Keith: [00:00:01] Shareen, what's up, it's so good to have you on. How are you? [00:00:03][2.5]
Shareen: [00:00:04] I'm good. It's so good to be on here. Thank you so much, Keith. [00:00:06][2.9]
Keith: [00:00:07] Yeah, so you just launched Toolkits in September, co-founder of Toolkits with Jack Marshall. Walk us through it. Tell us a little bit about what Toolkits is and what it's going to do to the world. [00:00:16][8.6]
Shareen: [00:00:17] Yeah, it's going to do big things. I mean, in a nutshell, Toolkits is combining information and consulting in a way that we think about this, and we provide practical guidance for professionals that want to do something great and that something great can be professionals and different careers, different parts of their careers, different stages of their careers, in different industries. And what we do is we make practical guidance, we make resources and we make insights that always and this is sort of the key part, always drive business outcomes. We are officially only a few weeks in, but like with most things that I'm sure most guests you've had on here, we've been thinking about this for what feels like just years and years. But yeah, we just launched and we're excited to get going. [00:00:59][42.1]
Keith: [00:00:59] Well, congratulations. And so what was some of that thinking right prior to to going out on your own? You're an editor at Digiday, launching new products, launching new new initiatives at Digiday, as well as, you know, the day to day work of covering advertising and media. What were those conversations that you're having that you realized this is maybe something the world needs? [00:01:19][20.0]
Shareen: [00:01:20] I think there is, there's sort of a couple of problems. I think the Jack and I did notice sort of individually and then kind of together when we sort of came together and started thinking about this. I think the first one, I find it really hard to describe this one, but you can help me sort of when you hear it. I think as journalists, we've understood why good, unbiased content makes a difference. And I think that's really true today. We're talking about sort of a context in which sort of there's all these fragmented sources of information. There is a lot of information on the internet. A lot can be presented very well, but doesn't really have sort of the data or the sourcing to back it up. And we've both seen in our careers that when we wrote a story that was unbiased, it was fact-checked and that was powerful, that it made a difference. It made a difference in someone's life that made a difference, hopefully even in someone's career. In some cases, if we'd written a story about certain issues that caused executives like big executives at publishers like yourself in your past life to come out and say, Wait, we should be doing something because they're saying something's wrong. So I think that was sort of the first thread that I pulled out. I think the second one is kind of we live in sort of a world where there's an abundance of this poor quality, misleading information out there. And it's sort of a context in which kind of there's a lot of Twitter threads, there's a lot of growth hacking. But on the other hand, there's also just a lot of content that focuses a lot more on kind of opinion analysis, which is really, really important, but kind of isn't also what we're talking about. I think when you take these two sort of disparate issues, you realize that when it comes down to it, someone's on Google. They're trying to get through their workday the Tuesday, maybe to figure out how to get their onboarding journey right for their subscription products. They're googling something like that, and there's a lot of stuff and they kind of get hit with a lot of stuff. A lot of it's either poor quality or a lot of it's just opinion analysis. And I think that when you get down to that, there is that really sort of one resource that brings together kind of knowledge, experience, strategies, tactics and the best practices that everyone in the world kind of or the world's leading companies and puts that together in one place and says, OK, here it is on a silver platter. And I think the key here was that we realized, I mean, Jack and I were consulting with a lot of companies over the last year. We worked with a lot of publishers, we worked with a lot of VC firms, we worked with a lot of brands, we worked with a sports team and we realized that a lot of people kind of had very similar challenges. Yes, the challenges had specific issues with whatever industry they were in. But when it came down to it, kind of everyone has the same problems, and I think you see a lot of this coming up over and over again. And instead of always going for this expensive consulting approach, there is an option to say, why don't we just write this down? And I think the last thing I'll say, which was kind of what I just mentioned, is we're writers like when we started doing this, we started just writing down everything we found out, and it felt a little bit like this light bulb moment to say, why can't this content come together in a clean, really well presented, well-written, fact-checked way and just be delivered to people so that it helps them kind of drive some outcomes? So that was sort of the birth of Toolkits, really, in a nutshell. [00:04:43][202.6]
Keith: [00:04:44] So what are some of those macro problems that you're seeing across brands, publishers, everyone? What are some of the ones that you're seeing there? [00:04:50][6.1]
Shareen: [00:04:51] I think I'll start with sort of, we basically launched with two coverage areas that we're sort of starting with. But definitely, our intention is and we can talk about this later to kind of diversify into a whole host of coverage areas, but the two we really started with kind of really thinking about, not even our just when we started kind of putting this together was OK, what do we know? And the one big thing we knew was that brand publishing has sort of become this really interesting dynamic in the space right now. Absolutely. And I use the word brand loosely because, my god, what is a brand? I don't know who might really. Any company wants to be your contact, right? [00:05:24][33.8]
Keith: [00:05:26] We'll, Deep Dive, what is a brand? What is a creator? Because that's something I think both of us have a lot of opinions on. [00:05:31][5.0]
