Thrillist: Starting with email and eventually becoming a 1 billion-dollar-level electric business Company

At first, Thrillist was just an email subscription service that provided life information, and the circle of circulation was small, with about 600 New Yorkers. Through the Thrillist subscription service, you can find out where cocktail parties are held, where you can get a good pasta, or where you can buy the most fashionable pants. But now the thrillist is very different from the past. It is like a well-designed, huge online machine that ignites the enthusiasm of young boys across the United States and, more importantly, thrillist to their enthusiasm. Basically, Thrillist is a huge blog and email subscription service network that tells you where you want to go, and then tells you what ecommerce sites you want to buy. Sometimes, thrillist even produces some of its own sales of tidal goods. They combine content with E-commerce, providing the perfect service for the materialistic. According to the company's co-founder Ben Lerer, their annual income is expected to exceed $100 million trillion this year, and he said the figure was higher than the other 27 online media brands, including Vox,techcrunch,business Insider, and the Onion. But this year's 32-Year-old Lerer is not satisfied, he wants more. Ben Lerer wants his company to generate 10 of billions of dollars in annual revenues, and has a much bigger business range than it is now. Clearly, he wants to reshape people's perceptions of the media industry. He asks many content publishers why they are still content with relatively meager online advertising after they know what they want and can predict what the reader wants. In particular, publishers can see exactly what types of products the reader has clicked on, and in some cases they even know how much the reader is paying. Why not use this information? Lerer said that only through business to allow online media companies to expand their size, they need to take seriously. He wants to see Men's magazine Esquire and J.Crew, The New York Times and fashion glasses dealer Warby Parker, and ESPN can work with the ticketing website StubHub. My argument, as well as the motivation to build a Thrillist media group and my waking up every morning, is a belief in the combination of content and business to find answers. "You have a bunch of users who are fascinated by your content, they have enough trust in you, you create content for them, you even know them well ... instead of helping other brands sell their products, why can't you sell directly to readers?" he said. This is so meaningful. "He's not alone in the fight. Other online media companies, such as fashion brand Entertainment portal PopSugar, women's clothing sales website nastyGal, and fashion luxury website Net-a-porter, they all have similar ideas. If these companies bring value through content and business integration, they will reshape the media web site and turn them into industry participants from the role of a business observer and reporter. They will also shift from online shopping redistribution and intermediary roles to a more seamless shopping experience for consumers, and this experience vertically integrates several areas of advantage, including referral services, retail services, and design, among others. The next generation of retail brands will certainly be very good at storytelling, "said Brian Nicholson, a venture capitalist (with no interest in thrillist). I have to say that Thrillist's goal on this path is clearer than that of other media companies. "In the world that Thrillist wants to build, it's obviously more important to know the customer, even more important than the taste and quality of individual customers." Retailers have to make their own unique sounds and build their own audiences, while, when you actually do something, content publishers have to take responsibility and risk. If your online media company can't do this, the dilemma is to be eliminated. And those media companies that have successfully transformed their revenues will grow at an incredible magnitude, at least, Lerer. When Thrillist met Jacktreadsthrillist, which used to be a traditional online media company, from 2005 to 2009, the company started from scratch and eventually developed into a business with a revenue of 8 million, but they were like other companies in the media industry , business income depends on advertising sales, the scope of business development is very small. Lerer has also launched a subscription service in some of America's big cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Seattle, and has joined Thrillist's official blog in the subscription service. But Lerer wanted to build a bigger business right away and, of course, he found a way to achieve his goals. Based on the advertising transactions of the online retailers on their website, Thrillist understands that its website drives a lot of e-commerce transactions. The company is also increasingly adept at identifying specific types of products and knowing which products will attract young male consumers to buy. Lerer tired of helping others make money, but also hate to pass the reader's trust in their media to advertisers. So in 2010, Lerer decided to strike, the first company they chose was a company in the capital of Columbus, Ohio, named JackThreads. They are a flash-purchase website that sells men's goods, and basically relies on thrillist to gain profits. I found out about the JackThreads company, and then I wanted to go and find them, and it gave me a sense ofIt's just, ' It's too TM appealing, ' Lerer recalls, so I boarded the plane and came to the capital of Ohio, Columbus, to learn about Jason. Jason Ross, who is the CEO of JackThreads, and after a meeting with Lerer, decided to start a new business model. When you hear Lerer describe the perfect blueprint for integrating jackthreads and Thrillist, Jason feels they are creating a material paradise for consumers. "I asked Jason," Lerer said, "Why do you want to advertise on my media site?" and he said, "Well, the male consumers who come from you are the most valued customers of our company's life cycle." They are our biggest buyers and our biggest share. They are the consumers I've always dreamed of ... "so Lerer said, why can't I buy your company, why can't you teach us how to sell products to these male consumers, and then we'll be under the same roof to witness the creation of a new media company?" Intimate relationships "as Lerer had expected, the company's performance grew rapidly after the Thrillist acquisition of JackThreads in 2010", with the first doubling of thrillist revenue for several years, with 80% of its revenues now coming from E-commerce. The company is profitable, Lerer revealed that Thrillist's profit margin is not as high as a pure content provider, but it is definitely better than any E-commerce company. Thrillist has also established a more intimate relationship with readers ", which now has 1 million of customers ' credit card information and the user's home address, and this year they have delivered more than 2 million packages to users. This intimacy is what Lerer hoped for, he says, "We understand ' the Millennium ' Men and have a good relationship with them, and other media companies can't do that." "Thrillist has been successful in part because they can capture customers ' desire for goods and provide a customer experience by mailing finished products. Thrillist's order Processing process is also very convenient, a key to make, the reader can also use the unified account to associate their own Thrillist e-mail subscription service, if you encounter any problems, direct Dial thrillist customer service phone. Lerer's goal is not limited to the thrillist.com Web site, he wants to make Thrillist Media group more powerful, and now their user base is still narrow, the number is about 8 million. Last November, he launched a new product Supercompressor ", it is a focus on lifestyle technology" blog and order service products, forUser's home, car, and leisure to provide electronic products and equipment-related services. In the end, he hopes Thrillist can release and sell a variety of branded goods. and Thrillist Similar media companies, as well as Wired's parent company, the group, and Gawker Media company. A big problem with the huge risk-lerer model is risk. He integrates three highly risky business, media, retail, and apparel production. While there are fewer and less expensive paper and physical stores, the level of media content creation, the risk of inventory at retail, and the inability of garment makers to deal with fickle consumers are all potential risk points. In addition, executives like Lerer feel pressured to manage different types of business. For example, New York's fashion publisher Refinery 29 recently abandoned its own online stores, as inventory problems and supplies made it difficult for the company to focus on the booming media business. Another is the question of trust. Thrillist may now be popular with young people in the millennial generation, but when they build e-commerce around their media business, especially when these young people find out what they subscribe to and actually want them to buy thrillist goods, will they be able to set aside these personalized consumer groups, is still to be seen. Lerer said that their content was written by an independent team and had nothing to do with Thrillist's original content-editing team, but the problem is that if he pushes some junk "ads, it's bound to lose a lot of readers." However, Lerer stressed that Thrillist was the only good company to integrate hyperactive Internet commerce with hyperactive Internet content services. That's why he's so bullish about the company's future. At the South by Southwest Conference this year, he openly stated that his goal was to build thrillist into a 1 billion-dollar company. But the 32-year-old entrepreneur is very cautious, saying his immediate priority is to build a 500 million-dollar company. (via Inc translation/Fast carp)