Meet YEC's Shane Snow of Contently on #StartupLab
Some companies start with a problem.
Contently, co-founded by this week's #StartupLab live chat host Shane Snow (RSVP here), certainly did. A few years ago, one of Shane's co-founders was trying to develop website content -- but finding writers who could write smart, interesting copy was a 4-month-long struggle.
Enter Shane, a freelance tech writer, and his friend Dave Goldberg, a programmer.
Together, the three realized there was an enormous demand for quality content, especially from companies -- but too many writers (and content mills) were churning out terrible copy for low pay instead. As a J-School grad, Shane knew all too well that there was a BIG opportunity to change the media landscape -- but talented, veteran writers, many of whom were suddenly out of work or working thankless low-pay gigs, needed a simple way to connect with publishers.
Thus, Contently, a platform "powering the next generation of publishing," was born.
But it was not an overnight success -- in spite of awesome clients like Mint.com. In fact, the Contently team had to hit rock bottom, burn through their personal savings and lose a major account before they realized it was time to pivot away from their initial model to pursue a much bigger, badder vision of Contently's future.
"We knew the company was going to die if someone didn't believe in us," he told Mashable.
And they did -- in just one year, Shane went from having 48 cents in his bank account to being the co-founder of a million-dollar startup.
They've sinced raised over $2 million in capital. Now, Contently is so successful at what it does -- vetting some of the most talented journalists and writers out there, and connecting them to incredible opportunities with publishers and brand-publishers -- that even some of Shane's JSchool professors use it to find great gigs.
Just like Shane envisioned, Contently is now the world's marketplace for publishing, disrupting the old-school PR and ad agency models as we know 'em. And Shane, a regular contributor to the likes of Mashable and WIRED, is an Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 honoree.
Tomorrow, Thursday, September 27th at 3 PM EST, you're invited to grill Shane about Contently's evolution (or what he calls "the story his mom doesn't want to hear") during our hour-long #StartupLab live chat, presented by Citi. He's going to talk about everything from the ins and outs of fundraising, to scaling a business for growth, to how the WORST news of your life can lead to the smartest pivot of your career. Don't forget to jot down some questions for Shane before our event.
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