Shareen: [00:05:31] Whether you might have to explain it to me later. But basically, I mean, one thing, one dynamics that's been interesting is that and this really happened. Know after sort of my last day at Digiday that I kind of took a few weeks off and then sort of said, OK, like maybe, maybe I'll feel like if anybody wants my help. And really, this is this is one thing that is important to me because this is like a testament to how kind people really are. I think after all these years of working in this industry, I didn't really sort of have a moment where I like sort of put out my shingle or I thought, OK, I'm open for business. I really didn't do that because we were really focused on sort of figuring out sort of Toolkits and everything. But I will say people were so kind and so many people reached out and so people started saying, Actually, we need help with this. Can you do this? And I surprised myself with how many times I was able to say yes, like, wait, I do know how to do that. That's amazing. You know, you don't remember these things until you quit your job, I think, and realize all the things you know, how to do. But some of the problems we were noticing was one big one was kind of the strategic part. OK, we want to do publishing. Somebody told me I should be doing more content, but I don't know where to start. I don't know how to figure out what my target audience is. I don't know how to come up with an editorial mission. Kind of that real nitty-gritty stuff that internally honestly and kind of disappointingly gets left aside when people start thinking of this. I think there's an enthusiasm and saying, let's go out and shoot that video or start my podcast. And then there isn't this idea of like, Wait, what is it? What is this for? What is the outcome, right? And I think this is really important for especially brand publishers. I think the outcomes can be really different for them versus sort of a newsroom and then everything kind of laddered down through that. So if you if you go to Toolkits.com and you go to that brand publishing coverage area, it's sort of like ladders down from there to start with the strategy, then start with how are you going to structure this team? Like, a lot of people have never worked with editors or editorial types before. How do you structure a team to ensure quality and consistency and momentum at the same time? How do you hire people? Hiring journalists and former journalists is sort of an art in and of itself because it's a very different mindset than a lot of brand publishers have been used to right down to everything. What are the rules for making good content? What are the rules for translating that content into events and so on entirely? Honestly, even after launch, we've heard so much more from people who said because we found this really useful and then we always go back and say, OK, what else are you having problems with? And it's everything from email newsletters which we're working on a guide for to something more around a measurement and metrics. So I think everyone's kind of in that same space right now. [00:08:05][153.5]
Keith: [00:08:06] So historically, creating content or putting things out would fall into the communications team or maybe a combination of communications and the marketing team. Where are you finding the companies are placing this bet? And where would you suggest if you had your druthers with any company, where would you suggest they put this? [00:08:22][16.5]
Shareen: [00:08:23] Well, I always want my druthers, so I think you're right. I think again, it's been interesting because I think this is what the beauty of sort of doing your own thing is like. I feel like over the past year, I ended up working for essentially 10 companies in one year, and we sort of saw some of them were tiny. Some of them were huge. I mean, we're a fortune five hundred. Some of them are like starting out. But I think all of them really start with this where you said, which is they think, OK, we've got to do content. It is marketing and it is. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. It is marketing to, let's put it in that communication function. And I think that works. In fact, many times I've sort of said, OK, if you've got a CMO or somebody in that role who really understands this, they can be sort of the point person. That being said, I think nine times out of 10, I have always kind of a surprise out of that a little bit and say fine, have it sit within the department, but kind of have it operate as almost like a business on its own and incubate it within that department? So definitely hire an editorial director or an editor in chief, whatever you want to call it, because internally, honestly, the point is that these are different capabilities and these are different jobs and the language is important. We talk a lot about the language part when we work with people too. It's like, Yes, they are editors. You need to think of them as editors versus something else to think of them even as reporters versus copywriters, like all of these languages and creating that department that works on its own and works at least quite autonomously as sort of the only way to make sure that this gets a fair shot because otherwise publishing kind of runs the risk of falling into all the other marketing buckets and just has different rules. It just has completely different thinking behind it. [00:09:57][94.5]
Keith: [00:09:58] So how are you getting journalists And others in the creative field to buy in to hey, go work for one of these large brands and create original work for them. [00:10:07][8.9]
Shareen: [00:10:08] Yeah, it's a good question. So we do work with, I should mention, who are the one things we've done with the consulting side of the business is that we've sort of set up a network of just partners, really just people that we've met over our years of working in this industry that we love and like and including kind of a recruiting partner that we work with when people sort of get to that stage. So with a lot of people, we go through the strategic stage. They become even sort of Toolkits, subscribers, they subscribe to our content and everything, and then they get to the point they're like, OK, we want to do this. And the first step is usually, OK, you need to hire someone. And by the way, like your existing recruiting team probably doesn't know anybody to your point in that journalism space. So we've sort of few times that to just refer recruiters to them. I will say this is not for everyone I know as a journalist myself, I completely understand that like going and saying, I'm going to go work for a brand. Is it necessarily what is in people's career paths? For a lot of people, they are focused rightly on saying, I want to be a journalist. I don't want to be in publishing for a company. Even if they're calling it brand journalism, there is a big difference. So it's not for everyone. I think what convinces the people that at least that I've heard from has gone into this has been for one, I think there is an interesting challenge, which is you kind of get to be on the inside. For my entire career as a reporter, I was essentially on the outside, right. There is a natural adversarial relationship, even with the sources you love. So you're always kind of trying to pry out information. In this case, you sort of have the information handed to you, which appeals to people. I think people, particularly who've come out of sort of trade journalism. This can be a really interesting kind of career move where you kind of get to be on the inside. You get to work from the inside of an organization versus the outside, and then you still get to do ideally. If it's set up right, you still get to kind of report within the confines of that, you still get to do that. So I think that appeals to some people, depending on the company it is. I know that a lot of people are excited by the idea of working inside, for example, a venture capital firm that's doing a lot of publishing because they get exposure to a bunch of founders and a bunch of portfolio companies that in a way that they might not as business journalists. So that's been one thing I've heard from people who have gone that way. And, you know, in the case of sort of just some people entirely, honestly, it's the fact that you might make a lot more money, to be quite blunt. I think that that is not something that escapes people. I think the other thing is like, we're not sort of in the business of saying brand publishing as a future. I think that the interesting part about brand publishing is that it's actually opened up an opportunity for journalists inside journalism organizations because it's sort of like, well, they can do the brand publishing stuff and we can do the hard stuff of investigative journalism and real great sourcing and stuff like that. So I think overall, this is like a real opportunity for, I think, the true believers to sort of go where they should and kind of this unblurring of lines. I think the lines are going to get unblurred. Finally, after years of like where we don't know what we were reading, we're finally there. And I think it's really exciting. [00:13:06][177.9]
