Market Magnet: Askmen.com

Ladies, if you are wondering where the really good men are, odds are that you can find them at AskMen.com, the leading men’s lifestyle portal and e-zine.

They’re reading up on how to be a better man for himself, for you, for his family, for his career and yes of course in the bedroom!  In terms of attracting the illusive male, AskMen.com ranks as having the 3rd highest concentration of males of all websites in the United States. But it’s not only men that come to the site, despite the 88% of their traffic being male, with the volume of monthly unique visitors they have, they still manage to receive over a million women a month visiting them trying to get a glimpse into what guys are doing, thinking and acting out.

It’s been a true David beats Goliath story for AskMen.com. Industry stats indicate that AskMen.com’s traffic ratings beat out Maxim Online, GQ, FHM and Men’s Health COMBINED!  They were, and still are, such an exciting company that IGN (who was subsequently bought out by News Corps. Fox Interactive Media division) acquired them in 2005. Not a shabby accomplishment for three ingenious university students who came up with a brilliant idea in a little café several years back.

And, today we are going to meet AskMen.com’s co-founder and General Manager, Ricardo Poupada (Ric). Ric is here to share his adventures from his rise up in the start-up road. We are going to learn how he and his team grew a promising idea into a tremendous success story.

KTY: Welcome, Ric,

Exciting accomplishments! Is this what you fathomed would happen when you first started the company…or is this beyond your wildest dreams?

Ric: Honestly, no, we never thought we would get this far at that time. You obviously dream that you can build a company or brand that gets recognized and is successful and the end goal was always to get to the point we are now but on day one when   But, we worked really hard, gave it all we had and are so pleased with our accomplishments.

We were young and relatively inexperienced, especially as compared to the other companies who were getting financing or who were anchored by industry vets or experienced MBAs. And, our timing was relatively good with the Internet boom happening, so we thought that if we failed, we would at least come out of this with some very good business experience and valuable lessons learned.

The more we worked on our idea, the more it grew and became a bigger than we ever dreamed it could. Once we got started, the momentum propelled us forward and things fell naturally into place.

KTY: What incited you and your two partners to launch AskMen.com

Ric: Funny story…my co-founders and I were sitting at a café trying to think up the next big idea when we noticed a well-dressed man walking in wearing a nicely tailored suit. He looked wealthy, sophisticated…a debonair man of the world…with his very expensive looking dark designer suit and suave style. Then the guy crossed his legs and we were astounded to see that he was wearing WHITE GYM SOCKS. So here is a guy who is likely smart and successful in life but one little mistake with his appearance can change everyone’s perception of him.

The lights bulbs started flashing in our brains; why not help guys with small details of life that we sometimes miss like wearing gym socks with suits? Why not create a site that was useful, practical, yet entertaining that guys can use to learn, laugh and interact with each other in a community where others had similar interests.

Also, having occasionally looked for articles similar to the ones we cover at AskMen.com prior to our launch, we noticed that there was not enough information out there. Second, the really good info was hard to find even though we considered ourselves relatively savvy on the web. And third, the information was fragmented all over the web. We thought that it would be ideal to have one place to find all that information at the touch of a button.

KTY: Please tell us more about your zine, your team and yourself.
 
Ric: AskMen.com is committed to providing useful, practical, entertaining men’s lifestyle information. Our readers are interested in improving themselves personally, physically and professionally. They want to become better fathers, sons and partners.

We have a great team of top tier people to fulfill this need. You need good people around when you launch and work on a start-up. Also, talent is key in everything we do. So we seek complimentary skills when we bring on new members.

Our original team and the new members we added along the way tend to be enthusiastic, young, dynamic, and ambitious. We harness that energy to make it work for our team, for the company, for our audience.

At AskMen.com, our team espouses a philosophy to keep things as simple as possible and to keep the ball moving forward. It’s a fast paced, competitive arena, and we need to be on our toes and ready to go.

