week was, wow, a lot of people read Time Magazine, right? And if anything, which we'll talk about for the next hour or so, for the next few minutes is the role of amplifying what everybody knows is still so incumbent upon mainstream media. So that might not be where you wanted me to go. But I do think the platform of a Time magazine getting into conversations that previously we were just whispering about and then putting on a different face and front for our white counterparts is actually pretty significant, and that does lead to the founding of URL media. The intention of you URL media and to really rewind the tape, it has so much to do with why I left CNN and, you know, a decades long career in mainstream media. It's not just CNN and I were I always joke, I've worked everywhere. [00:02:01][89.6]
Keith: [00:02:02] I love that that's your bio. I've worked everywhere. Trust me. And so, yeah. Talk a little bit about that. What was the decision that you decided, OK, I've been at CNN, I've been Bloomberg, Quartz, all these different places. What made you decide, OK, I'm going to go out on my own and I'm going to find a partner and do something different? [00:02:19][16.7]
Mitra: [00:02:20] So actually, there were stages of my exit. It sort of feels like in the media we cover departures and then there's like, Oh, someone just sold their company for like tens of millions of dollars, right? And the inbetween is actually, in my case, was like a pretty long process and also has been such a journey that's still continuing. So, you know, before CNN and I worked at the L.A. Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, I launched a paper in India called Mint and I was at Quartz as you mentioned at the Associated Press and Newsday. [00:02:55][35.6]
Keith: [00:02:56] You really were everywhere. [00:02:57][0.5]
Mitra: [00:02:58] There was a lot of brands. Yeah, by the time I got to CNN, it was my first time though working in broadcast, which I was so grateful for because a lot of digital strategy is convincing legacy outlets to get with the internet and in some ways, 24-7 cable TV is the original internet. It's iterative, it's intimate, it's in your living room, you know, broadcast talks to people, you know, very much kind of tries to at least peer to peer as opposed to, you know, the Sunday newspaper. And so I think that's an important piece of my discovery at CNN. And also just to really underscore, I learned a heck of a lot when I was there and I had an amazing career. I started as a VP. And the story of my five years at CNN was like every year, every few months was like more and more and more in terms of more people, more title, more money, more power. And that, as you know, can be kind of intoxicating where you're like, Oh, it's a good life, you know? And also at a platform like CNN, you can make such a difference. And so it's important to note that the five years as it CNN was during the administration of Donald Trump, I think one of the things I'm proudest of at CNN is what didn't air. And so like we often talk about like what we call a lie a lie. Did we say something was racist? Did we, you know, air this rally when that's just giving platform, right? It's a lot of what decisions lead to what becomes journalism. What's not talked about as much are the decisions of like, let's not do this, let's not frame this that way. Let's take a pause and wait till we have some more perspective and really get to present the first version as the contextualized version, as opposed to a tweet that will inevitably force you to click on the headline, but also disparage, you know, a large percentage of humanity, right? That's just a good example. So I just want to say that my run at CNN was great. The way that these things go, which you know, again, like, I don't think there's a lot of, well the coverage of media by media can be quite poor at times. So the way these things work, you know, my contract was coming to an end and the organization called me and they said, OK, like. Here's what we think is next, right, which was guess what? More money, more power, more things right. And we were just a few months into the pandemic. And I really believe and I still believe this, that how we spend our pandemic and what we do for the rest of our lives from here on out. Is everything. And I was just in a moment where the idea, not just of me continuing on this path of the CNN I had been at for the previous five years, which happened to be the administration again of Donald Trump, regardless of who won. I did not want that to be the trajectory I was on for the next four years. Yeah, and it wasn't just me. I wanted the media to change in a way that was fundamental to what we mean to people. And I felt really passionate about that. And so while I was still at CNN, it's worth noting I launched a newsletter. I call it my dinky Queens newsletter called Epicenter because we we live in Queens and Jackson Heights and the surrounding areas corona and Elmhurst were really like the epicenter of the epicenter is we've heard over and over again. We were so hard hit, and so I launched this community newsletter when I was still at CNN because I felt like, gosh, people are coming to us for help anyway. Should we be amplifying the needs? Should we be telling people what food banks could most use their donations? Should we also be helping them deal with the so-called first world problems of where you can get yeast and where you might find some green space and you won't run into people? And remember in those early days of COVID, we really didn't know much about how it spread. [00:07:17][259.6]
Keith: [00:07:18] No, people were like putting bleach on their food and washing their cardboard boxes. [00:07:22][4.2]