Keith: [00:13:07] That's great. And for a company that's doing it right, what is the end goal here, right? Because I believe in this and I think it's the right way in the future. And I pointed to, you know, there's companies like Dollar Shave Club that started Male Magazine, which is fantastic. So they ultimately realized they weren't making money on it, and they felt like it was a sunk cost. So they sold it for parts, unfortunately, and it's alive again. But then you look at and I love using Complex as an example because, you know, people under 30 don't realize that Complex was a brand publisher for Marc Ecko to to sell skateboarder and clothes. Should that be the goal of brands to say, OK, we're going to get to a point where this could actually return the investment and make money? Or is it more about brand building brand awareness and getting the story right? [00:13:49][42.1]
Shareen: [00:13:50] I think the goals definitely change. For services businesses that have done this, so people in the ad agency world, particularly communications world kind of PR firms, et cetera, that are going and deep into brand publishing. For them, success is sort of measured by just, they add publishing into one of their core capabilities in a way that's really interesting for me. I think again, these are the people I think are doing it really right. So they're saying to their clients, like, you come to us for say, this is a PR firm for great PR advice, et cetera, and we help you. And this is like across D.C. and you're where we're working with politicians to do this, etc. Now added to our capabilities are also a bunch of intelligence and thought leadership that we produce that gives you a leg up as well. So it's actually added in as a core capability versus becoming just a marketing for the company. So I think that's a really good goal, an outcome. I think the fact is that it takes years to do. Essentially, you're building up a capability to say our expertize can be translated into content. So I think that's a really good goal, particularly for services businesses. For others, I think it's a pure sense of like, OK, we are in industries where people don't really cover us instead of this like adverserial relationship with the media situation is actually just like, OK, we're in a pretty wonky business. We work on something super niche. Nobody really covers this stuff. We're never going to get press or PR or anything like that anyway. So the goal is simply to say, OK, let's make sure people know we're interesting and fun because nobody else really thinks we are. So some people, honestly, it's a pure talent issue. I think people want to work at companies who are able to explain what they do in a well-articulated fashion, who are able to create content that's exciting. [00:15:30][100.4]
Keith: [00:15:31] So it's a recruitment tool to get others to work at the company. [00:15:33][1.8]
Shareen: [00:15:33] Yeah, I think exactly. Recruitment is one that I've definitely heard of, actually. I think some Silicon Valley companies always, I think, traditionally done a really good job at that. I mean, I'm reminded of sort of like engineering blogs which are like, there was whole brand publishers in a way. And I think engineering blogs were this amazing tool for a lot of companies to sort of show off and other engineers would rate them like I wouldn't rate, them my husband would and he would be like, Oh my God, this is so exciting. Like, Look at the cool stuff they're doing. And this is an, I think, talent recruitment, especially for engineering talent. Publishing can be a really important and interesting part of that. So a good outcome is often did we get talent because of this and are we able to sort of use that? I think I'll use the last one. This is sort of the probably the rarest one I've seen, but internally, a lot of people want to make money off this. We are seeing people now get to the point that they say, OK, we've created a big brand publishing operation. We still have clients. But can we paywall some of this and sell this content? And one of our second coverage areas actually focused on subscription publishing. My co-founder, Jack Marshall, used to run subscription products at digital and has worked with a lot of publishers in the last year to set up sort of paywall strategies, subscription strategies, growth strategies. And one thing that we've seen sort of our worlds collapse here into one, which is we've seen obviously publishers get into subscriptions, but also more and more brand publishers. I have heard some interesting say OK, 2022 planning. Let's put a paywall on some of this content. Let's see if we can sell some of this thought leadership as bonafide real content. So I think that's an interesting outcome. The last one I'm probably the most excited and interested in, but it's probably the rarest one. [00:17:07][94.2]
Keith: [00:17:08] Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that subscription rate because I think especially, you know, brand publishing and subscription, there's the adage, you know, if you build it, they will come. There's a lot more platitudes than practice going on right now, especially what I lovingly call the think boys. The people who write these 25 tweet thread on how to do it and you realize like, OK, you haven't really done it. Whereas you and Jack did it at Digiday for years and built it up. What do you think most people are missing? When they start a newsletter, they start a podcast or they start a video blog about their company? What are the things, the real nitty gritty practitioner tools that most miss out on? [00:17:44][36.2]
Shareen: [00:17:45] This is going to sound really, really boring, but honestly, it's just make good stuff. Yeah, I sort of listen to all these amazing things people talk about. I'm so excited interest and I'm like, Really fantastic onboarding, amazing welcome emails, great journeys, you know, targeting people. A lot of paid acquisition, obviously, for a lot of companies into this. So there's a lot of tools and tactics I think people are using. I will say at the end of the day, everyone is going to figure out those tools and tactics. They're going to figure out at different paces in different parts. I mean, you know, internally, I say we have guides that people really love, that people buy on how to onboard subscribers, how to do a really good job of addressing password sharing. Like how do you figure out that tactic when people do that and you get frustrated by that because you notice one person is using 20 people [00:18:30][44.6]
Keith: [00:18:31] That's the bane of digidays existance. [00:18:31][0.1]
