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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

theSkimm co-founders share stories, lessons at Alumni Lecture

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Approximately 160 alumni, students, faculty and community members gathered at the Breed Memorial Hall yesterday evening to attend the Lyon & Bendheim Alumni Lecture Series event, featuring theSkimmco-founders Danielle Weisberg (LA '08) and Carly Zakin. 

Weisberg and Zakin discussed media company theSkimm’s growth since its days as a start-up, as well as their own experiences as liberal arts graduates in the worlds of journalism and entrepreneurship. The discussion was moderated by Ronna Johnson, a lecturer in the Department of English who had previously taught Weisberg during her time at Tufts.

Weisberg and Zakin, self-professed “news geeks,” primarily intended to impart lessons learned from their experiences both as interns for NBC News and other news organizations, and as co-CEOs of theSkimm.

Weisberg expressed appreciation for her education, but noted that it is often helpful to hear from people who work outside the university setting to understand what is happening in different industries.

Throughout the discussion, Weisberg and Zakin reflected on both the anticipated and unexpected steps involved in founding theSkimm and launching the Daily Skimm, their flagship newsletter.

“We went to college thinking we were going to be on a particular track, and that’s where we ended up,” Weisberg said. “What we didn’t think we’d do is start a business."

While explaining the duo's editorial process, Weisberg described their core philosophy of keeping readers knowledgeable about information relevant to their day-to-day lives. 

“If you were at any event, would [a story] come up? Would people actually talk about this? It doesn’t matter if it would come up on the evening news [for us to cover or not cover it],” Weisberg said.

Weisberg and Zakin also discussed theSkimm’s female audience, which, according to Zakin, makes up nearly 80 percent of its total readership. She noted that the decision to market to women was largely economically driven.

“Female millennials are outnumbering men in paychecks and degrees,” Zakin said. “They are becoming the breadwinners."

Still, Zakin said, she and Weisberg were met with skepticism for that decision.

“One of the first things we heard was, ‘why are you going after a niche market?’ which was so funny to us,” Zakin said. “How can you say over half the population is 'niche?'

However, Zakin stressed that their marketing toward women was a “pure business decision,” and that male subscribers are still integral to theSkimm community. 

“We do not make our news gender-specific,” Zakin said. “We’re really happy that over 20 percent of our readership is men.”

The team also touched on their Skimm'bassador program, which allows Skimm readers to sign friends up to receive the Daily Skimm. According to Weisberg, over 15,000 Skimm'bassadors exist and have contributed to 18 percent of theSkimm’s total user growth.

Weisberg and Zakin spent the second half of the discussion taking questions from the crowd, which included accusations of bias and questions about the process of approaching investors during the company’s early days.

The lecture event at Tufts was the last Boston stop of Weisberg and Zakin’s campus tour, which will continue through Election Day at various campuses, Weisberg said.

The event also displayed theSkimm’s Skimm the Vote 2016 initiative, a product of theSkimm’s partnership with Rock the Vote. A voter registration table was available in Breed Memorial Hall before the discussion as a collaboration between theSkimm and JumboVote 2016 representatives from Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, according to JumboVote Coordinator Diane Alexander (LA '16) who tabled at the event for Tisch College.

Zakin described the Skimm the Vote campaign as being nonpartisan and having produced over 100,000 voter registrations. We don’t care who you vote for, but you need to educate yourself about the issues and get out and vote,” she said.