Mitra: [00:07:23] Yeah, like food delivery was like, actually, it's funny. In those early days of launching this newsletter, you know, food delivery were among the most clicked items. But like you know, two things come to mind when I felt like we really had meaning to our community. One was the food bank down the street had asked us for larger sized diapers when we asked, like, What are your big needs? We said, You know, people donate newborn diapers, so we'll keep doing requests for size three and four. And having raised two kids now like, I get it because, yeah, kids are in diapers way more than you want them to be. And so we put that in our newsletter and like the next week, they said, Oh, we got six shipments of large diapers. Thank you so much. And 6 shipments is nothing when you're at CNN like the number six is like six out of like millions and millions, right? Whereas for me, it was a revolution. The second thing that happened is there was a CSA in Astoria for flowers, and we just thought it was a sweet idea, like a farm that was going to have flowers and sort of like a way to brighten life during a really dark time. And we put that in in the CSA booked out of spots for flowers, and I just thought, Well, that's like a good example of kind of feeding others, feeding yourselves. How do we bring joy to life despite everything going on? So anyway, this is like a little bit long winded in my decision to leave CNN, and I apologize. But like the founding of that newsletter and the identifying of purpose and meaning and possibility has everything to do with the courage it took to say to Jeff Zucker, who's the president of CNN and someone who I emerged and leave CNN with a pretty strong relationship with to say, You know, this is going to sound crazy, but I think I want to focus on this community journalism effort, and it's starting with my dinky Queens newsletter, but it's not going to end with my dinky Queens newsletter. My contract was coming to an end. So it wasn't really complicated departure. The more complicated part, which I'm happy to delve into is just how do I now make a living? Yeah, I know we're going to pay my mortgage and feed those kids who are no longer in diapers but really do still need to, you know, go to college and go to school and be educated and be fed, right? [00:09:46][143.0]
Keith: [00:09:47] I do want to get to that nitty gritty part, right? Like, how do you pay the bills with what you're doing? But before that, I do want to kind of connect the dots here on. I think a lot of people went through exactly what you went through, where they were working at high powered, impactful jobs that are reaching millions in a pretty significant way, but still felt that there was something missing with their community, something tied into that community. Can you describe the differences in terms? I love that specific example of the diapers, but the work that CNN would do to reach millions versus the work that you're doing to reach a community in Queens? [00:10:18][31.5]
Mitra: [00:10:19] Sure. It's a great question. I think we're strong because of the reach, but so many companies in this is not just media, but so many companies by becoming everything to their consumers, in some ways, they become nothing. And so I really felt that quite acutely because it's worth noting for the two years before COVID, I was working on a plan that was actually pretty successful at CNN to diversify our content. And when most people here diversify, they're like, Oh, there you go again on your black and brown kick. And I literally meant no diversify beyond politics and Donald Trump. Like, I want us to cover education. I want us to cover the weather. I want us to. You know, the best way we agonize over how can we get people to trust us? And how do we get Trump voters to read us? And I always say the best way to get Trump voters to read us is to not talk about Trump. The best way to get them to read us is to say, you know, how are your kids schools? Are you happy with what's happening? You know, what's the male mortality rate in your county? Should we be covering health in much more news, you can use ways, and so I was really on this. I think it's worth noting that like you also can't suddenly wake up and be like, Oh, now I want to be a good person. My hope is that we've infused elements of that into our large companies, and that's why we're valuable, right? I think that is, you know, again, like we started out talking about the Time magazine piece I wrote, you know, platform and reach really matter. It really, really matters. And so I'm not against that. But I also felt like the transition it would take once the pandemic arrived to get to a place of intimacy, trust and utility. And for so many companies, again, this is not just about media, but the ultimate question is creating value for consumers. Unless we're giving them something that they need, I really do question what we're building, right? And so I think that's an important connectivity between why couldn't I do this work at CNN? I mean, CNN is definitely doing versions of service journalism and utility journalism and has really in a time of massive confusion around to wear masks or not wear masks or get a booster shot or not get a booster shot. You know, we rely on institutions like CNN to tell us what to do next. Yeah, but. I think to your point, neighborhoods like mine also operate in a certain reality that parroting the way things should be or what the government is saying or what a politician is promising is hardly the way things are experienced on the ground. Absolutely. So one example would be like right now, Epicenters been covering basement apartments very closely, right? And basement apartments operate in this interesting space where the city is like, We need to legalize basement apartments. We need to build with climate change in mind. I'm totally on board with all of that. But the reality is we have interviewed countless people in basement apartments and they have said there is no other housing that's affordable for us. The landlord here is not going to legalize this unit. And so basically, we're in a situation where we need to. Proof our homes for climate change in a way that skirts this government step of let's legalize basement apartments right now, that might be a silly example, but I share that because so much of national media is not going to be able to marry the practicality and reality of many people's lives with the way things should be done and the way that we capture things efficiently. And so I really believe that there is a need for outlets like mine that are on the ground and able to capture the real deal. And then, like I said, like, do you then start to have those conversations amplified into the time magazines over the world into the CNN's of the world? And that's where you are old media comes in. [00:14:44][265.2]