Shareen: [00:18:33] This is very interesting. Actually, Jack does actually make an argument in one of the pieces that he recently wrote about how like, this might not actually be a bad thing, but I thought was just fascinating and might actually be a good thing, depending on your overall business. But I think I think one of the interesting things is there are tactics and the right tactics can help you get ahead and people should be as kind of well-versed as possible. And they should read our guides and they should talk to people, and they should read the tweet threads and they should find out. But nothing will ever kind of replace just creating good content. And I think great examples are to be found. The Wall Street Journal just did what is probably one of the best pieces of reporting we've seen in years on the Facebook files, I think. I don't know the answer. I'm not sure they've told anybody yet, but I would guess that something like that drives reader growth, that drives reader revenue because that was truly incredible journalism that is changing everything its causing sort of government people to sit up. It's causing people to rethink everything. Great work changes minds and great work, when done right, can drive money and drive revenue. And I think that sort of just having that is probably the thing people sort of know, but like, don't really know. [00:19:45][71.2]
Keith: [00:19:46] Yeah, I love that, but I feel like that's a massive hurdle, right? Because oftentimes very good work. I'll click and it goes, Oh, you know, subscribe to the L.A. Times. Sorry, LA Times like, but I'm not today like. OK, I'll wait a little bit for this, so, you know, that paywall does become a deterrent for really good content, right? And maybe, yes. OK, Pulitzer winning piece that is groundbreaking and dropping so much on Facebook. OK, I'll pay for that. That nuance, that area of very good versus great. How do you help train companies to understand the benefit of very good content, very good, consistent content that will eventually turn into great content? [00:20:23][37.5]
Shareen: [00:20:24] I think there's a couple of things. One is that, you know, I think despite sort of preaching the gospel of subscriptions, subscriptions work, I think most effectively as part of an overall revenue mix. I think that that is one thing that's sort of at least for a lot of people. Maybe there isn't a full understanding of that or full sort of acceptance of that, but like, never say never. So subscriptions have to be part of a fully baked strategy, and that means not always discounting, depending on your business. Not discounting advertising, not discounting sponsored content, not discounting events and things like that. So I think that's sort of the one kind of big mindset shift that we've talked to people about and that is worth repeating. I think second is sort of creating different classes of content, creating work that is sort of really focused on sort of that enterprise subscription that is going to get people to fill out their corporate card because they can't do their jobs without it kind of thing. So I think you see sort of doing that versus not paywall, then the regular general interest L.A. Times story that you just talked about. So I think there's different types of content that deserves different treatments. And also, there's always a spectrum. I mean, there are meters. There are different ways of doing this that ensure that content is still seen and stories are still being read while not fully shutting anybody out to your point. And I think there are a lot of different sort of levers that are able to be pulled. I think the question is always which combination of which lever at what time needs to be pulled in order for my goals at that specific moment. And I think that's what sort of, you know, Jack definitely talks about quite a bit is we do have to sort of tell people and we do this in a lot of our Toolkits and our guides as well, is that like this is never going to be the one hundred percent solution. This is always going to be 80 percent because you have to take a look at your entire thing holistically in order to make that decision. But I hear you. I think a lot of people get understandably worried about traffic dropping. I hear reporters who don't, you know, lots of reporters hate having paywalls on their work because they are like, Well, nobody's reading this anymore. So I think that that reader of news is should and must be part of an overall kind of mix of strategies. And at the same time, people have to kind of always be cognizant that the levers are being pulled differently. [00:22:34][129.9]
Keith: [00:22:35] So you practice what you preach on Toolkits. You provide free content. I want to get a little nerdy and wonky with that right, because a lot of especially solopreneurs or partner consulting groups have very intentionally vague websites to be more of a catchall right? Like, I fell into that as well when I first launched our website where it's just like, Sure, we can do anything, but you're very specific and you also give a really good amount away. Is that an intentional tool to drive people to say, OK, cool, if they're giving me this, there must be more. [00:23:04][29.4]
Shareen: [00:23:05] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, entirely, honestly, everything I just talked about is stuff we just believe in, truly. Like we believe good content will drive subscriptions. We believe that good work will drive the guides in the same way at the same time, like we're both writers. Firstly, we have to write, I think that's the other thing like we would love to write, we need to write instead of writing on Twitter, we're writing somewhere else. So I think that's one. And yeah, I mean, we have essentially two weekly newsletters for each of our verticals right now with the hopes of sort of bringing that on to any future verticals that we'll do. The one thing I do believe in is that this knowledge, a lot of this knowledge does need to be democratized, even when we're thinking about what our next project will be, etc. It's like a lot of this work should be useful, and at no point do we want to and should be bait and switch people into sort of clicking a link and getting hit with a paywall if you click a link. I mean,9 times out of 10 you'll get something, you'll never not get anything. So a significant part of that is open. And and you know, that's that's just I think we have to be our best practitioners of what we preach. And if we're going to be telling people how to do things, then we should be doing them too. And I think our past work shows that. But also, if you go to the site, you hopefully see that too. [00:24:14][69.3]
Keith: [00:24:15] It absolutely does show and it definitely feels intentional. And you, Oh, I want [00:24:19][3.9]
Shareen: [00:24:19] to thank you. Good. I'm glad. [00:24:21][2.3]
Keith: [00:24:22] So you and Jack got excited. You dug in. You are off to the races and doing all this work. What do you miss most, though, about leaving Digiday and leaving behind a structure of support and other folks that can help out on projects? [00:24:33][10.8]
