Quartz Unveils 3 New Editorial Products

Everything in media is cyclical. When CEO and cofounder Zach Seward helped launch Quartz in 2012, the shadow of the 2008 recession loomed large in the identity of the new publication. Now, nine years later, Quartz has found itself beginning anew once more, this time in the aftermath of a global pandemic. With a slate of new editorial products in the pipeline and a mission more relevant than ever, the newly private publication has high hopes that it's facing a rebirth. Back to its roots In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, a handful of entrepreneurial business journalists banded together to launch Quartz. The publication's commitment to a “mobile-first” website was nearly as revolutionary as its mission: To make business better. The tiny team planned to interrogate the financial systems at fault for the country’s fiscal meltdown, hold companies accountable and scour the economic landscape for answers. In November, following more than two years of ownership by the Japanese conglomerate Uzabase, Seward and editor-in-chief Katherine Bell negotiated a reacquisition of the publication, returning the brand to its independent, startup roots. By a stroke of cosmic karma, the buyout directly follows on the heels of another crisis, a global pandemic exposing the financial inequality straining the country's coffers. A reexamination Seward, who became CEO in October 2019, sees the twin events of 2012 and 2021 as equally ripe opportunities for reevaluating many of the central tenets of business. It's a zeal he shares with Bell, a former editor at the Harvard Business Review, who brought Quartz an insider’s understanding of the machinations governing modern business—many of which the duo believe warrant a reexamination. “We want to help make business better, but now we’re being very explicit about that,” Bell said. “By better, we mean more sustainable, more innovative, and more inclusive.” Free from corporate bureaucracy—and now helmed again by a notorious product tinkerer with a fresh catastrophe to analyze—Quartz has set the stage for a second coming that, coincidentally, looks an awful lot like its debut. Innovative ways to present ads For its first six years, nearly all of Quartz’s revenue came from advertising. The publication gained early renown for developing innovative ways to present native ads to readers, but when Uzabase purchased Quartz for $86 million in 2018, it encouraged the publication to develop a subscription product to drive profitability, a business that has since blossomed. Quartz now has 27,000 members paying $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year for its journalism, a sector that grew 71% over the last year. The company is on pace to generate around $2.2 million in subscription revenue by the end of the year, though Seward believes that figure could come closer to $3 million. The subscription business has benefited from the publication’s long-running Quartz Daily Brief newsletter, which launched eight years ago. While Seward declined to share how many subscribers the Brief has, a January 2018 report pegged the figure at 700,000 subscribers. Growth in subscriber base Using its Daily Brief as a conversion tool, Quartz has grown its subscriber base substantially in recent years. Quartz offers seven newsletters, a practice of the company long before the current newsletter boom erupted. The Daily Brief is its tentpole product, and on average, Daily Brief readers consume the newsletter for four months before subscribing to Quartz, Seward said. The publication boasts a 97% retention rate of its subscribers, Bell said. Mel Magazine to Launch Paid Newsletters Despite the success of its subscription program, it accounts for only a minority of Quartz’s total revenue. Advertising, the primary revenue engine, generates upward of $15 million annually for the publication, Seward said. He expects the two to “reach parity” within the next five years. Financial firms, business-focused technology and consulting agencies are the publication’s primary advertising clients, each interested in reaching Quartz's 10 million monthly visitors, according to the publisher. Rob Ristagno, CEO of consultancy firm Sterling Woods Group, said the publication could benefit by more clearly defining its value proposition to advertisers. The media ecosystem is more competitive than it was when Quartz launched in 2012. Moreover, brands have more ways to reach the kind of mission-driven readers that Quartz offers. "Quartz needs to make it clearer who they're reaching, and why their readers are choosing them," Ristagno said. Declines in revenue prompted by the pandemic led Quartz to lay off 80 employees last year, winnowing the staff to 110. According to Uzabase’s filings, Quartz reported a loss based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $18.6 million for 2019 and a loss of $11.2 million in the first half of 2020. While Quartz plans to run a “small” loss this year, management expects to achieve profitability in 2022. Controlling its own editorial destiny Before Seward took the helm at Quartz, he served as its chief product officer, responsible for developing many of the editorial packages that the site offers. Rather than cover “beats,” Quartz has "Obsessions," such as "fixing capitalism" and "the climate economy." Every Sunday, the publication releases a field guide––last week's explored Jeff Bezos’ legacy. These guides offer an in-depth look into a specific subject filled with data, longform reporting and illustrations. Its "presentations," available only to members, give readers access to slideshows filled with original analysis and graphics, which they can download and use as their own. This month, the publication also launches Quartz Essentials, a new feature to help readers distill complex subjects into bite-sized bullet points. “We want to help the reader make connections between stories .. ideas .. places .. times and contexts," Bell said. "We’ve set up our newsroom to do that, and we want to do it more effectively.” At the onset of the pandemic, the publication also launched Quartz at Work (from Home), a series of virtual workshops that found such a warm reception that they have continued every two weeks since then. The panels, which are often sponsored, are free to watch, though only members can access the archive of past interviews. Their success has helped spawn another new "events" series, called Make Business Better. The inaugural session on March 10 will include speakers Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Chris Bennett, the cofounder and CEO of Wonderschool. Quartz will also soon unveil a new subscription offering under the Quartz Africa umbrella for readers hungry to go deeper into its coverage of the African economy. The structure of the publication, following the cuts of last year, is trim, but Quartz is now again in control of its editorial destiny. There are reasons to be optimistic about the fate of Quartz. In many ways, the mobile-first business publication built on the back of a suite of newsletters was ahead of its time–but maybe the second time is the charm. Quartz Names Former Barron’s Leader Katherine Bell as Editor in Chief

Publishing News

Quartz Unveils 3 New Editorial Products

The brand is set to generate $3 million in subscription revenue

Back to its roots

Mark Stenberg

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

Back to its roots

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Mark Stenberg