Keith: [00:14:44] That example is so important, though, right? Like, I believe it was at least a half dozen people who lost their lives in the last hurricane that hit New York City because they were living in a basement apartment. So that nuance, I think, is important, right? And I think that's one of the tougher parts of the national media landscape is how do you get into these local communities to understand the nuances of the problems? I don't think I've ever shared this one out loud. But after Hurricane Maria, my father passed away in Puerto Rico between two hurricanes. And I wrote a tweet that got a lot of attention and kind of took on a life of its own about Donald Trump in the way that he handled Puerto Rico. So both CNN and MSNBC called me up and said they wanted me to talk about Hurricane Maria one year later. I trimmed down my beard, you know, ironed my button down and was ready to do it. But both places canceled on me at the last second because of Brett Kavanaugh. So the Brett Kavanaugh stuff had just come out and both went to, I would say, minute by minute, 24/7 coverage of Brett Kavanaugh and talking nothing about, you know, Anna Cabrera maybe stepped in and maybe there's a couple of other little like small pieces about Puerto Rico one year later, but the shift happened. You know, that was the first taste that I got of this like move everybody over here. Let's go. We got to focus on this thing. [00:15:58][73.3]
Mitra: [00:15:58] That's such a good way to put it because there's national conversations. And then there's, like I said, like the whispers of how we really operate and in your life. My guess is the death of your father was looming large, and so were the thorny issues behind it. And I should also say, I'm so sorry about that, and I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but I was raised in Puerto Rico. And so. [00:16:20][21.5]
Keith: [00:16:20] Ok cool, where abouts? [00:16:20][0.0]
Mitra: [00:16:21] I was raised in Rio Piedras and I went to school in Condado, so where was your dad? [00:16:25][3.8]
Keith: [00:16:28] Aguadilla and Moca the West Coast [00:16:28][0.8]
Mitra: [00:16:29] last night. Yeah, yeah, great surfing out there. Yes, you know, but that's a great example because the issues of households are weighty and real and all consuming. And I think in some ways, the media post election have been like, Oh my God, nobody's reading anymore. Like, we used to get these huge traffic numbers and is nobody reading anymore? And you know, every day when I look at Google Trends. The stuff that's trending is still, believe it or not, more than a year later, symptoms of COVID. And so our lives are consumed in so many ways with the local. And I worry that we don't capture that now, you might say, well, how is 24 seven cable going to get the symptoms of COVID every day? Right? That's right there. I think the symptoms of COVID is largely an evergreen piece. CNN has done many stories on it. Thank God. I think the way to think about it more, though, is to say, what's the relevance and what's the role we play in these people's lives. So both you are all media and at the center have been obsessed with linking our people, and we really do see our audience as our people to vaccines. Right? Mm-Hmm. And in a lot of our neighborhoods, it's really hard whether it's transit or lack of digital connectivity, lack of information, you know, there's just a lot of reasons that this is the way it is. And it's also for what it's worth. It's not just our communities. You know, the lack of the under-vaccinated in white communities is an issue, although that's a little bit more political as opposed to what I'm describing. And so we've been obsessed with this issue. And yet, as someone who is obsessed with this issue and tracking vaccines and COVID and, you know, issues of public health every day, I am still so confused and think that there is probably still a place for some news outlet, and we've wondered if it should be us that's giving you like the five minute download on is what you need to know about boosters today, because boosters alone is so damn confusing, right? And in the noise of national media, we kind of become obsessed with who's up? Who's down? What are they saying? Oh, this just happened. And again, this is like so one on one captain base, like the one on one to people's lives is the step we are skipping over. And I said at CNN all the time, I'm like, the basic story is always worth doing. Like, don't overthink it. Go with the basic and sometimes by being basic, you get to outperform everybody else because they're trying so hard to sound smarter and louder and better [00:19:16][167.0]
Keith: [00:19:17] or contrarian, right? They say everyone else is thinking this. So let's think this just for argument's sake, [00:19:22][4.9]
