Laurel Touby, MediaBistro Founder, Shares Insights on Entrepreneurship

Last week, I had the good fortune to attend a Q&A with Laurel Touby, Founder of MediaBistro, courtesy of the Columbia Business School Women’s Entrepreneurship Network.  Laurel is a total powerhouse, having grown her company from 1994 when she started hosting cocktail parties to meet people, to selling it for $23 mm to Jupiter Media in 2007).  So many great tidbits about entrepreneurship were shared.  Below is a sampling:

• On how to grow a business through networking: You can get someone who would normally not open an email to open an invitation
• On product: listen to your customers – they have the BEST ideas
• On funding: build an audience and a revenue stream before approaching investors
• On the CEO being the brand: if you’re too integral to your business, you can never sell it.  You can set the culture but the biz should live without you.
• On growing from local to national: let your customers do your advertising for you
• On hiring: Hire slowly.  Fire fast.
• On being a female CEO: A female CEO will always be the “mean mommy”.  You can’t please everyone all of the time, so don’t sweat it.
• On accepting who you are: There are 2 types of CEOs: inward-facing and outward-facing.  The former knows the numbers, the operations, the metrics.  The latter talks to press, customers etc.  Hire for whatever you’re not.
• On technology: don’t be afraid to ASK your tech people to explain in laymen’s terms how things work and demand that they come up with creative ways to solve problems.  There’s always a way. [ed. note: when I worked at IAC, the Expedia guys, who were really the Microsoft guys, would always say “it’s just software.” So true.]
• On surviving the recession: conserve cash. Show up at your customers’ doors to get paid. Come up with new products.
• On competition: once you get a foothold in your space, it’s harder than you think to knock you down.

Comments welcome!

Lauren