As for me, I have a business background rather than a journalistic or artistic one. My approach is different than someone who studied in those fields. I tend to look at all our activities with an ROI perspective….so I have never been extravagant in our expenses and I built the business solidly one block at a time. It was not about artistic vanity for me; it was about fulfilling a market need and figuring out how much return we would get for every dollar or resource invested in our activities.  This is not a revolutionary concept, it’s actually pretty unoriginal but in the publishing world the concept of combining great content and running a business with a eye on your P&L line hasn’t always been a top priority. We exploited that hole in our vertical market.

KTY:  So many websites struggle to succeed and only a few make it as big as you did….how did you do it and what sets you apart from the masses?

Ric: Obviously this is too simplistic an answer, since it really is a million day to day things we do that make everything work but the “VOICE” of our site….that’s what keeps our readers coming back for more.

Plus, we strictly abide by our UPE rule…we ensure that everything we put out there is Useful, Practical and Entertaining.

KTY: Tell me, what’s your secret sauce?

a) How do you attract the incredible levels of traffic you draw daily? (hyperlink to section)
b) What is your successful advertising or revenue strategy? (hyperlink to section)
c) How do you get those amazing writers to work with you? (hyperlink to section)

Ric: That’s complex. Our approach was to build the site brick by brick rather than to think of becoming an “overnight success.”To do this, our perspective was similar to the distribution model of printed publications. That is, you need to get enough people see your zine in the news stands and frequently. So, our aim was to draw as much traffic as possible to our zine by being in as many virtual newsstands (or sites) as possible.  We worked hard on finding as many of the best links to our site out there and to develop our content and features that would prove enticing to readers.

We knew that if we did our job right and not only attracted new traffic but also kept a good percentage of those eyes coming back to our site, we would succeed. The numbers would grow. And, they did!

As for advertising, we worked with several excellent agencies who repped us. But you know, no one, absolutely no one, will represent you as well as an internal sales team. We have seen that in action time and time again.

Nowadays we target our site and content a lot more, which gives advertisers more targeting capabilities to reach the right audience on the site. That includes separating the site geographically. AskMen.com has three sites: one in Canada, one in the US and one in the U.K. Depending on where you log on from, you will see different ads and different content

As a result, some of the content differs from country to country. For example in Canada you have access not only to all the content we make available worldwide but you get targeted features specifically targeting our Canadian readers. This has helped us developed some custom solutions for advertisers in Canada with our joint venture partner in Canada, Transcontinental Media

As for content, we have a combination of internal staff writing articles, to freelancers, to special guest authors Jack Welch or Sylvester Stallone who really add an extra layer to our content. Often times we are approached by writers who are interested in using AskMen.com as a platform to get exposure but we also get plenty of writers who are not seeking fame and fortune but just an audience for their work.
 
KTY: Did you start with any personal or outside funding? How did you secure that funding?

Ric: We were fortunate to have some angel investors, one of whom I knew personally. Their backing helped us to get started and they happily made a nice return.

KTY: What sets AskMen.com apart from the competition represented by some pretty big league publication giants?

Ric: Our major competitions’ perspectives recently changed. Until not too long ago, they were so busy protecting their printed copies’ markets so they did not put the energy they should into their online editions. Some of our competitors had simple sites that only had scant information and an option to subscribe to their offline print edition.

We sort of came out of nowhere. And since we were a smaller company, we had fewer restrictions and could move much quicker without the bureaucracies that some of our bigger competitors had to deal with daily.

KTY: So, what made you decide to sell to IGN (since sold to Fox Interactive Media) and become a big player, too?

Ric: We saw the landscape changing.
Consolidation was happening. We had a choice…to keep going at it alone or to get a big brother to partner with us.

As a start-up, you often live in “survival” mode; you need to get your product out to market and execute on your strategy, but are also concerned about payroll, bills and the like. With a big brother like IGN, our perspective changed. We suddenly had access to more resources and deeper pockets enabling us to take the company to a higher level with less day-to-day financial worries, allowing us to take bigger risks. It certainly has paid off so far.

KTY: And, how did all this happen?