Mitra: [00:19:23] that's like one piece that I think community journalism really plays this critical role now. And maybe this is the right time to talk about URL. Yeah. If people are Googling symptoms of COVID every day and you're a black or brown media outlet who's not going to be favored in seo results, then what happens? Right? And so many of our outlets, so you are all media. As a consortium of nine, we have nine members right now. It's growing black and brown media outlets around the country each of us are committed to, I always say like three things there is identity, so some are Haitian. Others are black Philadelphians. In my case, it's immigrant New York. It might be Latinos, right? So there's definitely identity. The second is geography. I'm in Queens. WRT is in Philadelphia. Sarhan Journal is in Minneapolis. We are local in the way that really matters. I would almost argue we're more community than local. I kind of differentiate between those terms. [00:20:25][62.2]
Keith: [00:20:26] How do you differentiate between those terms? Because I like that. Well, I think I know where you're going with it. [00:20:29][3.5]
Mitra: [00:20:30] I think local is bordered like local is like my neighborhood stops at this zip code. Ten blocks from here, the next neighborhood takes over. So local is almost like parochial, right? It's right. You can't come to a neighborhood like Jackson Heights and not feel like, Oh boy, our media outlet needs a foreign policy to operate here, right? Like, we really are global. And so, I mean, even as something like a vaccine effort, I was getting calls from, let's say, a Bangladeshi who lives in Jackson Heights saying, Can you help me? I'd say, of course. And he'd say, Listen, my cousins in Pennsylvania, can you help him? Now for me, that cousin is a local story, right? Because yeah, my neighbors borders are not ending by a zip code or fence. My neighbors cousin. And that cousins livelihood is as impactful and important, and in many ways, the ties of our communities, plural see point one on identity are overlapping, expansive and actually broader in their outlook, then so much of local news. Which I would argue the narrow mindedness of local news is also what led to its demise and inability to scale. Right? [00:21:44][74.8]
Keith: [00:21:45] Yeah, it's brilliant. [00:21:45][0.4]
Mitra: [00:21:46] So community news, I feel like you're looking for. It's almost like when you're thinking and I know you kind of like nerd out on this too. But like, how do things go viral? They find their tribe, they find their next tribe. There's a desire to almost mushroom outward. Right? So community, I feel like, is expansive in how it wants you to discover information. Local to me feels a little bit bordered, so I try to differentiate when possible. Of course, I'm not like allergic to the term. Local news of someone lumped me in with that. It's absolutely fine. The third area that our partners all have not in common but are actually differentiated is platform. So I started out as a newsletter WRD is a radio station, Palabra as a website in English and Spanish. The Haitian Times is a website but also has a print edition. TBN 24, which is a Bangladeshi live stream channel, is like all live streams all the time, like immigrants literally parked themselves on Facebook and just watch it all day long and then documented, which also serves immigrant New Yorkers, is on WhatsApp and like literally engaging in one to one conversations with its readers who might be trying to navigate, you know, labor issues, or how do I file for unemployment a health issue? How do I find the doctor? You know, my kid needs to apply to kindergarten. How do I do this? So anyway, those three traits in this network are immensely powerful because when we soft launched in January of 2020, a few days after President Biden was sworn in, we already had five million plus users. and so the ability to leverage this small and overlapping right in that community? And then what? And then what? And then who right actually has served us very well. So that's the URL model. [00:23:34][107.7]
Keith: [00:23:34] How did you get this group together? How did you form this Avengers of journalists? [00:23:38][3.8]
Mitra: [00:23:39] So my co-founder is a woman named Sarah Lomax Reese, and we met when I was at Harvard, where we were at Harvard together for Executive Education Program if you will. Although the coaches would probably cringe at my characterizing it that way. But I was CNN, she was at WRD. And, you know, I had scale and reach and resources, and she had trust, intimacy, authenticity with her listeners. And we always kind of marveled at those two sides of the coin and how powerful they could be if you put them together. We became good friends and then after the death of George Floyd, we found ourselves texting and calling and just kind of saying, But what are we going to do? Right? And at the same time, there's like debates waging on Twitter over objectivity and fairness and impartiality and like, how will media meet this moment? And we were like, But what are we going to do? And at the time, I was launching Epicenter again very organically. I was still at CNN and I didn't expect it to be my livelihood. And I thought. These questions actually have a lot to do with each other. And I don't know that in this moment in the digital landscape, the right thing is to launch yet another website. I think the right thing is to say who's been doing the work before the death of George Floyd? And how do we take this moment, which I've never seen before in my career or my life, and amplify their work, and also that lens, which has arguably been the better lens on news, it was us who were not listening. I include myself in that for what it's worth. [00:25:25][105.7]
Keith: [00:25:26] OK. And so she agreed. And you guys both said, Let's do it. Now we're going to it's the money talk, right? It's very noble. You know, I'm putting the cynic hat on for a second. I'm going to play like the V.C. that would see this and go, this is great for the world. This is great for the community. I don't see how it scales. I don't see how it makes money. What have you been doing? Is there a different avenue for fundraising, a different avenue for making the money for your company? [00:25:49][23.4]