Shareen: [00:24:34] I think Digiday is a fantastic company and I am forever grateful to Nick Friese and Brian Morrisey and literally everybody I worked with in the six years I was there. I think the pandemic had this effect. This is not news. I was like, Oh, great, the pandemic, but you know, it really did. I was among the luckiest people to not have certain things that other people were going through, and I'm very cognizant and very grateful for that on an everyday basis. I think that there was also just this reckoning, it kind of felt like a lot of things accelerated. You know, eventually I think everyone's career changes and moves, but I definitely felt for myself personally a sense of exhilaration on, OK, what am I doing, Max? What am I doing? What didn't help? I'll tell you, it was the fact that my husband quit his job where he'd been for 12 years. He quit his job in February, so pre-pandemic he had big plans going to travel. He was going to do all this. And then just like right before and then the pandemic happened. So he was sitting at home. He was sitting sort of in the room, kind of down the hall and just sort of chillin for a little bit. And then he started a new job in April, and he started it remotely. So a month after really the pandemic really got going here. So this was like the throes of New York being hit by while that we were hearing sirens all day. And he started this new job. He started remotely and I sensed in him this excitement and he started at a startup and this excitement and this kind of this fire in his voice. We've been married for a very long time. It's just hadn't heard. I'd never heard it in his voice before because he's been at this other company and he really likes that old company. He loved his coworkers and there was wrong. And I really I sometimes always I say this to people, and I know this is not what you asked, but there doesn't have be something wrong in order to run. Things can evolve in a way that, you know, just it's a conscious uncoupling. I hate that. I can't believe I just do that, but it really felt like that. So I think that was it. I've always sort of dreamt that, Oh, I'd love to run my own thing. It'd be so exciting. I don't think I would have done this on my own. We were talking about this earlier, but I know you had Claire Mazur on your on your podcast before and talking about sort of finding the right partner and finding sort of the right person. And I really believed in sort of the some of the things she said, and she talks about sort of female friendships, male co-founder. But I think one of the things is like, people do talk a lot about like technical skills, you have to complement of skills. I think more than anything, like having a partner who you are friends with and who you genuinely enjoy spending time with. I'm just so grateful to have it, and I'm so happy to have it. It's just one of the nicest things, and I think it makes work feel fun. It makes even talking to our accountant to feel pretty fun because we have to talk to our accountant a lot more now than I used to ever get to do that. It makes like working in QuickBooks, which is like, what? What is the system? Don't know how this works. Really a lot more fun. It makes talking to trademark lawyers fine. It just makes all these things just feel a lot more fun, and I think that is vastly underestimated. So to answer your question, I miss certain things, but I sort of miss them is the way you kind of a high school or college are a different part of your life or I enjoyed it and I loved it. But I am so excited that I get to do this because I get to work kind of for myself, but have sort of someone that is a coworker. And I think lastly, a lot of people, we still g-chat, we talk all day. I have coworkers who are not coworkers anymore. We're literally random companies throughout the world who are still my coworkers somehow. So that's been that's the nice. [00:28:03][209.1]
Keith: [00:28:04] It sounds like invoicing still doesn't turn into fun. Why? [00:28:07][3.1]
Shareen: [00:28:07] Why is it so hard? Like how? Just by all this I mean, Intuit, essentially, if they're listening, I don't know what is going on, but why is it so difficult? [00:28:16][9.2]
Keith: [00:28:18] Yeah. And I'd love to go there with you a little bit right now in terms of the surprise things that come with starting your own company, right? Especially, you know, I've talked to people who have raised a lot of money so they can hire pretty darn quickly. But then I've talked to people who are really comfortable being two-person companies or one-person companies when you take on all these new responsibilities. What were some of those things that you took on and you go, Oh wow, I didn't know I was going to be doing this this many hours a week. [00:28:42][24.2]
Shareen: [00:28:43] I will say, I remember because you wrote, Keith, I think I remember this, you wrote this really like this like cheat sheet almost that I really like to say, like a while ago, like a year and a half ago. [00:28:53][9.9]
Keith: [00:28:54] Yeah, a couple of years ago, like 72 people read it. [00:28:56][2.1]
Shareen: [00:28:57] No, but I read it! I remember reading it. And I was sort of like whenever I whenever I do do this, like, I got it, I got to write this down because that was a little scary. I think like your stack, you know, is sort of hard and weird to figure out. We did a lot of things and entirely honestly like, I'm going to write this down because I think it's just useful. And you should write more of these down to because you've done this too. Like, we got our LS3 through Atlas. We got it out the box. Actually, it's funny because Dan Frommer, the new consumer, wrote about the exact same problem that he had, which is he did the same thing as us, then realized, like, I live in New York, you know, Jack lives in New Jersey, so which reregister the company in a different state? Yeah. So had to do that. Like in retrospect, was that the right call? At some point you realize, like, no idea. You just sort of move on, you know, you just move on as quickly as possible. I think those are some of the things that I didn't really like think would be this difficult. I think there's an interesting dynamic that happens when you have two people running a company and essentially you are 50/50, but you know that there are some things the other person just knows better than you. So you kind of have to come up with a system to stop yourself from going around in circles, because at some point one person has to say, OK, it's decision time and you are making a decision. I think that took us a while, and I think part of this is because we're also friends. We just always we have been for a very long time. So I think doing that and making sure we weren't spending a ton of time kind of on the small stuff. It's a nice time to launch a company. This stuff is a hard stuff. Hitting the hard stuff is really the what you know, it's like, Why are we here? What is our mission? Why are we doing this and why is this important? And I'm really, really happy we took time to kind of think through why this was so important and why Toolkit solves a real problem before we sort of like jumped in head first and said, we're launching a company. Our last day today was last summer and we spent a year consulting with a lot of publishers and a lot of companies, but we were working on this as well. And so it was nice to come out and say, we've done this for a year. We're only telling you about it now. We've already done this, and that was a really good thing, I think. [00:30:55][117.5]
Keith: [00:30:55] Did you guys leave it at the same time? [00:30:57][1.4]