Ric: We were actually on the radar of several companies by the time they we were approached. So, it wasn’t surprising to get their call and once we met their executive staff, we knew it is where we wanted to be. Their senior team got AskMen.com and wanted to help fill our potential. We wanted the site to fulfill its potential but wanted to make sure it was going into the right hands.

The CEO at the time, Mark Jung, was a very charismatic and visionary guy and certainly help made our decision easy. (Laughs) I still remember the day he told me we (AskMen.com) would soon charge advertisers as much as ESPN.com does. I thought he was crazy because ESPN.com was such a monster site with a powerful brand, but he was absolutely spot on, within a few months of our acquisition we were on par with ESPN.

KTY: How did you adapt to the transition after being acquired? And, after the fact…is it still fun to work with AskMen.com or are you bored?

Ric: Hmmm, well, things change, it’s unavoidable, but though we obviously have more procedure and structure in place which slows us down at times, I understand the need for it in order to scale the company.

We are very fortunate to have IGN as our big brother enabling us to have more resources to take AskMen.com to the next level. The access to other parts of the News Corp. empire has also benefited us. But like any company that is now part of a bigger operation, there are things that can be frustrating but nothing out of the ordinary. Overall, it has been 100% the right decision and AskMen.com is now fulfilling its full potential.

It’s never boring, just different. There is so much still to do and we are always on the go. My role has simply changed.  AskMen.com was like a baby to us. My co-founders and I gave birth to it, raised it through its glorious but sometimes rebellious teenage years, and are now nurturing it into adulthood and its destiny – with the help of big brothers IGN, and uncle Fox Interactive Media.

Sure, I sometimes miss the raw, exciting, new frontier thrills about working with a start-up. It was an exciting part of my life and I get nostalgic at times. But, there are also some motivating, fulfilling challenges in being part of a bigger organization. Either way, I give it my very best and am enjoying what I do.

KTY: Are there ever moments when you and the team think that you can not be more innovative in your work?

Ric: That’s a huge danger for any company as it matures. Complacency sets in and that can kill you.

Fortunately for us, we actually have not run of ideas yet. In fact, we have so many ideas on the table that we feel there is not always enough time or people to work on the ones we already have in mind.

KTY: What keeps you fresh?

Ric: I think new blood often does the trick. New team members bring fresh perspectives and talents. They challenge us and the way we’ve done things in the past.

And, an occasional 180 degree change in philosophy is good. For example, historically we tended to feature articles that were timeless but now we realized we need to feature more timely content and our users expect it.

To keep our audience interested, we not only update our site but keep looking for features that enhance the experience of the site. We will be revamping the website this year with a lot of cool new features we hope will help us retain more users.

KTY: What are/were AskMen.com’s greatest challenges?

Ric: Brand recognition. Competitors like GQ or Esquire have established brands and we don’t. It’s that simple. So we’re working on improving ours.

People know us, especially among our target market but not to the extent that I would like. I want us to be the equivalent of MySpace.com of men’s lifestyle websites and recognized as such.

KTY: And, what has been AskMen.com’s most rewarding moment?

Ric: We’ve had a few. We see the results of our efforts when we receive feedback from our audience. 

Some of our readers have sent us letters thanking us for the articles that helped them to get their ideal job, propose to their girlfriends, or heal a relationship. We’ve even had moms forward our articles to their sons and tell us they helped transform their kids into better people or at least more aware people.

It’s great to see an idea our staff came up with go live and be a success. Honestly, it’s the little things that seem to be most rewarding, the unexpected client we closed, the media write-up of some small journal praising us for being direct but always entertaining. Too many to remember.

KTY: What’s coming up next on the horizon for AskMen.com?

Ric: Overhauling the way we interact with our audience. We want to get even closer to them by improving our boards, voting features, and a few other features.

KTY: Alright then…and what’s coming up next for you, Ric?

Ric: My job now is to essentially balance the needs of the team with those of corporate – that’s the key to moving forward and I am devoting my energy to that.  It’s a big challenge but interesting work.