Mitra: [00:25:50] So I think when I first talked to you, I was like, Oh my gosh, we soft launched and all these brands are coming to us and they want to advertise, and I don't really know what to do since we were not. So one thing is that we clearly tapped into a market, and I think that's important and we tapped into market. But we also tapped into corporate budget. And that's important because what you're seeing when it comes to diversity spend is it might be advertising, it might be marketing, it might be corporate social responsibility. It might be the new improved diversity, equity and inclusion officer who has a few million dollars to spend. Right. And so that's an important note that I think our founding came as companies were like, Oh, we too have to do something. So that's one monetizable avenue. We have had a few ad deals. We've actually had more RFP than fruition, but we're definitely turning it over. It's only a year old, however, that initial reception was very redeeming because to your point, like we knew we were trying to do the right thing. But I also think that Sarah and I are so aligned on this will be a for-profit company. It can have a nonprofit arm to your point for like some of the more charitable and do gooder aspects. But we also believe strongly in wealth creation for our people. We believe in our people as a market, right? So that was redeeming just to kind of see that surge of interest and we have had a few ad deals. There's another area that I'll talk about, and I haven't talked about it a lot publicly and it's not like we're hiding it. It just exploded. And it was like, Oh, wait, when are we going to update our website and let people know that this is happening? So among many of the side hustles in those days of leaving CNN and launching what was to come next, I was approached by a number of news outlets saying We have our top jobs open. Could you help us with the executive recruitment and search? OK, cool because I've been hiring, you know, I've been a manager for half my career more than a decade. But you know, from the minute I set foot in a newsroom at the age of 20 to like, I was pretty good at telling you who you should hire because I come out of a background of believing our newsrooms need to look more like you and me. Right? So I've always been immersed in these issues. And yet at the same time, I've never had a quote-unquote diversity job. Like, I've always been like, Let me go where the action is. I'm going to be in charge of breaking news at CNN. I'm going to be in charge of the biggest thing everyone cares about. I'm going to handle coverage of the Great Recession for The Wall Street Journal. I've always been where the big story is because that's my very well-intentioned immigrant parents told me to do right, go where the big opportunities are. So I start doing as a side hustle, helping large media outlets find their editors and chief executive editors. And as URL is starting to meet mainstream partners, saying We have content, we believe you should syndicate. And that was supposed to be our model. These newsrooms are saying we could do that as soon as we hire for these six jobs. Yeah. And we were like, Well, we can help you with that. And it just became this honestly almost became comical because we were doing like dozens of meetings, as you do when you first launch. And we would emerge. We would enter wanting one thing and exit with a different contract. And still, It was funny. And now that that has really exploded, so we found this B2B arm of our business. It's actually grown from recruitment into coaching because of course, there's people who are in jobs now. And I think there's a moment between what's it like to be new and in charge during COVID? Right? Just the whole. And Sarah, my co-founder, is an excellent coach. She's more classically trained and has worked with a number of accelerator programs and is just like, she's really, really good at that piece of it. So that business has grown. And I don't hide that. For us to have placed the people in charge of newsrooms and digital media companies around the world is leading to an ongoing relationship with URL media in a way that's actually very powerful for us. So that's been a growth area. It's also made us walk with a little more swagger because I think also when you and I talked, I was like, Well, there's advertising, but we're also probably going to like, hold out our hats for our friends and family around investors. And, you know, I'm trying to get my deck together. And we did that. I'm going to tell you like, we definitely did a round of that. And we had mixed results, we have some friends and family say, sure, we can write you a check for 100 K, which is like, I don't think that's a small number, but we would have needed a lot of those checks. Yeah, and we also had a lot of more established VCs say you're very early. Yeah, very early. And we heard that over and over now between you and me or and everyone who's listening would I still would read pieces in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal of people who have, like maybe their digital smarts, like fit into my pinky finger, and they were getting pounded for millions of dollars without any track record. [00:31:16][326.1]
Keith: [00:31:17] Yeah, I mean, I hate to say, you know, it's a black and brown thing, right? That VCs look at it and go, OK, pre-revenue or not enough revenue we're going to slow down. But the numbers don't lie, right? When you look at the numbers, and it's still one to two percent of startups are getting funded by VCs that are black and brown. Those numbers don't lie. That's right. So it is part and parcel to that. And I think some, you know, we can get into kind of the B.S. factor, too in all the fun stuff that's happening with us and media where I think there's an attraction to, we're going to be the biggest thing in the world versus we're going to be some of the smartest people making a real impact, right? There's something sexier about, you know, a big, massive failure and betting on that, then betting on something that's going to be methodical and good. [00:32:03][45.8]
