Amy Parker + Gina Pell spent over a decade researching and evangelizing their discoveries for Splendora (1999-2011) so at this point it’s a reflex. They are both natural curators and enthusiasts who take pleasure in exploring the world around them. While they vet everything on The What List together, Gina tends to gravitate towards art, culture, and literature while Amy unearths the best in food,
health, beauty, and lifestyle. In the past when they’ve surveyed their audience, the data showed a high percentage of reader trust and purchase behavior based on their picks. But for Amy + Gina it’s not about authority … it’s about sharing things they love. Our process involves combing through dozens of websites, magazines, trade pubs, product shows, and other source material. We also go on weekly boutique and restaurant crawls to stay current on what’s out there. Some of our best tips come from savvy friends and fellow editors–which we then test drive ourselves for quality assurance. As we approach our third month of publishing, we’re also starting to receive great tips from readers. The real challenge is in the editing. We spend more time editing down The What List than we do trying to build it. Every person we feature is someone we know personally–someone we admire and who exhibits grit, wit, talent, drive, sparkle, passion, and compassion. We were tired of reading celebrity-driven stories and thought it would be a breath of fresh air to feature real, everyday people who march to the beat of their own drum and who are fun to hang out with. We are just two friends who wanted to work together again. And while our first company was a multi-pronged publishing entity, this time around we want to produce one simple thing: an email newsletter of What’s worth your time and money–whether it’s a good bottle of wine, a great book, a cool gadget, or a good laugh. No desire to scale this thing. No investors. When we launched The What we were adamant that we would focus on creating strong content and not accept any sponsors until 2016. But in January, we will interview companies that align with our brand philosophy–the same philosophy we use to choose our Friend of the Week. Once we identify the right companies we’ll craft sponsorship opportunities that will hopefully feel collaborative to your reader experience–not disruptive or annoying. Another way we make money is through affiliate revenue. Only after we find something great, we will check if there’s an affiliate program attached, but never the other way around. We still believe what we believed back in 1999: make something good for yourself and others will want some too.
