The bootstrapped path

Stephanie Kaplan Lewis founded Her Campus in 2009 with Annie Wang, and Windsor Western as college undergraduates. They saw a need for college women to have a publication made for them by other college women.

Her Campus has grown since then as a profitable, growing media business with 85 employees. Stephanie says Her Campus expanded revenue by 50% last year – and did it with an entirely ad-focused business model. Stephanie credits the growth in large part to building a long-term business that works in any environment rather than a specific environment, such as the easy-money era that’s now in the rear-view mirror.

The twist is that Her Campus is part agency, part publisher, with campaigns leaning on experiential and influencer marketing. This is a path many publishing models will go, as the economics of relying on putting ads on webpages or newsletters grow more difficult. Stephanie and I discuss:

The forced discipline of a bootstrapped model. Her Campus has been profitable for all 15 years of its existence. Imagine.

Not aging up with the audience. Her Campus turns its audience over by design, as it stays focused on college women. When it started, Her Campus was for millennials, and now it’s for Gen Z. 

Being part agency, part publisher. Her Campus ends up with other media companies as customers. 

Doing the basics well. In the media business, strategy is overrated. Execution tends to play a bigger role in separating winners and losers. That means doing the boring things well: Setting achievable sales goals and hitting them, excelling at client service, collecting receivables and such.