From the very beginning, we set out to create an entirely different kind of media company. Now that our rapid growth has demonstrated our approach works, people have noticed our success, and they are talking about us. We've been listening. And we've seen all shapes and sizes of feedback about our business - everything from investigation to imitation, from congratulation to condemnation - all of it essentially trying to figure out what makes Demand Media tick. So let's get right to the point. Here's what makes us tick. Here are the principles that have always governed how we run our business, make it grow, and make it great for the Internet.
Start each day listening to the customer.
We believe that consumers tell you exactly what they need – if you’ll just take the time to ask or listen. The Internet is the world’s greatest market research platform; so we immerse ourselves in the billions of signals of consumer demand that it provides each day. While more traditional media companies focus on supplying experiences they believe consumers might like, we’re unapologetically dedicated to delivering the ones they already demand. This core trait guides the content we create, the social applications we develop, and the communities that we nurture. It’s incredibly liberating to operate this way, knowing that everything we do satisfies the real world interests of more than 80 million consumers each month.
Make content that is unequivocally useful.
We love the Internet because it allows us to improve people’s lives in large and small ways -- every single day. So we create content that solves problems, answers questions, saves money, saves time and makes people laugh. Consumers become attached to us because we have helped them manage their diabetes, find a rewarding job, plan the perfect family hike, fix a cranky garage door or shave the last five strokes off their golf game. We aren’t here to break news, lay out editorial opinion, or investigate the latest controversy. Our audience tells us they want incredibly specific information and we deliver exactly that – in a style that the average consumer appreciates and understands. So, while we love to read The Economist, The Washington Post and Wired – we have little in common with their missions or business models.
Build superior web experiences.
While our approach to content creation has captured widespread industry attention, the bigger story is the rabid fan base and rapid growth of our core media properties. Paying careful attention to the consumer has led to the development of category leading sites like eHow, LIVESTRONG.COM, Cracked, Trails.com, and GolfLink. These are destinations where members return each day to learn, share and interact with compelling programs that include some of the most popular applications for the iPhone. They research. They discover. They make friends. They buy the official t-shirt. They’re getting what they want. Demand Media’s content is very much at home on award-winning websites where engaging social applications and passionate audiences combine into an experience that visitors crave.
Invest heavily in our professional freelancer community.
Most consumers initially encounter Demand Media through the online brands fueled by our large professional freelancer community. We know that a quality experience begins and ends with these qualified professionals, so we expend extraordinary efforts to attract, serve and nurture the right people. Choosing from hundreds of thousands of interesting assignments each day, our freelancers determine when and where they work and can be paid twice a week. We transparently offer a range of rates for various roles and assignments, and we generally target an hourly rate for writers that is comparable to the average salary of a journalist. We’ve even created a program that enables frequent contributors to gain access to affordable health insurance and a grant program that helps them pursue their creative aspirations. We don’t think these practices are necessary to have a good creator network; we know they’re necessary to have the best professional creator network. Now operating as a vibrant community of peers, our creators tell us that we’ve put a new kind of freedom into freelancing – freedom from the tyranny of pitching for every assignment, chasing invoices and waiting months to get paid – and all the other frustrations that waste their time, and never earn a penny.
Focus on the economics.
A business mission is sustainable only if the business makes money. Our healthy revenues allow us to attract the best employees and content creators – and grow the business to match our vision. Demand Media is native to the Internet, so we don’t have the crutch of an off-line business to subsidize what we do. We believe our target consumers will not broadly pay for Internet content. And advertisers have told the world they are fed up with soft promises and underperforming campaigns. Put simply, to have a sustainable business model we must be truly excellent at what we do. On a daily basis we translate this mandate into a repeatable approach that gives users exactly what they want, attracting an audience that advertisers desire and that can be delivered with a sustainable cost structure. Some people act like this is revolutionary, or even heretical. We think it’s just common sense.
Never rest.
We are just getting started. There are nearly limitless opportunities to serve consumers in places we don’t reach well today, including mobile, social networks, and international markets. There are dozens of attractive vertical niches we don’t even attempt to cover. There are thousands of big companies still trying to figure out social media. Our technology and algorithms today are doing a fraction of what we know they can accomplish tomorrow. And our burgeoning content creator network is really just learning to work this way. We believe the opportunity to create life change and business impact through the Internet is bigger than ever. Consequently, we don’t see what we have accomplished; we see what we have left to do.
The critics are outnumbered by the millions of consumers who are satisfied and returning to our award-winning sites, and the hundreds of content creators who go on record saying Demand Media is a hero for them, their families and their careers. Demand Media employees, content creators and end-users are pouring themselves into profoundly and positively changing the shape of online media - in a world that has almost given up on this idea. Unlike many around us, we aren't worried about the future of the Internet because we are too busy trying to create it.