What have I learned from three successful media startups?

(Holy hiatus — what a long break! Welcome back!)

Conference season is kicking into high gear, and my calendar is filling up with external moderating requests.

Why that matters to this blog: I’ve had to send headshots and the dreaded b-i-o for promo materials.

Reality check: Truly, who enjoys writing these things? They’re basically public self-evaluations. Write too glowingly, and you risk sounding like an egomaniac. Too humbly, and you risk underselling yourself.

Yes, but: Like updating your resume, revising your bio is actually a great way to check in with yourself.

• What’s most important to you now? What are you most proud of?

Zoom in: As I was rewriting mine for the sixth time this week, I realized I’d never quite connected the dots of my startup career.

• My reporting and work have contributed to not one, not two, but three media exits within a span of eight years. And... they’ve been three of the most successful, per Axios reporting by Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn (see chart below).

Between the lines: I know a great business when I see one. I am a business reporter, after all? 😂

Flashback: Business Insider was at the top of my dream list when I was graduating from Columbia Journalism School. I met two great editors at the career fair in 2014 and a few weeks later started the best job a modern reporter could ask for — covering digital media companies for BI’s first subscription research product, BI Intelligence.

• It was a startup within a startup — on a beat that taught me about my own industry. How lucky was I?

I wasn’t with BI long, but I witnessed the power of empowering writers to pursue their own perspectives — thanks to regular team meetings with co-founder Henry Blodget.

• Have a take. Report it out. Repeat. That's what made BI special.

When I left for CNN, I applied that lesson to my coverage of Big Tech — reporting stories from personal and global points of view.

• That approach landed my articles on CNN's homepage and gave me my first big break — an exclusive interview with Jack Ma of Alibaba in China.

The intrigue: Then came 2015, the Year of the Pivot to Video.

• Cheddar launched in this era. And my track record with BI and CNN got me in the door.

I interviewed with founder Jon Steinberg in 2016, and the next four years after filming my anchor screen test on an iPhone were some of the most transformative of my life.

What I learned from Jon: A startup can move fast and far — with the pace set by the founder’s vision and success fueled by the collective scrambling of ambitious talent.

• I got to try just about everything and got very hooked on that kind of energy.

• But it wasn’t a free-for-all. Jon gave clear marching orders via @all Slacks, company-wide emails, and all-hands.

Meanwhile: A few months after I began anchoring at Cheddar, Axios launched.

• It quickly became a second homepage on my computer while I was on-air.

• And when we started booking Dan Primack, Sara Fischer, and Ina Fried on shows, I fell in love again — this time with Axios' reporting.

During the pandemic, when an opportunity came up to join the company, I hurled myself at it.

My full-time role was mostly remote, so I didn’t get the full Jim VandeHei experience.

• But even through Zoom, his intensity and focus broke through. That same electricity I felt from Henry and Jon? It was there.

What I learned from Jim: Create high standards and the right people will clear them by a mile.

• His vision for Axios — to build a company that will outlast all of us — set my experience apart from BI and Cheddar. When you build for that kind of long haul, you set up your people differently.

I’ll save the full breakdown of lessons from Henry, Jon, and Jim for another post. (Maybe even a book?)

The bottom line: They taught me to trust my instincts, to experiment, and to exceed my own expectations.

• I'm deeply proud of the fact that I got to learn from three industry-defining leaders in a short time.

• I also know how incredibly lucky I am to have been able to do so in the first part of my second career.

What’s next: Why do you think I started Macro Talk? :)

Stay cool and enjoy the weekend,

Hope

P.S. Click on my profile to rate my LinkedIn bio in the DMs.