"I started my company to meet guys," giggles Laurel Touby, the colorful "cyberhostess" who founded mediabistro.com as a mixer for media professionals in 1994. "I like geeks, and I wish I'd met one before I met my husband." Instead of a tech entrepreneur Touby chose a media maven after her own heart, marrying BusinessWeek's media columnist Jon Fine in 2004, and they've been living happily ever after ever since.
Meanwhile, mediabistro.com continues to thrive under Touby's leadership, with more than 850,000 media professionals taking advantage of its services around the world. Although she sold it to WebMediaBrands (previously known as Jupitermedia) for $20 million with a $3 million earn-out in 2007, Touby continues to run it and host networking events for media types, often sporting a big boa along with her big grin.
In this episode of The Deal's Behind the Money video show, Touby talks about why New York is still the best place in the world to start a media company, despite the challenges inherent in the economy and the ever-changing media landscape. And she insists the mood is upbeat among the New York media and tech CEOs coming to a breakfast she's hosting Wednesday morning. Maybe she'll wear her trademark boa.Watch the video interview below or download it at iTunes. - Mary Kathleen Flynn
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