Mitra: [00:32:04] So it's so interesting because we keep thinking our idea is so big, like when people ask me, like liken a company that you want to be like and I'm like, I don't know The Associated Press, Reuters, or I'm like, and I still don't think those are big enough for what I have in mind. And yet this is the immigrant part of me, and I think Sarah's the same way, like we want to grow methodically, strategically. And also, you know, we started with eight members, we have nine. I think we'll be at a dozen by the end of the year. My hope is every single one of them will see massive value that they're getting out of us. This might just be sort of the, you know, Sarah and me being like girls at the top of our class throughout school, but like trying to do it the right way. Yeah. So honestly, when we unlocked revenue, we said, This is amazing. We can hire three people, including our head of sales and revenue, including our head of audience, including a head of operations, to get us to those places that we know we have to get and we're able to do that from the recruiting arm of the business. And then one other aspect, which I do think people are waking up to, although it's a little bit slower and the numbers aren't huge, but it's significant, which is grants from nonprofits even the worst for-profit company. There are some nonprofits Knight Foundation. Knight One Fest, Democracy fund. Of course, the one that we made a lot of news with was Meghan and Harry from Archewell, who write an early grant to us that was kind of life changing just because people were like, Oh, who are these people, you know? And so that has enabled us between that, which is like intentionally to fund operations and amplification, plus the B2B arm. Like, I'm feeling really good about our ability to set up for what's next. And hopefully, you know, if I come on in six months to a year, I'll be like, OK, like now our RFP there, like, I'm very confident in our ability to do the thing that we set out to do. [00:34:11][127.2]
Keith: [00:34:12] I want to talk a little bit more about the foundation stuff because I think that's so fascinating and I think a lot of people can learn from that. How do you navigate that world? How do you find the places that makes sense for you to apply to? And what's the work that goes into that? I know a lot of places have full-time grant writers [00:34:27][15.1]
Mitra: [00:34:28] And we've thought about that too. It's a good question. So, you know, the strike rate on that like, look, it's definitely more going up and coming in terms of the asks, but mostly Sarah and myself write it. I mean, it's similar to the ad deals where we find ourselves in a room and people feel the energy and they feel the positivity. And I think that has served us well. So we've met with a number of nonprofits. We've been approached by some because some people think we're nonprofit interests because of the mission, right? So they'll be like, Oh, are you? And we're like, No, but we are happy to talk to you about some of our members are nonprofits, right? So. So we are a for-profit company serving a nonprofit world, too. That's important. How do you navigate that world? So I think some of it is just constant networking among the large foundations. I think there's another piece of it which is what are you actually trying to do and what's your story there? So for some of these grants, like, for example, Nightline Fest, we pitched a series of stories on jobs and the economy, and that's how they gave us the grant and our partner. Like, for example, the immigration Haitian border crisis right now, we just granted the Haitian Times money to cover that through an economic lens. There's also a bus driver shortage across the country. Guess who many of these drivers are? They're Haitian immigrants. So we've been able to enable more journalism through grants like this, but amplify it through the network. Those grants are actually. I don't want to say they're easier, but they're like, it's so clear what the deliverable is. [00:36:08][100.1]
Keith: [00:36:08] Yeah, their specificity [00:36:09][0.4]
Mitra: [00:36:10] helps specificity due to a thank you operation's grants for Epicenter. I've gotten a few of those two and they're smaller. They're definitely smaller. But for an outlet like ours, they're pretty life-changing. So if you can marry the operations and capacity building, right, if you give me a 100 K, I will be able to do X. People are listening now. They're not giving me. 200K or a million dollars or like some of what I'm seeing from other outlets that have been making some news lately, but again, like. I think you can tell this like I have a lot of hustle, so if I have to make money, I will find it like it almost forces me then to say, OK, well, there's a hundred k, but I want to hire these three people, which, you know, like, I need a runway into 2022 of 250 K. So I guess the other thing I would say is that we also by not getting venture money, we were able to be many businesses and venture right wants you to stay in one lane. Yeah, and you cannot confess I hope if they're listening, it's like, All right, I'll sing the song you want me to sing in six months because I do think we'll need to scale. However, they want you to stay in one lane. They don't want you to do consulting, they don't like. It's just it's really kind of limiting in the focus that they want your company to take. And when you're like us and you're trying to respond to the marketplace, we've definitely had to pivot and I think that's served us well. But it's a bit of chicken and egg in is that taking away focus for you to be getting the tens of millions of dollars to scale on like that? Eyes on the prize and in my head, I'm like, No, because I believe this b to b arm has to be a part of us, right? Like, yeah, and we've done for what it's worth, some content partnerships with mainstream media as well. It's not all recruiting and consulting and coaching. [00:38:10][120.4]
