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Shoshana Berger came up with the idea for ReadyMade magazine in 2000 and has since served as its Editor-in-Chief. Launching a new magazine required discipline, productivity, and some defiance of conventional wisdom. Shoshana is an established author and, over the course of her career, has worked for Wired Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Spin, Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle, Business 2.0, Travel and Leisure, and many other periodicals.When launching a DIY (Do It Yourself) brand, you've got to practice what you preach. ReadyMade took this seriously. As Shoshana explains it, "we did EVERYTHING ourselves in the first two years, from conceiving and proofing every document that went out the door, to stuffing mail bags full of early issues and taking them to the Post Office, to taking out the trash. Nothing that was done by the interns wasn't done by the founders."
Shoshana goes on to explain the merits of rolling up your sleeves and making ideas happen. "In the early stages of a startup, or getting any idea off the ground, relaying a consistent message is really important. If you're going to be a magazine about making stuff, really make stuff! Have your office be a big workshop full of materials and tools that encourage people to tinker and reuse in creative ways. There's nothing like breaking a problem down into its constituent parts to solve it, and the physical activity of making something (off the computer) is a great way to get your team thinking about how a bunch of parts make a whole."
In the early stages of a startup, or getting any idea off the ground, relaying a consistent message is really important. If you're going to be a magazine about making stuff, really make stuff!
Some creative professionals thrive on the chaos of multi-tasking and piles of action steps. As Shoshana explains it, "I often have several tasks hanging in the balance, but that works for me in that it keeps me alert and stimulated. When something demands my attention, I go to it and leave other things behind, but I always have a mental ledger to remind me. Or, if the list gets too top-heavy, I jot action items down on a sticky the second I have to move from one task to another. I once heard someone describe the piles on their desk as 'genius piles,' which perfectly explained how I work - things can pile up as long as you have a mental map of where things are and keep a good calendar of due dates."
Like most creative organizations, ReadyMade has never had a shortage of ideas. With creativity comes the struggle to stay focused and sustainable. Shoshana recalls that the team "...wanted to extend ReadyMade magazine's do-it-yourself content and ethos into so many different channels, from a book publishing arm, to a branch that focused on education, to retail outlets, to producing film and television. From the start we saw no limits and had big, unwieldy ambition. All of those avenues are open to us now, but it took years to get to this stage. A house with many rooms requires a strong foundation. So we focused largely on the magazine and making its vital signs stable (read: profitable). That took far longer than anyone expected. After year three we started exploring all of the aforementioned avenues, but our expectations and timelines are more measured. So that's the moral: Rome wasn't built in a day."
ReadyMade defied conventional wisdom upon start-up. "We pretty well defied every rule of magazine making. ...(We started with) no infrastructure, no idea about the real engineering of a magazine, and very little media business experience. Very few people start national magazines with less than 5 million in their pocket, these days. My cofounder Grace Hawthorne and I didn't pay our selves for two years. We survived on very little and worked other jobs. Other notable examples of defiance: Creating a magazine about making things rather than buying them (not a great pitch to advertisers); Doing our own fulfillment (using a gaggle of interns to help on everything from customer service to shipping); Printing on recycled paper even when it was cost-prohibitive to do so; not moving to New York."
The ReadyMade team is motivated by a well-defined and noble mission "to get people to think differently about the built world." Shoshana elaborates on the team's mission: "(We want) to reinvent the stuff of everyday life and find utility in everything. ReadyMade is more than a magazine. It's a cultural touchstone for an age in which too much too fast has created the desire for a hands-on approach to life. The magazine shows how to transform everyday objects into bold design through do-it-yourself projects, profiles of creative mavericks, and inspirational features on self-made homes, careers, and projects that inspire and amaze. The magazine encourages the garage tinkerer, the amateur artist, the home hacker... Our mini manifesto? Rethink, recreate, and reconnect with the process of making stuff."
Shoshana goes on to explain the merits of rolling up your sleeves and making ideas happen. "In the early stages of a startup, or getting any idea off the ground, relaying a consistent message is really important. If you're going to be a magazine about making stuff, really make stuff! Have your office be a big workshop full of materials and tools that encourage people to tinker and reuse in creative ways. There's nothing like breaking a problem down into its constituent parts to solve it, and the physical activity of making something (off the computer) is a great way to get your team thinking about how a bunch of parts make a whole."
In the early stages of a startup, or getting any idea off the ground, relaying a consistent message is really important. If you're going to be a magazine about making stuff, really make stuff!
Some creative professionals thrive on the chaos of multi-tasking and piles of action steps. As Shoshana explains it, "I often have several tasks hanging in the balance, but that works for me in that it keeps me alert and stimulated. When something demands my attention, I go to it and leave other things behind, but I always have a mental ledger to remind me. Or, if the list gets too top-heavy, I jot action items down on a sticky the second I have to move from one task to another. I once heard someone describe the piles on their desk as 'genius piles,' which perfectly explained how I work - things can pile up as long as you have a mental map of where things are and keep a good calendar of due dates."
Like most creative organizations, ReadyMade has never had a shortage of ideas. With creativity comes the struggle to stay focused and sustainable. Shoshana recalls that the team "...wanted to extend ReadyMade magazine's do-it-yourself content and ethos into so many different channels, from a book publishing arm, to a branch that focused on education, to retail outlets, to producing film and television. From the start we saw no limits and had big, unwieldy ambition. All of those avenues are open to us now, but it took years to get to this stage. A house with many rooms requires a strong foundation. So we focused largely on the magazine and making its vital signs stable (read: profitable). That took far longer than anyone expected. After year three we started exploring all of the aforementioned avenues, but our expectations and timelines are more measured. So that's the moral: Rome wasn't built in a day."
ReadyMade defied conventional wisdom upon start-up. "We pretty well defied every rule of magazine making. ...(We started with) no infrastructure, no idea about the real engineering of a magazine, and very little media business experience. Very few people start national magazines with less than 5 million in their pocket, these days. My cofounder Grace Hawthorne and I didn't pay our selves for two years. We survived on very little and worked other jobs. Other notable examples of defiance: Creating a magazine about making things rather than buying them (not a great pitch to advertisers); Doing our own fulfillment (using a gaggle of interns to help on everything from customer service to shipping); Printing on recycled paper even when it was cost-prohibitive to do so; not moving to New York."
The ReadyMade team is motivated by a well-defined and noble mission "to get people to think differently about the built world." Shoshana elaborates on the team's mission: "(We want) to reinvent the stuff of everyday life and find utility in everything. ReadyMade is more than a magazine. It's a cultural touchstone for an age in which too much too fast has created the desire for a hands-on approach to life. The magazine shows how to transform everyday objects into bold design through do-it-yourself projects, profiles of creative mavericks, and inspirational features on self-made homes, careers, and projects that inspire and amaze. The magazine encourages the garage tinkerer, the amateur artist, the home hacker... Our mini manifesto? Rethink, recreate, and reconnect with the process of making stuff."
