Interview With Ben Lerer Of The Thrillist

The Thrillist is one of a new batch of sites that are targeting afite.

Where did you get the idea for Thrillist?

We had the idea about a year ago when we recognized a total lack of targeted content for men in New York City. We wanted to create a service that found restaurants, gadgets, clothing, bars, etc that had us in mind but we didn’t know how to deliver it to readers.

Who is ‘us?’

My business partner and I are in 25 and 24 – we come from tech and hospitality backgrounds. We wanted content for people like us. We wanted to find local information like where to go on a date but we wanted added value information – when would you go there, who with, why is it better than other places and so on. With Zagat and Citysearch everything is too general and really never gives anyone a realistic idea of what they’re getting themselves into.

What’s your demo?

A 21-35 year old male doing pretty well for himself or at least aspiring to be in that position.

How difficult was it to raise finance?

We found a writer but we didn’t have the money. So we went out to raise funds. The first people we saw offered us money.

Wow. So, when did you quit your jobs?

We quit in mid-summer and set up a friends and family version of Thrillist. We worked with our writer David until we got the content and tone of voice right. Then we launched on October 20th and we’ve had a great couple of months.

What trends are appearing in NYC’s nightlife?

Well there’s the whole underground/secret bar thing that La Esquina started and everyone else jumped on. We really hate the trends so we spend more time trying to find ways to avoid them rather than telling our readers about the coolest new club they’ll never get into (although admittedly there’s a little of that as well).

How often do you publish?

We email 4 times a week. And that has allowed us to produce an ad revenue supported model.

What challenges do you have?

Marketing. Word of mouth is great but we don’t have 100k people to talk about us. So what we’re doing is talking to key influencers – magazine editors, blog editors, etc and asking them to check out our site. We’re working hard on the content and we’re trying to let it speak for itself, which it has so far.

What advice would you have budding entrepreneurs?

Almost everyday you experience something horrible, but you have to roll with it. You make mistakes but you learn about it and move on.

Thank You

The Thrillist