Keith: [00:38:11] One thing I hear these numbers 100, $250000. You're being very pragmatic about the revenue needed to continue to grow the company, which is very different than somebody who's raised 250 $100 million where they go, just hire, hire, hire, hire, right? And that's a lot of what VCs say is just hire. We'll figure it out, which it feels like you just lose a discipline because and I think this is why a lot of these companies start to fail is because they never had the discipline like you would have on how do you manage the money and how do you manage the roster that's on the payroll? That's right. [00:38:45][33.8]
Mitra: [00:38:46] It's absolutely I mean, it's heavy amounts of money. How do you manage the people? And the more people you have, the more like there's always more and more and more? Right. And so I have definitely been guided, you know, I'm not afraid to kind of namedrop, but like there's companies like Business of Fashion, where, you know, the founder, Imran Khan is a friend of mine and like I did in those early days, call people and say, like, what should I know now that, you know, having done this for years and years and I'm so grateful that they were so giving of that type of advice because it was a lot of what you're describing like, you know, be really careful and coming out of media that has so. Binge drinking, you know, coming out of mainstream media, like I'm very aware of bringing people in and kind of the almost like the rubber band of like, you know, we're growing, we're shrinking, we're growing, we're showing you and I, you know, I've actually said this to our teams. I'm like, Look like a lot of you came in here for Epicenter. I just said this in a meeting, look, I hired you to do a newsletter and we're now a website. We have a podcast. We have three more newsletters. We're doing so much community engagement in person, right? There is a part of you that might feel like my skills are not for this company anymore. Right. And I feel that way sometimes, but let me tell you, like as we're growing, those of you who took a leap of faith and still feel that faith in us as we're growing is precisely the moment that there's place for you, right? And that is also important to me from how do we grow workplaces where there's two way loyalty and a commitment to people's careers? And guess what? My commitment to your career is so great that if you say to me, I learned a lot at Epicenter, but now I want to go write a newsletter for Morning Brew or Bloomberg or insert big media brand here. Like, I could probably make that happen. And so we're pretty transparent about that commitment, which is actually made a huge difference in the type of people who want to come work for us. [00:40:51][125.0]
Keith: [00:40:51] I love that you went there on growing with the people and helping those people at different stops in their career because I'm somebody that always when I see a news story break in the media world, especially like, OK, how did that actually happen? And so when I saw the partnership that you had with Time and Cartel, I immediately go, OK, well, she worked with Kevin and Jay at Quartz. She probably knows Keith Grossman. Those relationships matter, and that's how something gets off. Can you talk a little bit about that and how fast relationships kind of turn into a future opportunity? [00:41:21][30.1]
Mitra: [00:41:22] So funny, because this really comes full circle on two bookends. The first book end is I saw an ad in October as I was exiting CNN or about preparing to exit CNN. I saw a Facebook post saying Fortune needs a content writer. They didn't even say columnist or journal as someone to write content for twenty-six weeks on workplace issues. Interesting. And so I applied through the front door. I responded to the Facebook post and said, Listen, I'm leaving CNN. I sent them my CV and I sent a bunch of ideas. Now you might laugh because you're like. You know, like you were an SVP for CNN like you need to like do that, but yes, I did it through the front door. I got the column. The column took off. And guess what? It evolved beyond content marketing and like filler copy to fulfill an ad campaign. You know, it really took off. We wrote about the workplace. Fortune loved it. People loved it. And we just started getting great reactions to it. And so as those twenty-six weeks were winding down, Time Magazine came to me through exactly the relationships you're describing with Carter and Time who were about to embark on this business partnership. And they said, do you want to do a version of that on work for us? And I said this is so funny because I know the president of Fortune, I know Alan Murray, but I went through the front door. I did the thing that the girl at the top of the class does right, which is like not leveraging relationships. And in this case, yes, you're right. It was from relationships I had in the past. They came to me. They like the column and I said, Well, I just want to make sure it's good for my overall business like if my network wants to share pieces I do or. And so they were like, Oh my gosh, of course, we want to reach these audiences. And so it did become beyond the relationship. It also became. Each of the entities that we are all trying to grow, which I think is also a bit of a 2021 into 2022 model of let's not stand alone if we don't have to stand alone. [00:43:29][126.8]
