rafat.org

At all times, the struggle you have as a BOOTSTRAPPED MEDIA COMPANY is between simplifying your business to scale versus complicating your business to scale. It’s tempting to look at softwar...

https://rafat.org/post/714043557014552576

In the fall last year, I hit a mental wall. Starting from my father passing away in Dec 2019 to the pandemic challenges in spring and summer of 2020 rescuing the business I had spent almost a d...

https://rafat.org/post/644381403410268160

Back in 2003, I wrote this rather bombastic “screed” about life as an individual journalist-entrepreneur, then a year into my journey on solo media entrepreneur life back then through paidCon...

https://rafat.org/post/637414421284765696

On Oct 18,1999, my dad wrote me a letter. Yes, an actual physical paper letter, six pages long in his bold, clear writing with his ink pen. I was 25 years old, about three months into my life i...

https://rafat.org/post/623005958450315264

I’ve created two companies that have employed a couple hundred people during the past 15 years. Much through that time, I’ve shared thoughts and lessons on that journey here and in my other ...

https://rafat.org/post/623005730618916864

Seven years into running Skift as a fiercely independent business media company, I have become a fan of this financial term called “optionality” which by the way is also Mohamed El-Erian’s...

https://rafat.org/post/623005604143857664

I have usually held unpopular views well enough, so I will go for it: IT *SHOULD* BE HARD. Starting something in media, building in, being in it, building a career in it, it should be hard. It ...

https://rafat.org/post/180621846031

Since 2015, I have increasingly been writing about the process of how I look at building companies – specifically boutique media companies – the lessons I have learned while doing them, and t...

https://rafat.org/post/177127643456

SKIFT is turning six. Of all the achievements anyone can ask of a company from its infancy, staying power — mere survival — is the toughest of them. Let no one tell you otherwise. Make it a ...

https://rafat.org/post/176631546341

SIX LESSONS IN YEAR SIX OF A SUSTAINABLY-GROWN MEDIA COMPANY SKIFT , my second company, is turning six on July 30th. Jotting down some topline lessons we as a team have learned in the last year ...

https://rafat.org/post/176336654416

NOTE: Below is a version of a memo I sent to the Skift team , after our annual retreat in Puerto Rico last month. It has become bit of a tradition: I write a team memo after every retreat, and t...

https://rafat.org/post/176031051221

Exactly 16 years ago in the depths of economic despair post-9/11, I started an incongruously-named blog called paidContent . It started as a way to track the then-moves by media, entertainment an...

https://rafat.org/post/175682475016

Me with my Tweets, visualized. For those who have followed my career, many try to decipher biases in my media business writing/analysis/rants (aka Tweets ), especially those on receiving end of...

https://rafat.org/post/175519273371

Last month I gave a talk at the Chicago Ideas Festival, as part of the entrepreneurship track , along with other well-known entrepreneurs, all of us women or PoC. My talk focused on what I know...

https://rafat.org/post/167717862151

1) VC money is not evil. 2) VC money is not sustainable. Those are not contradictory statements. Venture money in media has its place, especially to help start up a media venture. It also has...

https://rafat.org/post/167607346381

Over the years, I’ve talked aplenty about PRIMACY OF YOUR WORLDVIEW – AND PRIMACY OF EDITORIAL — above all else, in building a media company. I have presented bits & pieces on it in diffe...

https://rafat.org/post/167415519456

One of the fallacies of media innovation today is 1) new=innovation 2) new formats=innovation. It is the basis of much of ruin in media today.  Innovation for us, what I have bet my media comp...

https://rafat.org/post/166782979816

Earlier this year I gave a presentation to a group of media professors, with the intent that the lessons I have learned in *my 15 years of being a media entrepreneur* could be helpful for them, e...

https://rafat.org/post/160636246921

Seven years ago to the date, I got the travel bug in earnest with my Oman trip  — my first ever solo leisure travel trip — as I was thinking of leaving my first company paidContent. T...

https://rafat.org/post/160636117411

On a Flight To London, June 26, 2016 This below is a sanitized version of internal memo I sent to our team earlier this week, sharing seminal moment in our company history and one of the bigges...

https://rafat.org/post/176031124521