After working with Mark Mangan at AGENCY.COM in the late 90s, I became a freelance technology strategist at his new venture, one of the earliest online retailers. When Netsetgoods.com closed down, we (along with Sascha Lewis and two others) decided to convert the email mailing list into some sort of actual email magazine.
What is now known as Flavorpill was crafted by hand every week — art gallery openings, indie films, book readings, and other “cultural stimuli” were found and written about by a growing base of NYC-based writers. We built a solid technical infrastructure — mass email deployment systems, email CMS tools, usage analysis tools — which enabled us to push the envelope of email newsletter functionality at the time. Flavorpill was one of the first email newsletters that allowed subscribers to “tell a friend” about ONE piece of content inside the mail, as opposed to forwarding along the entire message. Later, the ability to view a Yahoo Map of the location and send an SMS reminder were added.
The company was born in the middle of the dotcom bubble burst — we were convinced that this market correction would be for the best, and that the people still in the industry afterwards were the true believers. And we were right. Our efforts pushed subscriptions from 800 to over 25,000 in the first year alone, with zero marketing dollars. Once we realized that Flavorpill would be successful, we were able to quit our side jobs (Mark and I built websites, Sascha was a DJ — hey, the rent had to be paid!) and concentrate on building the brand.
After moving to new office space and seeing through the launch of Flavorpill San Francisco, I left the company to run technology development at De La Espada. The company’s flagship newsletter, “flavorpill,” is now in six cities around the world, and other successful content products (Earplug, Boldtype, Artkrush) have been launched. Mark and Sascha have sheparded the company we built into a major player in the content space. I remain a fan, subscriber, equity holder, and Board member.