Keith: [00:43:29] Absolutely. Yeah, I love that and good people to be connected with. So you get paid for this. I won't ask you to give it all away, but you know, I didn't know you were doing the hiring and recruiting coaching, but I'd love to hear a little advice that you have on how people can make the workplace more diverse and more impactful and more inclusive, because I think a lot of the focus has been on. The one mega hire, and I have heard this multiple times because I've done some coaching and I've also done some executive help on hiring of. Well, this is what we need to make a splash with this one. One hire and I was like and so I loved your column so much because I always was like, Yeah, that's not going to work. If you just hire one person, that's not going to work really totally. Give a little bit. Not all, because I want to [00:44:13][43.8]
Mitra: [00:44:13] It's funny because I give a lot away for free. If you can't tell, it's totally fine. I think one piece is like, I think people should still be ambitious and go for the big hire. I also think there is the looking at your own workplace and looking at what conditions exist to both support that person but also enable who you already have. There's nothing worse than being, you know, the account manager who's a black woman watching an organization trip over themselves, trying to hire a VP. And you're just like, Hey, I've been here for 10 years. Like what? What happened? Right? So I think some of it is, look around, look outward, but look around. Yeah. And then I think there's always the need to always be recruiting beyond the transactional nature of hiring. So what I love about and so I think like some of what's worked for you IRL, is that all of us who are engaged in the recruiting arm of our business. Are doing the work all the time because we feel somebody's put investment into us to get to the stages of our careers that we're at. And so our whole careers have been about paying it forward, even a fraction of what we've gotten, right? It's very organic. We have no other time I can remember people of color raising their hands, saying, I want the top job. I want to be considered. I want to participate. I want a seat at the table. And I think working with those people beyond the I have this particular role. You know, if you grow another arm, you can get that job right, like we thought of making the difficult choice to making it more natural for there to be a progression into those jobs. And you know, I think that piece is authentic. You know, companies can't really fake that, but they need way more people doing it than ever before. And then the last thing I'll just say is that I'm sensing among white men a bit of, oh, well, it's not going to work out for us now. Yeah. And you know, I think that when they see that they've just succeeded in going full circle of how we got into this mess of like it was all right. Well, and it's all about you again. And that thinking and uttering it out loud, let alone thinking right, is just something to keep an eye on right now in terms of being very explicit in your workplace culture on what people can and can't say because I will get feedback from people in the interview process that something like that was said almost as a Oh, we're so diverse. Please come over and it does the opposite effect, right? [00:47:01][168.0]
Keith: [00:47:02] Turns them off. [00:47:02][0.5]
Mitra: [00:47:02] Yeah, and just the last last thing is, the interview processes we have are very opaque. We make people play a guessing game on what we want our strategy and mission to be. And so, you know, recruiters like us come in to make that more transparent. Like, if you want some, you want someone in the process of interviewing to be successful. Right. That's how we should be approaching it. So I think that's one other way to diversify and also just change the culture of your candidate pool and interviewing in the process of diversifying. [00:47:36][33.2]
Keith: [00:47:37] I love it. One last question here. Thank you so much for joining us. What does the next year look like, ideally for URL media? [00:47:43][6.0]
Mitra: [00:47:44] So hopefully by late October will be announcing some hires and some more partners and growth. I really think this moment in digital media in terms of advertising is something that our network model. I can't think of anything like it, and that's where I really hope the next year is defined by. The second is continued partnership and really thinking about how do we make these partnerships monetizable? Do we go to market together? Does it mean many, many launches? Does it mean going to community outlets within the IRL network, such as an Epicenter, and saying, Listen, we're the big media outlet. We actually recognize that now the moment is to kowtow to you and that expertize warrants investment in your resources and going to commit journalism in the following manner. So more of those partnerships that are both intentional, but also I think it's OK to front the how do we all make ourselves whole in the process conversation, right? And then I do think this recruitment arm will continue to grow. We're seeing a ton of upheaval in staffing executive recruitment. There's a ton of consolidation in that industry. So that's another thing to be aware of. That executive recruitment we're for so long was only focused on the tippy top jobs. With the labor market the way it is right now, you're seeing more staffing agencies almost adopt the models. Interesting. So that's another area that I think we'll both continue to grow in. But also, I would say, pretty punching, maybe above our current weight. But get there, be able to compete with those outlets on in the next year. [00:49:27][103.3]
Keith: [00:49:28] That's amazing. Well, congratulations on everything so far and looking forward to seeing the continued success, S. Mitra Kalita, co-founder of URL Media. Thank you so much. [00:49:37][9.3]
Mitra: [00:49:38] Thank you for having me. [00:49:38][0.0]
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