Here’s the scoop, TheSkimm is an emailed newsletter containing all the important news going on in the world around you. At 6 a.m. every day, Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg send out their emails to over 5 million subscribers across the country, chock full of things you need and want to know.
Like most things these days, TheSkimm uses millennial lingo to target younger demographics and provide them with the most important and current happenings.
What’s special about TheSkimm is the friendly tone and quirky headers that allow news to be enjoyable as well as informative.
With some loyal subscribers such as Oprah Winfrey, TheSkimm uses its platform for the benefit of its readers.
Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg met back in 2012. They two were interns for NBC and roommates, which led to daily discussions of things they learned going on in the world. They soon quit NBC after they realized that their knowledge was what people really wanted, and planned on figuring out how to give it to them.
Zakin and Weisberg got turned down more than just a few times when presenting their idea for TheSkimm to venture capitalists and investors. Nobody was interested in an emailing company except for the two girls, so they took on the burden themselves.
Being women themselves, Weisberg and Zakin have noticed that their main audience was very female oriented. They realized female millennials needed a news source they could love and turn to when needing the 411. These were smart and contributing members of society that needed smart and contributing resources in return.
The first thing people usually do in the morning is check their emails, see if any new things have come over night from the boss. Most of us sit in bed for a couple of minutes and browse social media accounts and get caught up with the world before we start the day. That’s where TheSkimm duo knew they needed to hit, the email.
The newsletter started with just $4,000 between the two girls’ savings. Investors turned down their idea because “email is dead” and didn’t see the point in going into something that wouldn’t generate a revenue. Credit-card debit was the answer, and they started up their project by themselves, emailing everyone they knew asking to sign up and give TheSkimm a chance.
One of the great things about TheSkimm is its ability to not only attract political savvy readers, but present things in a way that the average Joanna can also understand it. It takes the tone of a friend, talking about the weather or what they had for lunch. The point was to create something that helped people get information on things they really wanted to know.
Zakin and Weisberg relied on most of their funding to come from advertisers in the newsletters. The investors they initially went to that turned them down were marked and never responded to again after they didn’t believe in the girls’ dream.
Now, TheSkim has launched its own subscription app Called Skimm Ahead. The app allows newsletter readers and subscribers to pick and chose what they’d like to be updated about. The added feature of being able to bypass whatever you do not want to read has been a huge success for the business as a whole.
In order to come up with Skimm Ahead, Zakin came up with the idea of integrating the app with the users calendar. For just $2.99 a month, readers are able to have all the news all the time, stay updated on what happened yesterday, and see what’s coming in the future.
Because of app production, they’ve recently let investors in, raising $15 million to put themselves deeper into the media environment.
With TheSkimm, the duo launched a campaign called, “No Excuses” where they needed up getting over 120,000 people registered and rallied to vote. News outlets alike have seen their ability to really influence female communities. The founders of TheSkimm make sure to really dig in to their subscribers and figure out what they want to know, what they need to know, and how to get it to them. This attention to detail provides an environment where subscribers are never disappointed.
But they girls aren’t stopping there. Currently, they’re using social networking sites to reach even larger audiences. They inspire people to pay attention and to care about the world around us. They’re listening and learning, just like we are, so that they can do their best to get news out there.
