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wolffolinsblog · 11 years

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Five questions with... Sarah Lacy

In the fourth of a series of interviews with inspiring female leaders, Wolff Olins’ global COO, Sairah Ashman, interviews Sarah Lacy. Sarah is the founder of PandoDaily, the site-of-record for the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem and everything that springs up from it.

What are the most significant shifts influencing your business?

Probably monetisation of blogs. Everyone is finally very very sick of banner ads and page view-based models haven't lead to large companies. Huffington Post does more than 1 billion page views a month and still sold for a few hundred million to AOL - that caps that strategy. No one is going to build the next billion dollar media company or enduring 100-year media brand on a brute force of page views. From an editorial point of view, page view based models destroy - absolutely destroy - quality. Native ads and sponsored content (done responsibly) open up completely new models and the industry is finally ready for them. First generation blogs stuck in a page view model will have a hard time adapting to this shift, but for new entrants it's great, assuming you can build a meaningful and distinct audience.

What do you see as the key growth accelerators for you over the next 12 months?

Really just continuing to do great work and build our brand. Each great story gets passed around and that generates more readers. There are millions of people not reading us, because they simply haven't heard of us. It's a long slow journey building a media brand and there are few quick tricks to getting there faster that are sustainable. On the revenue side, we're accelerating rapidly but that's largely because we've hired sales people. Up until now, most revenue was coming to us.

What role do you see brand playing in helping achieve your goals?

It's huge for a media company. We have to stand for something because trust is paramount. In our case, we are known for respecting our readers’ time and intelligence. Those are our core values that everything else stems from.

What or who inspired you in the early years of your career?

I had a lot of important mentors along the way, so a lot of my role models have been people I've worked with. One I was never lucky enough to meet was Katherine Graham. Her leadership of the Washington Post as a woman in a very male-dominated world was amazing. She had two things she was fiercely loyal to and would have sacrificed everything for: Her family and the Post. I feel the same way about my family and PandoDaily.

What advice would you pass on to others just starting out?

People have asked me this a lot and after starting PandoDaily, I have a new answer: Don't be in such a rush. While the Valley has been built by 20-somethings with no experience, that's not the playbook for everyone and every company. Many companies benefit by wisdom and experience. There is an awful lot you can learn working from other people that can make you a better manager and founder. There is no way I could have gotten this far with PandoDaily in my 20s. Timing is everything and it's as bad to be early in this industry as it is to be late.

Sairah Ashman is global COO of Wolff Olins.