Shareen: [00:30:58] I think there was a little bit of a gap. Yeah, there was a little bit of a gap. And you know, both of us really did leave with the intention. It sort of separately kind of just figuring out, you know, doing consulting and talking to people and kind of seeing what else was sort of out there. I mean, at the time, I remember seeing you people and saying, I want to like widen my aperture. I've been at this company for six years. I done so many different roles. I was so lucky and you did so much and it was just like it was just a lot of work. For a minute, I was like, My God, I've done everything I don't. I don't want to do now and the pandemic and being here. And when you strip the commute out of it, you strip the getting dressed for work out of it, you strip the parties. I used to go to a lot of events. I used to go to a lot of drinks and dinners and lunches. Once all that goes away, you realize what the job is. Like, I think that's a unique moment that you have to say, OK, what am I really doing and is this what I want to continue to be doing? And I was it was a really good time to do that. [00:31:51][53.4]
Keith: [00:31:52] I love that. It's so true, right? Like, there's all these other, especially in the media advertising world, there's so many of these intangibles that keep you in or lure you back. So at the same time you were doing this, there are so many other writers and editors who , great writers and editors who decided to leave their company and start their own Substack, which is great. I'm enjoying them. I'm subscribing to a lot and really enjoying the freedom of their writing. Some of them it. It reminds you that they do need editors. Q. Why did you and Jack go, OK, this is not just a Substack. This is not just us, you know, writing thought pieces. Why did you want to open your aperture, as you say, to go work with companies versus doing the Substack route that so many other writers and editors did? [00:32:32][39.6]
Shareen: [00:32:32] I don't think it was. I wouldn't describe it as sort of intentional decision, like not this, but this. I think over time I realized how to do things. Actually, somebody gave me this great advice, Rupesh Parikh, who is not working co, but it used to be my editor years and years ago when I worked at Crane sort of said, You know, one thing you should do is just sit down and write down everything, you know, how to do. And I thought it was a really weird exercise. Like, I was like, Oh, and I had this blank sheet of paper. I was like, What do we know how to do? But then over time, I knew how to do things right, and I started writing all these things out. And a lot of them fell into this. If I know how to do this to other people need to know how to do this. And you know, of course, there were people that said, OK, are you looking for a full time job, you know? And do you want to have a conversation? And there were really nice people out there who sort of came to me and talked to me about that. But I think when I sort of said, Oh, actually, I know how to do these things, I started creating essentially a menu for myself. You realize all the things you did and then you match it with other people's needs. And if there is a need, then you can go do something and you can go do something with them on an advisory basis. You could do something for them just for free if you just want to help someone out. Sure, you could do something for them full time. But I think that that. It was sort of one, and then I think coming back to this problem that we kept coming back to, there is a problem where information is despite living in sort of the most information rich context ever. Information is stunningly difficult to find. And you've seen this done. This is not sort of a novel idea. You've seen people do this in an amazing way. I think like DoorDash has done it in a great way when it comes to like health stuff and very well health and say, OK, information's hard to find on specific thing. So let's make it easier to find, make it well packaged and so on. So this is a novel idea, but when it comes to practical guidance for business, it just wasn't there. So it felt a little bit like, I don't think the conversation was ever. Is it Substack or something? It was just OK, there are problems. Let's solve them. And to your point, I think I was lucky enough to have Jack who knew how to do sort of setting up all these things and making sure it sort of presented in the best way possible. So I think thinking about technical skills, there was a really nice fit there. So it just made sense to buy the dot com and go for it. [00:34:40][127.8]
Keith: [00:34:40] Yeah, those are always some of the more fun parts of building a company in retrospect, of sitting there in whiteboarding names and figuring out who owns the URL. And do you want to pay that amount of money for it completely? Earlier in the hour, we said, we're going to go there, so I do want to go there on the idea of the creator economy. There's a lot of people that are talking big talk that everyone should be a creator. Everyone should do that. Do you agree with that? Do you think everyone should be a creator or should some of us just be in the audience and appreciate other people's genius? [00:35:07][27.3]
Shareen: [00:35:08] I think everyone can create. I think the question is, do people want to buy what you're creating? I think ever is a creator. At the same time, being able to support themselves while remaining just a creator, it feels hard. It feels hard, even when you sort of start a business and it feels hard. Nobody, I think at what stage you are in at some point, I think the fact is there's always going to be sort of a one percent, two percent of people who are going to just be able to do that and make a living and support their families. And there's another percentage that won't, but they will supplement. I don't think those sort of the one job kind of one career thing is something that's going to keep going. I think people are going to be doing different things and I don't think it's a side hustle like I take issue with that word. I don't think it's a hustle. I think generally people create and they'll create in multiple ways and maybe nine to three, they'll create at work and three nine, they'll create somewhere else. But it is hard to think of a world where everyone can just like, work on their own and be able to survive because at some point things are going to run out. [00:36:06][58.0]
Keith: [00:36:07] The part of that that I'm like so positive and I feel optimistic about is this idea that we're kind of breaking down the walls of the side hustle right of you have to hide that you're doing this other thing, or even you have to do this other thing to make enough money that it can kind of blend into your other day job or can blend into what you're doing. And everybody's got a multi-hyphenate. [00:36:25][17.6]
Shareen: [00:36:26] Exactly. I mean, have you heard of that site that helps people like have two jobs at the same time? It's fantastic. It's like there's a site that has practical guidance for how to get this done. I'm telling you that there's something to it. I'm a big fan. [00:36:39][13.7]
Keith: [00:36:40] My favorite thing in that was one of the bullet points is being mediocre. I just love that because you can't superstar. Exactly. Can't be a superstar. You can't ask for things you can't ask. Like, don't go for the promotions. Don't be in the top five percent. [00:36:53][13.6]
Shareen: [00:36:54] There's something beautiful, something beautiful. So mediocrity, I don't know. Sometimes I really do understand that feeling. [00:37:00][6.3]
Keith: [00:37:01] So yeah, the friends that I have happiest in advertising sales in that world are like, I never want to be a CEO, I never want to be an SVP of sales. I want to sell and have a great, balanced life. [00:37:12][11.2]
