
I Sold The Magazine, Too - rkudeshi
http://www.marco.org/2013/05/29/sold-the-magazine
======
wklauss
Hope Glenn keeps up the good work. As a journalist The Magazine has been eye-
opening to me. Almost non-existing staff (Glenn and Marco), handpicked
contributors and you get a excellent magazine running profitable in less then
one month.

Shows how much baggage traditional media carries from the past and how
convoluted a news organization can get once you start adding sales,
advertising, and other departments that can be avoided now with the proper
strategy.

~~~
elmuchoprez
I think it's unclear how scalable and replicable The Magazine's success is (or
even how successful it is).

Marco Arment has a sizable niche following which provided an initial boost
when The Magazine launched. His personal connections have allowed him to snag
a handful of known names within that same niche circle.

But more importantly, I think there's a different level of burden on a niche,
under-the-radar type publication like this as compared to much of traditional
media. I don't think Marco has a research staff to vet every article, so it's
possible that they have or will eventually publish false information thanks to
a lack of due diligence. Will anyone care? I guess it depends what falsehood
they publish.

What if the falsehood results in a libel claim? Now you're talking about
significant legal involvement (and costs).

Or maybe they end up running a story that has been plagiarized. What happens
then?

I think that what Marco has done with the Magazine has been great, but I often
find that when you start dissecting "broken industries", you can start to see
a method to the madness that led to the current state of affairs, and I
question if big media is no different.

Simplified money transfers were (still are?) a booming concept when PayPal
launched, providing a simple alternative to the major banking networks that
were slow and full of red tape. But as time has gone by, most of these payment
services have gotten equally complex (holds on money, automatic reversals,
etc...) because they slowly discovered that there was a reason for all the red
tape. I find myself wondering if The Magazine's business model will discover a
similar situation.

~~~
tptacek
There's a huge cottage industry of for-profit political and current-events
"blogs" (really, magazines of small-form journalism) that have been coping
with whatever these legal risks might be for ~10 years now. The Magazine is
cool and all, but it's presumably dwarfed by Talking Points Memo, which has
physical offices in multiple cities and full-time technical staff to back it
up.

~~~
elmuchoprez
Political blogs/sites arguably have less legal exposure because they
specifically deal with public figures and legally public figures have less
protections (or at least a higher burden of proof) when it comes to things
like libel.

That said, I can't really think of a plausible example of something The
Magazine could hastily publish that could land them into legal trouble. I
suppose a story full of falsehoods could tarnish its reputation, but I'm not
sure it has a reputation to tarnish in the firs place.

~~~
pseut
TPM and other political blogs often cover national security, etc. Recent posts
on that site indicate that they spend at least some time and money on legal
counsel, but not necessarily for libel.

------
smackfu
Wow, Marco really does hate the idea of having employees. In this case, he
accomplished the goal of many small business owners: a successful product
where a trusted employee handles the day-to-day operations and the owner can
be hands off and take the profits. But his immediate reaction is to sell it
because he doesn't want to be a product owner, he wants to be the entire
business.

~~~
cickpass_broken
I am so confused as to how you came to all these conclusions. To me, it seemed
pretty clear that he wants to develop things, and to program as his job,
rather than run a business.

"without doing much of the kind of work I actually enjoy."

~~~
smackfu
You seem to be saying the same things as I did. My point was that is very
unusual for a small business owner, to sell a profitable business because it's
not taking up enough of your time.

~~~
soemarko
I guess ultimately, Marco's just a good guy.

Under him The Magazine as a product probably would stagnate like Instapaper
did. Then he would have sold it anyway.

And, advisory role usually means a decent chunk of shares too. With what Glenn
have in mind, this might be a smart financial step.

------
tannerc
It's great to see someone find success from things they've built. Marco is a
solid example of what many of us strive to be: someone who builds things
because it's what we love doing (and because at least one person out there
needs/wants it).

------
runjake
On a recent ATP podcast episode, Marco hinted he had another major project or
few in the wings, and from the sound of it, it was going to be unveiled soon.

He recently bought a BMW (a long running joke), and estimates guess he made
about $6.2 million from the Tumblr sale. If he puts the BMW up for sale, then
worry.

------
frou_dh
It's like the mental version of reducing your possessions to fit in a
backpack. Pretty cool if you ask me.

~~~
lylejohnson
Maybe he's just finding that after polishing his yachts and helicopters he
doesn't have time to work on all these projects.

~~~
ihuman
He should hire people to do that, and then hire people to manage the people he
hired.

~~~
swombat
Which brings us back to the root problem: Marco doesn't want to hire people!!

------
carlesfe
I highly recommend everyone to listen to his latest atp.fm podcasts. I found
it is easy to misinterpret Marco (as if he wanted to be a public person, ha)
but after hearing from the guy, I can only applaud him.

