From the EEC Conference: The DailyCandy story

Pete Sheinbaum, the CEO of DailyCandy, spoke at today’s luncheon. The DailyCandy story is a pretty amazing one. I’d heard it before, but it was great to be reminded. According to their website, DailyCandy is, “a free daily e-mail newsletter and website, that is the insider’s guide to what’s hot, new, and undiscovered — from fashion and style to gadgets and travel.”

The company was started in 2000 by former New York magazine writer Dana Levy. According to Pete, the email list for the first email sent out consisted of 70 people. (A recent article from New York magazine has the number as 700. So maybe I heard Pete wrong, but whether it was 70 or 700, the point is, it was a small list). Today, 2.5 million people receive DailyCandy email in their inbox.

How did they grow their list? Pete says that this is always the question, but there is no special trick. The list has grown virally. Beyond the basic “forward to this a friend” button in their emails, they have no other tactics.

DailyCandy’s secret sauce is simple: great content that is relevant to their audience. They know their target audience and focus on them in everything they write.

I had the chance to ask Pete a question. I wanted to know how DailyCandy makes sure that they are providing content their audience wants to hear about. He answered that they bring in new contributors all the time who have a fresh perspective and who speak the language of their audience.

Their newsletters are free, so how does DailyCandy make money? Pete says that the ads they sell generates their revenue. He didn’t talk numbers during the keynote, but according to an article about the company in the New York Daily News, “DailyCandy churned out as much as $11 million in profits on $19 million in sales last year as advertisers flowed in.”

I don’t know about you, but I find stories like this one particularly inspiring. What started with an idea is now is a multi-million dollar business that gives people (95% percent of which are women, according to Pete) across the United States and in a few other parts of the word something “sweet” to chew on everyday.