Shareen: [00:37:12] Well, that's a really good point. I think people's just natures of growth are different. I think it's OK to not just have what you do, be kind of the only measure of your success, right? Maybe your job is funding something else, and that's OK. I think that's better than OK. That's fantastic. Yeah. [00:37:29][16.6]
Keith: [00:37:29] And I think we're starting to finally understand that and recognize that that even I've seen now, like when people are gathering places, people are talking less about jobs, which is kind of cool and healthy. We're talking about different things. So with your work at Digiday and other places, you talked to probably hundreds of people in marketing and brands and publishing side. And one of the things that I've always like kind of cynically laughed at is like the obsession with what's next in the future when they're so mediocre at the current. Why do you think that is why I can't anybody focus in on what's happening now rather than talking about NFTs and cryptocurrency and and the next big thing? [00:38:05][35.3]
Shareen: [00:38:05] I have a really good question, I think, because everyone wants a fresh start. Everyone sort of thinks that they'll do better in the future. So if they talk about the future, then they don't have to focus on the problems that are here now, which they are actively probably a part of. I mean, I'm sure everyone's guilty of this. I mean, people have asked me before, like, what do you expect? I'm just scared of making predictions because I'm so afraid of being wrong. And I wish more people were afraid of being wrong and Charlie on saying, maybe this is like imposter syndrome or whatever. But I think on marketing from people I've spoken to that I've asked this, I think, is the shiny, big thing syndrome. I think there is a culture right now. Prized kind of big talk and talking about how big you're going to get and how the next thing is going to make you big and what the next future is around. There is a culture that prizes bullshitters. The bullshitters happen to look a certain way. They have to be from certain places and they happen to sort of all sound the same, but they're all kind of prop each other up. And therefore, if you're talking about the future, then you don't have to worry about the problems of the present. And it's neat. It's clean and you still come off super smart. But that's the cynical part of me, and the other part of me thinks, like, maybe they're really, really smart and they know everything. But that's just my theory. [00:39:14][69.2]
Keith: [00:39:16] I try to put all my cynicism into and out on Twitter so that I don't have it in the rest of the media stuff I'm obsessed with, mainly because, yes, the things that Carlos and Co were doing were way out of bounds, especially the YouTube executive stuff. But there was a lot of the practices that people were breathlessly tweeting and talking about. I was like, There's a dozen companies I know that did this exact same thing that you're celebrating. And I'll go, I'll get specific now because it just is the time. This is hilarious on this. But you know, there's a breathless story about Mike.com Having their Lazarus moment in the New York Times 10 days after this investigative report came out. And it's just a very interesting dynamic like who gets to have that comeback and why, right? Like, do we need Mike.com right now? I don't know. [00:40:03][47.5]
Shareen: [00:40:04] Yeah, it is interesting to think about basically reckonings, right? Like, we use that word reckoning a lot. We've used it in this case. Like this is a reckoning against kind of inflated numbers and grandstanding and so on a reckoning against our favorite stories that we tell people to do it at Digiday was to go back a year later and always, no matter what it was. I mean, you know, it's like, Hey, this person said this a year later, just do a year later story. And I wish more people did this. By the way, I think like everyone should do these stories constantly. It's just because a year later, that reckoning system magically disappeared, and people talk about how this is just the beginning of more scrutiny on practice, whatever that practices. I hope it's true. I hope it happens. I hope that people become introspective, whatever. But I think nine times out of 10, that doesn't really happen. And you're right. Like, who gets to have that? But I think that's a great opportunity for especially reporters and sort of I hate the words from a trade publication, but who who do work in B2B, who focus on these industries and know these people to sort of come back always and say, So what happened? You made all these big comments when the immediate story broke. What did you do? You know what happened to that moment? And I think it would be a worthwhile exercise to sometimes look backwards versus of always talking about the future? That might be one thing. Yeah. [00:41:16][72.2]
Keith: [00:41:17] I mean, one of the biggest ones right now, and I love your opinion on this is Black Lives Matter and the advertising community saying, we're going to do better. We're going to fund more black owned businesses and we're going to be more thoughtful about our hiring practices. When I talk to black leaders at different companies and black employees, they're like, not much has changed, except I have a lot more focus groups to talk about. [00:41:37][20.3]
Shareen: [00:41:38] Yes, completely. [00:41:39][0.4]
Keith: [00:41:40] So why can't companies kind of stick to the things that they say they're going to do [00:41:43][3.7]
Shareen: [00:41:44] internally and say, I don't think anybody sits down and comes up with a strategy for why or how they're going to do it? It's like talk about like brand publishing strategy. It's like, where do you start? I think people sort of coming back to my terrible metaphor here, but just like people are always intent on like, well, let's launch the video. They're always like, Well, let's launch the focus group. It's like, Well, we got a lot of people actually sit down and they, how are we going to do it? What exactly is the problem and why is it important to fix? How is it going to happen? Who's going to own this? Who's going to take charge of this? There's rarely sort of an owner assigned to these things, and therefore there's rarely kind of responsibility. It has to be part of someone's job description. Beyond the sort of chief diversity officer. Also, what does it mean to be more diverse? I mean, I can tell you the number of times I've been called a diverse person. I don't really know what that means. I can't be. I'm not really. I am one race, so I'm not sure I am quite diverse. But you know, the number of times sort of. I think being a stand in it makes me uncomfortable when I'm a stand in for like someone who is of Hispanic origin or or someone who is black. And I'm just like, Wait, I can't be a stand in for other groups like this is ridiculous. I'm I'm none of these things. So I think there's just a misunderstanding why people don't solve this. Like, I don't think anybody actually sits down or is incentivized to sit down and figure it out. There's an incentive misalignment in general and work on how much of the company you own and therefore you're incentivized to work there, how much you're paid and therefore your incentivized to work harder and how much you're paid to solve the problem and therefore you're incentivized to solve it. And I think that's one big reason people become creators or owners. And because they say, well, at least that way, my incentives align. I have to do a good job because my incentives are fully aligned with this company. And that just doesn't exist in most relationships. [00:43:25][101.4]
