A cornerstone for building brand affinity and a winning AEO strategy

Email a busy startup CEO to request a quote for your company blog, and you’re likely to get crickets.

Email that same CEO and tell her she's being considered for a cover feature in your magazine, that there's a photographer, that the interview runs long-form, and that it will sit alongside a founder she admires, and you just might get her assistant to offer you three windows next week.

That’s the power and benefit of the digital mag. It’s a promise about how seriously you intend to take the person inside it, and people can tell the difference between being quoted and being profiled.

At HubSpot for Startups, I founded and ran Scaling Smarter Magazine. I conceived the franchise, built the editorial architecture, developed AI-powered research and question-development workflows that led to stories that stood out from others of the same subject, and secured conversations with high-profile startup CEOs, founders, and VCs who would not have returned a blog pitch. Not only was it a vehicle to build a respected autonomous sub-brand, but it helped contribute to an evolving AEO strategy .

How it runs

I own the editorial direction and the interviews. Writers, photographers, and designers come from The Collective. You get an issue on a schedule, and a masthead that makes your company look like it takes ideas seriously.