Why This Ex-BuzzFeed, Ex-Cheddar Executive Left the Media Industry
Short Docs/VJ
Melissa Rosenthal was living the dream. At 25, already a rising star at Buzzfeed in that company's heyday, Rosenthal ran a global team of 150 and was recognized as Forbes 30 Under 30.
But Rosenthal had nagging doubts. First about the business model — total reliance on ad revenue — and then about her own abilities. Online media's reliance on ads, she concluded well before anyone would hear of such a thing (or at least admit to it), was a house of cards. And, in a cruel irony, it was her own imposter syndrome that kept her tilting at what she knew in her gut was a windmill. Even when she followed her boss to Cheddar.
The turning point — the moment Rosenthal decided she had to take another path — was when the Cheddar suits decreed there must be a 4X increase in revenue, to $200 million, in two years. In a saturated digital media market, and you aren't Google or Facebook.
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