Keith: [00:43:27] I love that. Thank you. I read this quick interview with former CEO of Pepsi on the New York Times this morning. I think she's coming out with a book about her experience there. They went there with the Kendall Jenner part of Pepsi. And her response back was, you know, we were we were trying to connect the community. These we're trying to bring the communities together, and we missed and again cynical hat on I go, should a carbonated sugar beverage company be in charge of connecting communities and bringing communities, like should they be focused on that like, you know, brand purpose like Big B, Big P? Should that be the values of a CPG company or should they just go, Hey, man, we make a product that you think is delicious and that's all we bring to the table? [00:44:09][42.6]
Shareen: [00:44:10] Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I do think that people expect more. I know there's a lot of data around this. People do expect more from companies. So in some ways, some part of me, you're right. I think I've written about this. I like a what is a carbonated brand has to do with like world peace, but also in some ways, I completely agree. It's like, what does it have to do to sell your carbonated brand? On the other hand, if they get it right, I do think the payoff can be pretty large. So I think a lot of people sort of say, let's try and get it right. But then when they get it wrong, it's sort of OK, I'm sure it hurt them. But I did it a lot. I don't know. I haven't seen the numbers. I do think that there is something to the overall like people expect things from their brands, expect things from their employers. I don't think anybody is looking at them to save the world by any means. But I think that there is this idea that like, let's try it because if we get it right, then everyone will write about us and everyone will think we're so amazing. But the people usually making those decisions are not the right people. And then that comes back to sort of the diversity and all of that issues like who was in the room, who actually made that call, who, who said nothing like. And I think it's the saying nothing, right? Are people incentivized to say this is a bad idea or are people incentivized to just nod? It depends on the company, but in many places, my guess would be avaricious incentivized to say, Yeah, this is a great idea. [00:45:26][76.1]
Keith: [00:45:27] You've interviewed so many people, especially live right? Like you've done panels and one on one fireplace chats as well as podcasts. How quickly do you know because you talked about this industry of bullshit? How quickly do you know that you're being bullshitted and how do you, as an interviewer, as somebody that wants to uncover truth? How do you tackle that? [00:45:44][17.4]
Shareen: [00:45:45] I think you just assume everyone's bullshitting. Yeah, let's start with it was that I was I've never thought about this, to be honest. I think I've just always assumed everyone. And a lot of this, you know, I will say, I'm going to remember I'm not blaming him, but I will like attribute this fine to being under the sort of the school of Brian Morrisey. It's like, just assume everyone's bullshitting until they sort of prove you otherwise. So I think that's a good [00:46:08][22.4]
Keith: [00:46:08] that's a good life lesson. Yeah. [00:46:09][1.1]
Shareen: [00:46:10] I think more reporters should do that. I think it taught me a lot. Certainly when I do that, if they are doing it, then ask the right questions. But at some point, you know, sometimes people are just, you trained in bullshit and you can't get past it. I think sometimes it's just you have to kind of chalk it up. And it's interesting that some people are just have become so well. Media trained that when you read their Q&A is it's like no matter what questions you asked, you wouldn't have been able to get past this. It's an art. It's incredible, which is where kind of a Q and A maybe wasn't the best format for the story. Right. So I think there's ways around it that end up just probably won't work, but are just the way sort of things go. [00:46:45][35.3]
Keith: [00:46:46] Yeah, I had a buddy who I'll give a shout out to Jonathan Pearlman, who worked in politics before he went over to work in media and worked with Cory Booker. And he just said, you know, just so you're asking the wrong question. And then, like you said, it was [00:47:00][14.0]
Shareen: [00:47:01] really good, and I liked that a lot of what he would break it down. [00:47:03][2.5]
Keith: [00:47:04] But whatever they asked if it was not on topic, he would just say, Well, that's the wrong question. We really want to talk about this. And I just love it so much and I see people do. They might not say those words out loud, but that's what they're doing in their head. Like, not that's not what I'm going to answer and answer this. So I usually, at the end of the podcast, asked folks to predict the future of what their companies will look like in a year. I'm not going to ask you to predict what's going to happen, but I'll frame it a little bit like what does the next year look like, ideally for you? If at the end of this year you look back and you do that retrospective on yourself? What would you go? Fuck yeah, we did it. We did all this stuff. [00:47:36][31.3]
Shareen: [00:47:36] I think honestly, I wake up. Jack is so sick of getting the slack for me because I routinely will slack him. Just be like, Can you believe we're doing this because I am just so awesome and freaking excited? I am pregnant. I'm excited that it's working. I'm excited that, of course, I'm excited there's money. But I'm also just excited that like we did it, I think that's fun and cool, and I think more people should be just excited about things like that when they do things in general. So I definitely subscribe to the school of excitement, so I'm always proud and I think it's made me proud that we're even here. It'll be great if this continues to be great. Obviously, I want to see growth, but I want to see growth in the right way. We're really focused on creating good content. I think good would be if I look back and I look at all the work we did and it's all at a high standard that the existing work already is and that people recognize that this is good. This is different. This is unbiased. Yeah, I think they'll be great. I think that would make me sort of really happy to have helped create a content business that does what it says it will, where the mission is aligned with the business model and it fit to sort of work hand-in-hand and actually help sort of solve problems and also do it in sort of a variety of different areas. So it makes me really happy. [00:48:49][72.3]
Keith: [00:48:50] Amazing. And people and companies want to connect with you, what's the best way for them to find you? [00:48:55][4.6]
Shareen: [00:48:55] Just shareen@toolkits.com and we're at toolkits.com. So hopefully they'll find us. [00:49:01][5.8]
Keith: [00:49:02] Shereen, Thank you so much. It's great seeing you. [00:49:04][1.7]
Shareen: [00:49:04] It was great to be here. I'm sorry about that. Thats Hamilton. [00:49:06][2.2]
Keith: [00:49:07] No worries. [00:49:07][0.0]
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