On the other hand, we raised $25 million by going public. It's that money that we used to build this company, to build the circulation, to build a high profile and to hire staff that made Salon what it is today.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've been part of founding three companies that have gone public. It doesn't seem like a big number, but it's actually a lot.
Other than that one year, Salon has been very cautious about the way it spends money. For instance, since last year, we've had virtually no marketing budget. It's just word of mouth. And our circulation continues to grow that way by breaking news stories.
It's very difficult for me to do fund raising for my own organization if I'm working for other companies because sponsors will say, 'Well, hey, man, if she's doing a ballet for Ballet Theatre, we'll give money to Ballet Theatre.'
During the 2000 bubble, many companies rushed to go public before they had any revenue.
I always wanted to start a public company and make a lot of money.
But the minute we went public on the stock market, which is how our wealth was created, it was no longer how many people you employed, it was how much you were worth and how much your company was worth.
I don't think I'd enjoy running a public company. We haven't needed to go to the market to fund expansion.
With a private company, you've got to get into who's investing and what's the balance sheet like. So going public is a positive thing from the perspective of the sales organization.
It's a special thing to be a public company.
We raised $10 million in 2011. Our rule was, we wouldn't accept money from anybody we didn't want to have dinner with.