Next Generation Media Brands: Our Cohorts
What’s new?
For the past two years, we’ve been profiling Next-Generation Media businesses in the UK - the creator-led, community-powered startup and scaleup businesses disrupting and redefining the media and publishing business model.
Next-Gen Media founders are creating relevant, authentic content to build highly engaged communities, and leveraging this to grow ‘direct to community’ revenue streams; from subscriptions to commerce media and co-created products. Often serving underserved audiences or unmet needs, Next-Gen Media are growing their audience, business and brand in innovative ways, relying less and less on the mainstream platforms, and without the resources of Big Media.
Trippin
In March 2020, we interviewed Sam Blenkinsopp, Co-founder of Trippin, on the brink of the pandemic.
You can read our full interview here.
Two years on, we wanted to see what the Trippin team were up to… turns out, quite a lot!
Sam Blenkinsopp
Trippin Co-Founder
“We originally created Trippin as we felt that no one in the travel space spoke to the travellers that want to dive straight into the cultural underbelly of a destination or to those that deeply care about travelling consciously.
The origins of the platform were built around an antidote to the travel industry’s outdated and purposeless offerings. We wanted to showcase cultures and communities across the world in a more authentic way.
We’ve recently released a whole new programme of content which we’re really excited about. We have levelled up our user experience with a full website upgrade and have tonnes of new editorial and collaborations going live regularly
With a shift in travel industry priorities necessary, our website now addresses the need for authentic inclusivity, with digital tools and content that address police attitudes, drug policy, race relations, LGBTQ+ attitudes and law, and sustainability when travelling.
Alongside the travel guide work, we’ve also been building out a creative consultancy arm, All Corners. Working behind the scenes for almost a year now, we’ve been hiring incredible talent and laying foundations for it to make real game-changing work with some huge clients that include Converse, Nike Swim, Ace & Tate and Dr. Martens.”
Learn more about Trippin.
Crafty Counsel
Ben White
Crafty Counsel Founder
Crafty Counsel made an appearance on our Next Gen 2021 list. We loved the model of this startup community and media business helping legal professionals to learn, achieve and share.
What started as a media/learning and development resource for the legal profession, especially in-house general counsel, Crafty Counsel has developed into a community proposition spanning exclusive content, events, virtual meetups, learning resources.
We thought we’d catch-up with Founder, Ben White, a year on to see what they’ve been up to…
Q. What have you been up to since 2021?
What a year! We rebranded and launched a new website...
Held our first Crafty Fest in Regent's Park for 300 people (what will become an annual event for in-house legal professionals with barbecue, music, games, as well great content)
Held more than ten other events in the UK and Dubai.
Launched our Insights offering, which consists of research, consultancy, and in-depth campaigns for law firms, legal tech, and others servicing the in-house legal space.
Brought on some fabulous new team members.
Launched a podcast...
…All while growing our fabulous community of in-house legal pros!
Q. What has been your biggest challenge post-pandemic?
Managing fast growth across a diverse team in different locations.
Q. Is there a new channel that excites you?
I think the big opportunity is getting really smart at integrating content across IRL events, online events, articles, video, and audio, so that everything is complementary and supporting each other.
Q. What words of wisdom would you give to someone starting a content business now?
Really taking the time to understand your community in order to give them what they're looking for.
Q. What’s new/coming up?
The top priority is maturing our current portfolio of offerings. We launched a lot of new things in 2022 and now we need to offer consistency to our community and partners - for example, scaling up our existing events. That said, we do expect to bring a couple of surprises to market next year...
Learn more about Crafty Counsel.
Hylda
Juliet Warkentin
Hylda Founder
We featured Hylda (formerly MPowered Women) on our Next Gen 2021 list for for their community-powered business that raises awareness and educates women on the menopause and more.
Over the course of the past year they’ve rebranded and reworked their business to become a beauty and wellness platform for midlife women, providing their thriving community with expert-led content and stories from inspiring women.
We thought it was about time we caught up with Co-founder, we’d catch-up with Founder, Juliet Warkentin, to tell us more about how Hylda is moving forward as a content business in 2022:
On rebranding to Hylda:
When we launched in May 2019, MPowered Women’s goal was to raise awareness and educate women with evidence-based menopause information. Working with the UK and US’ leading menopause specialists, we’ve created groundbreaking cross channel resources and developed a global community who share experiences and support each other through menopause. We are incredibly proud of the part we've played in amplifying the menopause conversation.
