Om Malik: Pioneering Blogs (Part 9)

Publication businesses earn their revenues through advertising. Running a blog requires a great Ad Network partner to achieve success. for Om that has been FM.

SM: When did you sign up with FM? OM: Right out of the gate, before I even left my job I had already signed. I think it was the end of June, 2006.

SM: What was going on with FM then, they were just being founded at the time, right? OM: I have known John Battelle for a long time, and we talked about his idea and I told him I was on board. At that time, when he was putting adds on the sites, it was not a formal relationship because they were in the process of becoming a channel for bloggers.

Our paths converged, and it allowed me to focus on writing. It eventually became clear that we had to plan together, and work on things together. A lot of people make that mistake that when you outsource you are outsourcing it all. The reality is you outsource the physical function of it, but not the mental piece. It is still your core competence, core to my business. I cannot stop thinking about it.

As much as John and his team obsess about it, I have to think about it twice as hard. I think that is the crucial difference I have with other bloggers. I talk with the Federated Sales reps two or three times a week. We have regular conversations, and that is why it is working for me. They know what works for me, what campaigns I like and why. It has been a constant fine tuning process. They understand the site, the audience and what I am doing. That is why they can do a much more effective job. They spend as much time with me as I have asked them to. This is part of outsourcing which is tough. It is not somebody on your payroll doing the job, and it is not out of your cost structure, but it is your business.

SM: All outsourcing works that way. If you try to do your software development somewhere else, and you do not monitor it and think it through, it is not going to work. OM: That is lesson number one. Lesson number two is that no task is bigger than you, and no task is smaller than you. Starting a startup is easy, making it work is a lot of hard work. It is an insane amount of work. I cannot imagine why people sign up for it, but I also get it. This has been the best year of my life.

I have not slept more than three hours a day for the past 11 months. Maybe when I was in India to see my parents, but that was because of the jetlag not because I wanted to sleep. It becomes your sole obsession. You really have to be obsessed about it. One of the things I miss is that I do not get enough time to think deeply, which is what I am hoping to change. I am hoping as the company evolves in the next 10 to 12 months, and management positions get filled out, I can go back to my natural state which is think and write more.

This is the third lesson, I guess, that while you have to do everything, you are a band aide – not a permanent fix. You have to bring in the “A” team. I think the team part is the most important part because my whole vision is to not grow beyond 30 – 40 people. I want to keep the company small enough that we can all move in the same direction, at least in the near term. In the long term, who knows.

[to be continued]

[Part 8]
[Part 7]
[Part 6]
[Part 5]
[Part 4]
[Part 3]
[Part 2]
[Part 1]

This segment is part 9 in the series : Om Malik: Pioneering Blogs
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