SCOUTMOB
I joined Scoutmob before I fully understood what joining a pre-launch startup actually meant — which is probably the only way you ever do it. What I did understand was that the two founders were willing to take a chance on a young writer fresh out of portfolio school who convinced them they needed a new name, logo, editorial content, and an overall bolder brand identity that would resonate with the young, hip, local demographic. They were all in on my ideas. And that felt like enough.
What followed was four years of building something from nothing: a mobile app centered around local discovery and exploring what made a city unique, a daily editorial email that people genuinely loved opening, an e-commerce platform, ticketed experiential events, and a 10-city content operation that grew from just me — writing every email, app update, social post, and marketing campaign in year one, god bless — to managing a team of 10+ writers and editors as well as photographers and freelancers across the U.S. At the peak, we grew to 4M+ subscribers and $8M raised.
ATLANTAN MAGAZINE, Best of the City, 2013
People still reach out to me because of their love for the Scoutmob brand, even though it faded into the sunset in 2016, and technology and content has evolved so much. But honestly, the authentic brand affinity feels everlasting, and that was the only metric that ever really mattered to me. Scoutmob taught me everything — the good, bad, and ugly — of building a brand from zero. I just didn't know how to contextualize it all until it was time to move on.
One iteration of a launch landing page
Our e-commerce platform, launched in 2013 — Shoppe — featured a curated marketplace of goods from independent makers around the country.
A quote from ATLANTA MAGAZINE article on our ‘overnight’ success:
“You get the sense that the Scoutmob writers have been to the places they’re recommending and that you’re getting a heads-up from a friend who talks like Tina Fey and skims McSweeney’s. It’s a tone inspired by Liza Dunning, Scoutmob’s twenty-nine-year-old founding creative, who’s named her dog after caustic cousin Maeby from the cult favorite TV show Arrested Development. Then there’s the look of the site, with the rubber stamp logo (its top curved and peaked like a mustache), the Revel club for frequent users, and the hidden jokes (drag your cursor over the staff pictures and each gets decorated with tattoos, eye patches, cat burglar masks, and the like).
“Scoutmob began because of the locally owned businesses we love,” the site says. “We figured b giving other like-minded folks the incentive to scout these spots for themselves that we — maybe, just maybe — could create a stronger community of locals.”
The message has resonated. More than 600,000 people are part of the ‘Mob already, allowing the start-up to do something almost unthinkable in the post-dot-com boom era: turn a profit in its first year.