Although I started off as an entrepreneur, I can grow and learn a lot from this new experience while simultaneously contributing what I know to help corporate. It’s a whole new level in my career.

KTY: What would stop your team from getting to the next level?

Ric: Complacency can stop a team. It is very easy to get caught up in the success of today. We must keep being innovative and quick on our feet.

KTY: What do you think are the secret ingredients that propel companies towards success?

Ric: Three things come quickly to mind:

1) Avoid being a jack of all trades. Remember what you are good at, why the audience came to you in the first place and why they keep coming back. Then, stick to it and improve your formula over time.

2) Keep expenses in check. They can add up quickly and destroy an otherwise promising future. You need to sit down and project your numbers accordingly.

3) Surround yourself with a good team of ambitious people – that will get you far. Find people who will challenge and push your company to be the best out there.

KTY: In your opinion, who are the “best in class” small companies on the rise that inspire you?

Ric: Looking at my industry, I would have to say:

1) Entertainment blogs. It’s exciting to see how relatively unknown authors can come out of nowhere and outdo the bigger guys. Key examples are: TMZ.com (their traffic beats out People magazine online!) and Rotten Tomatoes (their tomato meters have become an industry standard).

Then there’s Wikipedia. They took a simple idea, focused on it and made it a huge success.

KTY: How can companies on the rise avoid some major pitfalls in the start-up trenches?

Ric: The simple biggest mistake that a start-up can make is to not move fast enough. You have to get your product out there. You just can not afford to be slow and to wait for everything to be perfect before advancing.  Six months can make a big difference on whether you go forward or lose your momentum to the competition.

Microsoft is an excellent example of that philosophy. They get their products out there one after another. Sure, there are corrections made when required, but they just keep pounding away and getting their software to market.

KTY: If you could create an imaginary advisory board made of brilliant minds from the past and those currently alive and active today, who would you name to this board …and why?

Ric: The board would be comprised of people from both in and outside of our industry.

There would be Jack Welch of GE. The man is tough as nails, knows how to give it to you real straight and was the possibly the best CEO that existed. Not everyone liked both within and outside his company, but he certainly got the job done like no one did.

And of course, there’s Richard Branson of Virgin. He knows how to take an idea, market and execute it well.  He has a stunning replicable model in his hands that he uses to enter new market after new market.

Steve Jobs for obvious reasons. I’ve been a Mac Addict since I was a little boy and followed the company’s fortunes very closely. I was one of those guys who would evangelize about Apple when they were on the verge on going bankrupt, and to see what Jobs has done to turn it around. Put it this way, I don’t need to evangelize anymore.

Of the people I’ve come to know in my industry, there are plenty to choose from. Off hand, definitely some people I’ve worked with like Mark Jung, who as CEO of IGN took it the top (twice) and is an extraordinary visionary and Dale Strang now the current general manager of IGN  who is a very intelligent and seasoned man who understands our industry so well .

(Laughs) I can be here for days listing names, too many to name.

KTY: Would you care to share some favorite and best advice with us today?

Ric: Keep a healthy diet plan. Honestly, if your body is not in fighting form you can’t take on the world.  It is easy to neglect your health while you are running on an adrenaline and pouring your every waking hour into a start-up.  Living on pizza and working through the night is commonplace for a dedicated start-up, but it can add up, I gained twenty pounds the first year of AskMen.com simply because I didn’t have time to think about my health.

You really need a balance between work and personal time for relationships and other activities. It keeps you centered and inspired. By giving in to my love of traveling, I am constantly rewarded by being exposed to different ideas, trains of thought, fresh ideas, even trends that benefit me when I return to work.

Also, remember to lead by example. If you’re asking someone to be accountable for what they do, then you should be a true leader and be ready to be accountable for your actions, too.
 
And, good luck! It’s challenging but exhilarating.

KTY: Thank you for sharing your adventures on the rise from the start-up world with us. Wishing you much continued success and excitement in your new activities.