HUELLA VERDE

WORK Takeaway
A daily
news email,
theSkimm has
more than
3.5 million
subscribers.
Danielle Weisberg
and Carly Zakin
News flash: Employees make the best
teachers, say theSkimm founders.
For the first year and a half, it was
just the two of us on our living
room couch. We did everything
ourselves: writing, editing, and
running the business side. That
type of hustle is something we
hope is always in the company’s
DNA. However, the downside of
starting that way, which we realized
upon hiring our first five
employees, was that it made us
very insular. We were used to
making decisions as a pair, and
we had our own language. Our
first hire sat us both down a couple
of months in and said, “We
need to create some culture in
this office.” That was a wake-up
call because we didn’t realize it
was lacking. That first group of
employees taught us how to be
managers and the importance of
open communication and transparency—things
we wanted in
our culture but didn’t necessarily
know how to create.
OUTTAKES
NEW HABITS
We knew that if we
wanted to make our
newsletter an essential
part of people’s
daily lives, we needed
to find a way into their
routines. We took the
same approach with
our latest offering,
Skimm Ahead, a mobile
subscription service
that can integrate
with your calendar.
TEAM PLAYERS
There are no secrets
at theSkimm. We’re
honest about where
we are: the obstacles
in our way and the
opportunities ahead.
Our team knows the
stakes, and that’s
what keeps them
motivated.
44 southwest july 2016