“There are people who build media companies for valuation, then there are others who build media brands for value,” writes Skift c0-founder Rafat Ali in his account of how the business stopped worrying about raising venture capital and focused on bootstrapping the travel industry website.
Ali’s story of how Skift’s founders gave up on finding investors, refocused their business and found revenues to bootstrap the organisation is worth a read for anybody starting a venture, not just a tech or media startup.
Notable is Ali’s distancing Skift from the startup label, claiming it’s “a meaningless word that comes with too much baggage”.
The story of Skift is an interesting perspective on growing a business outside the current focus on external investors, instead focusing on the value it adds for customers, users and readers. Just as Skift went back to basics, many of us should also focus on how we and our businesses add value.