Welcome to the latest season of Media Voices: Big Noises! This season, sponsored by Glide Publishing Platform, we’ll be talking to publishing people with something to say. Media Voices co-host Peter Houston is tired of hearing the same old industry buzzwords. The publishing platitudes are starting to wear a bit thin, and he’s decided to see if he can shake the conversation up a bit by speaking to some of the biggest characters in the business.
On this week’s episode of Big Noises we hear from Skift founder Rafat Ali. He tells us about why he decided on eschewing the rush for VC funding in favour of more sustainable growth, how the travel information site is using AI in a practical way, and where so much of the media industry goes wrong when choosing priorities.
He tells us about his lateral moves from tech expert to paid content specialist into founder of a premium B2B travel site.
One selected highlight from this week’s episode:
On recognising when expansion isn’t appropriate:
[We launched a vertical] in the restaurant world, in the wellness world, and it just didn’t work for us. This was our theory of related sectors, travel, food, and wellness, which in my mind was the business of leisure.
In theory, that sounds great. It can be done, it’s just that I, as an entrepreneur, have learned that I’m not a multi-sector entrepreneur; I can go deep into one sector… the only way I can describe it is, if I can put my arms around a sector I can build a business around it.
I love eating but do I care about the business of restaurants beyond a certain point? No. Do I care about the business or wellness beyond a certain point? Not at all. And so it’s just that I have to be excited about a subject.
Thanks to Glide Publishing Platform who have sponsored this season of Media Voices: Big Noises. Glide exists to make publishers more successful by removing any need to get bogged down building Content Management Systems, providing an industry-leading SaaS tailored to let publishers do more and spend less. Publishers using Glide direct more resources at their audiences and products, and focus on building things that make them money. You do the content, Glide does the management.
Glide have created 3 expert guides to getting much more from a new or headless CMS, created for editorial, technology, and product teams. You can get the whitepapers here.