Of course, midlife needs are broader than ‘just’ solving the menopause issue. It’s a time that triggers a new set of questions and opportunities in women’s lives. We’ve been doing a lot more than focusing on menopause for a while, and finding a new name was a logical extension of our overall vision to help women take the brakes off midlife.
So, welcome to Hylda, a beauty and wellness platform for midlife women. The menopause expertise our community loves remains, and we are building on it with beauty and wellbeing information using the same principles — expert-led and stories from other inspiring women.
For those of you wondering about the name: In Danish mythology, the Hylde Moer is the Elder Mother, a protective spirit living in the Elder tree - she’s a wise woman. In Germanic and Old Norse mythology, Hilde is a battle woman and a comrade in arms — she’s a woman’s woman. In Medieval English, St Hilda is a 7th Century Abbess, patroness of learning and culture — she’s an empathetic woman. Meet Hylda. Strong. Always on the side of women. Ambitious for her next act and the perfect woman to have a glass of wine with.
Q. What have you been up to at Hylda over the past couple of years?
We've had three areas of focus: Building our community, adding more authoritative content and repositioning so we are well placed for the future.
Q. What has been your biggest challenge post-pandemic?
In terms of Hylda, the pandemic provided the opportunity to launch our business and build it from the ground up the way we wanted to. Now the conversation is all about how start ups and SMEs survive, pivot, or in some cases leverage the latest economic crises. It definitely makes this cohort think much smarter about their concepts and how they run their businesses.
Q. What words of wisdom would you give to someone starting a content business now?
The digital space is finally starting to understand that content that performs is not about automated or generic copy - humans spot the difference, and Google EAT is illustrating that point. The innovation industries can actually be quite cautious, but there are enough proof points about the power of content to help investors more comfortable with tech innovation start to pay a little more attention.
Focus on finding a unique positioning and use every tool out there to build multiple content channels to test and learn. The beauty of content is that it is really easy to test and learn - no need to recode.
Q. Is there a new channel that excites you?
Video is the medium of choice across all digital channels. TikTok is definitely a priority with Reels on IG a major focus.
A channel that is often forgotten is Pinterest. I think some specialist content brands should also be thinking about Pinterest. Pinners are loyal and sticky, and for some sectors, it can be a major sweet spot.
Learn more about Hylda.
Sophie Cross
Freelancer Magazine Founder
When we published our list of the Next Generation Media Brands of 2021, Freelancer Magazine had just launched their ‘Community Edition’ - an apt name given that Founder, Sophie Cross, first launched the magazine to deliver relevant, helpful content to a growing community of freelancers. Freelancer Magazine made its appearance on our ‘Ones to Watch’ list, and as promised, we’ve been watching their progress ever since.
18 months later, we caught up with Sophie to discover what’s changed in the freelance landscape, how she continues to grow her community and what advice she’d give to someone starting a business today.
Q. How have you continued to grow your community? What have been the challenges?
A. Issue 7 (The Business Edition) is about to drop (at the end of October 2022) and we’ve continued to grow our worldwide readership, advertisers, email database and now have over 21k total followers across social. As we’re a small team, we have the same challenges that most startups face - time, budget, resource and prioritisation of activities to produce and market the magazine. We love being print-first but paper costs have been rising too and Brexit has meant that our European customers are sometimes now subject to import charges on the print version.
Q. With more and more people working from home or going freelance, what impact has this had on Freelancer Magazine/the content you produce?
A. The magazine has definitely evolved since Issue 1, we have new sections and features and now have a team of freelance writers who produce amazing articles and interviews for us and ensure we have a range of voices. We are clear now that the magazine’s purpose is to help B2B and creative freelancers to see themselves as businesses and all our stories and strategies support this.
Q. What words of wisdom would you give to someone starting a content business now?
A. Your main focus should be to create the best content and product possible. From a marketing perspective, the channels we use are social, SEO and email marketing but don’t try to do too much or use too many channels (especially social channels - best to choose one where you know your audience is hanging out). It takes time to build an audience or community, so be willing to keep going and create content that you care about and that helps others - this will help your commitment to the cause. Decide before you start how you will monetise.
Q. What’s new at Freelancer Magazine?