The essentials of start-up success

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 15, 1996 by Julie Lewit-Nirenberg

Thousands of words have been written on magazine start-ups, but it takes only about a dozen to sum up the four most important components. You must have a unique and crystallized editorial concept, launch-seasoned management, sound marketing strategies and adequate funding. Here are 13 recommendations to make sure those components are in place for your launch.

Make your editorial concept crystal-clear.The first thing to understand is that, with the exception of the editor and the publisher, nobody needs a new magazine. People need food, water, shelter, clothes and love. Readers may want a magazine, they might enjoy it enough to subscribe to it, and in time they might even love it. But they don't need it.

What makes readers want/enjoy/love a new magazine is the editorial content and the visual execution. Here are the essential ground rules.

1. Either the concept must be unique or the editorial approach different from all the other titles in the field. Another "me-too" idea and you're dead.

2. The concept must be so well developed that the editor (and the publisher, too) can define the magazine in one or two sentences--or, at worst, in the time it takes for a lighted match to burn your fingers. (This is the famous match test.)

3. The editorial idea must translate into readership and, ultimately, into a vehicle for advertiser support. That is a trickier proposition than it might seem. For example, every five years or so, a new magazine is started for divorced people. Yes, with 50 percent of all marriages ending in divorce there is a substantial market out there. But will these people really want to read about a not-so-wonderful event in their lives and its often painful aftermath? Will advertisers want to be part of this environment? I have my doubts.

4. Publishing skills are not easily transferable. You may be great at putting out a business magazine, but know nothing of the editorial, advertising and circulation problems of a consumer magazine.

5. It is not a crime not to know everything. It is a crime to think that you do. The really bad and expensive mistakes are usually made by those who think they have all the answers. You'd be surprised how often large, seemingly experienced, companies make the same mistakes as the rankest amateur: a pedestrian editorial concept, inadequate planning, disbelief in test results, poor staffing, not reading the telltale signs that the idea won't fly.

6. Do not fall in love with your idea. It destroys your ability to think clearly and make sound decisions.

7. Execute! Editorial content--the words, the tone, the ideas, the images--must match the readers' expectations.

Find people who have been there. This seems like a given, yet often the parent of the idea has little publishing experience.

8. It's awfully hard to launch a magazine if you do not have the experience of running one--so if you don't, at least surround yourself with those who do. This is a risky, expensive, competitive business.

Have a realistic business plan. A well-thought-out business plan is your blueprint. It will keep you on track and help you identify problems. Therefore:

9. Be extremely rigorous. Can the marketplace support a new entry? Who is your primary competition? your secondary competition? Is your magazine the first and only entry in a category? Why hasn't someone else moved in? Big Beautiful Woman launched in 1979 with the idea of reaching full-figured women, who represent a significant portion of the women's market. After all that time, the quarterly is still not much bigger than a pamphlet, and has relatively little paid advertising. Unique idea, sizable market, no competition--and yet, no business.

10. The fact that your audience is probably reached by other magazines becomes unimportant if your approach is unique. No magazine reader reads only one magazine. The very successful launch of Marie Claire is a prime example of this.

11. Remember that a great marketing idea rarely makes a great and sustainable magazine.

Budget wisely. And remember this:

12. Launching your magazine will cost at least 50 percent more than you planned, and take two to three years longer than you expected for it to become profitable.

13. Having all the money in the world to spend on a launch--the reported $40 million for House and Garden, for example--doesn't necessarily make your idea a good one or guarantee its success. You will just lose more money than others.

Finally, be aware of the odds. Less than 5 percent of the more than 400 new consumer magazines launched in 1994 will celebrate New Year's Eve in 1996. Having said that, though, be brave. Starting new things is risky. So is not starting them.