Just a bit from ATP #14: "I'm terrified of doing anything that would make me
look like a jerk in front of my family and friends"

~~~
ruswick
> _"I'm terrified of doing anything that would make me look like a jerk in
> front of my family and friends."_

That just doesn't seem true. He consistently goes out of his way to engage in
trivial arguments with people, especially on Twitter. Literally days after the
sale, he called out Anil Dash in a needlessly confrontational way about some
minute error in his history of Tumblr (<http://dashes.com/anil/2013/05/seven-
years-ago-my-wife.html>). Not to mention the time when got in some squabble
with a writer for one of the Apple rumor sites, then blacklisted said site
from every Instapaper account.

As far as I'm concerned, he's made a jerk of himself in public innumerable
times already. He just seems like an abrasive guy. That's not to say that his
work is inferior (certainly assholes have created incredible work before), but
any fear of looking like a jerk is moot. He has been a jerk forever.

~~~
carlesfe
Many geeks are too cynical and abrasive over the internet, but good people
when you talk to them (or when you can hear them talking). This is the case
for most of HN people, most geek websites, and Marco, too. What the heck, I
can include myself there.

One thing is to write angry tweets, and in a very different level, would have
been shutting it (or Instapaper) down just because he's burned out. He cares
about his users.

------
alex_doom
I'd imagine now that tumblr made him a pretty penny he'll be working on a
personal fun project that's been on the back burner.

------
dylangs1030
Assuming the Magazine is successfully pivoted under new leadership, does that
give Marco the award for most acquisitions?

Tumblr, co-founder, acquired by Yahoo. Instapaper, founder, acquired by
Betaworks. The Magazine, sold to the other founder, so kind of an acquisition?

~~~
Osmium
Don't think he was technically a co-founder of Tumblr (but was the first
employee), but nevertheless quite the achievements!

------
pesenti
And in case you wondered, the company - Vivisimo - where Marco worked for his
first job (before Tumblr) and where he owned stocks was also sold a year
ago... So Marco made money from 4 different businesses in one year.

------
thehodge
Excellent news, no note about what he's doing next though?

~~~
GuiA
IIRC, he hinted several times on twitter that he's experimenting with some new
iOS apps ideas.

He's often said that his strategy was to do cool stuff with Apple's newer APIs
to maximize the chance for his apps to get featured (eg. the magazine with
newsstand).

So whatever Apple announced at WWDC could be a nice hint towards his next
venture :)

~~~
smackfu
Maybe something with Passbook... that's another languishing Apple technology
that's had some uptake, but nothing very exciting.

~~~
epochwolf
I used passbook last time I flew home on Delta. It was really nice.

------
coreymaass
I know nothing of the back story. I want to give praise to the Marco for this:
"I accidentally built a business that I’m not very well-suited to run." A
profound admission, showing real personal insight. I had to realize this about
myself recently, and it wasn't easy.

------
unwind
When I tried reading this site on my Android phone, I get a blank page I can
scroll around, with a) a huge ad banner and b) a "read later" button which
leads to Instapaper. Very un-satisfying. :|

------
DigitalSea
I really admire Marco as an entrepreneur and as a person. I am already looking
forward to his next endeavour already, no doubt it'll be something awesome as
usual. Congratulations Marco.

------
programminggeek
As Marco has sold his businesses, I can't help but think of the line from
Office Space "What would you say you do here Bob?"

------
mehrzad
Maybe now it'll be ported to other platforms, but they are generous with the
platform-agnostic file downloads.

~~~
pionar
I noticed the other day (through an email I received) that it's no longer
available through Kindle.

~~~
Shank
You can still download an epub and email it to the kindle free address.

------
grinich
Instapaper. Tumblr. and now The Magazine.

Sounds like Marco is clearing house a bit.

Out with the old, in with the new.

------
shn
How much?

~~~
tptacek
Rule of thumb: if they don't say, they're not going to say. Given the
situation here, where the business has been "sold" to its key operating
employee, it's probably some kind of capped profit share.

------
KVFinn
I love Glenn. This is in good hands.

------
workbench
That dog is so gonna be next to go.

~~~
mmariani

      > Don’t worry, Hops isn’t for sale.
    

Don't think so. ;)

~~~
asveikau
Everyone has a price.

~~~
lostlogin
Not everyone - I wish sometimes that Dropbox did. iCloud misery here...

~~~
asveikau
My comment was meant as a joke. I don't expect Marco to sell his dog or anyone
to offer sizable money for it.

------
credo
I like many of Marco's posts, but I find it amusing that this one made it to
#1 on the front page

Instagram was a great product, Magazine a good follow-up.

It is marginally interesting that Magazine ownership is being transferred to
Marco's partner, but I don't understand why that merits the #1 ranking on HN
:)

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I don't understand why that merits the #1 ranking on HN"

Because enough people upvoted it to get it there. The Magazine, although not
focussed on tech, I assume attracts a large tech audience (the people on HN).
Marco is a well known person in the development community and I'm sure quite a
few people saw the post on his blog and submitted here gaining it upvotes.

~~~
rhizome
"Relevance by proximity" is the cousin of "just add internet!" stories.

