John Lerner is CEO, of Breaking Media, in the US, and has more than 30 years of experience in B2B markets, starting as a marketing trainee at Inc. Magazine. He successively developed and managed the snowballing online businesses of BPI Communications, VNU Business Media and Nielsen Business Media; and also F+W Media. The 17-year-old, privately-owned, ads-funded Breaking Media (in which Lerner was a founding investor) operates a network of newsletters, events and audio brands targeting 5mn professionals in finance, law, healthcare, defense, energy, fashion and government, including: Above the Law, Breaking Defense, Dealbreaker, Fashionista and MedCity News. The $10mn+ revenue company has long eschewed external funding and remained independent, but the CEO sounds just a little bit open to a more ambitious deal – sometime. He graduated in English and history from Georgetown University, in Washington DC.
What was your earliest career ambition?
I wanted to be a writer in the media. I discovered it was a lot harder and you couldn’t just want to be a writer: there was work involved! I ended up getting into the marketing side to start, because there were more entry-level positions there that I was qualified for. I ended up staying on the business side. I think I respect journalists so much now – because of the ambition I never got around to.
What was your first media job?
It was at Inc magazine. I was in the marketing team putting on special events. I was essentially a party planner for the magazine for mid-size businesses. It was there that I dscovered there’s a niche for everything and everyone in media. I saw from the companies Inc targeted just how passionate its readers were. It made me realise that communities really matter. I had fallen into one by chance. Many of us have had that moment of realizing that it’s not all about big markets and that small markets are sometimes the most innovative places to be.
What were your milestones at BPI-VNU-Nielsen?
I was there 13 years through all the changes of ownership, working on Billboard magazine and Adweek and then on the 100 or so niches and verticals of VNU. The milestones of that time included our migration at BPI from those primitive dial-up information services to the early days of the web. It was a real eye-opener, realising the distribution capability of the web in the late 1990s. That’s when we started launching the first web sites. Amazing times.
I’d seen an early browser and thought the internet would be cool and realized – after a time – that this would become the primary way that people would get information and buy products. To think that everyone in B2B would be consuming information 24/7, and marketers would be using the web to get in front of those people more than in any other way. But when we started those early websites, we didn’t even have advertising. Our early banner ads on Billboard were a couple of online CD retailers – Music Boulevard and CDNow – who came to us because they wanted to promote their online ‘shops’ – and there wasn’t anywhere else.
The next big milestone was when VNU bought Bill Communications, BPI and Miller Freeman and brought them all under one roof. We launched VNU eMedia, a huge platform that housed 100 different vertical properties. I really came to understand the scale and technology and how to roll-out new services. It was a whole new ball game. We had 100 different publications on a single platform. It was exciting just understanding how to build the tech for media, making sure that you were creating something for the audience first, but also for the advertiser and then for pay-as-you-go services. It was a big undertaking, immediately before I joined Breaking Media which had been started by a few friends.
What’s the background to Breaking Media?
It was the brainchild of Justin Smith and Carter Burden, two people I’ve known for years. Initially, the concept – developed in the early days of blogging – was to launch a B2B blog network. At that point, there had been Blogger and there had been Gawker and other successful consumer blog networks (including HuffPost) but there was nothing really in the B2B space. So Justin and Carter launched what they thought of as a B2B version of Gawker, Indeed, our first editor-in-chief and CEO had come from Gawker. I was an early investor in the company because I was so intrigued by the plans. Three years later, in 2010, they asked me to come in and help. I’ve been here ever since.
Initially, we had B2B articles online not attached to any legacy properties. So you had a lot more freedom to innovate and be more creative editorially. Over time, we got into the finance space with Dealbreaker, legal with Above the Law and fashion with Fashionista. We still have those three brands. We also had accounting and a transportation brands. But, by the time I joined the company, the frothy days of just watching a digital service instantly becaming worth a ton of money had ended. We knew we had to make the company profitable and have a proper business plan.
But, from the start, what really blew me away was the engagement numbers on the sites we stayed with. In all my previous experience with online audiences, I’d never seen a site with such market penetration as Above The Law. it was incredible. This was a long time ago and it’s tripled in size since then. But, to see that much of a total addressable market coming to a site on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and staying for that long really, really wowed me. That motivated us now and we have now got the company profitable and growing again.
What’s the magic of, say, Above The Law?
It’s an entertaining daily read for lawyers. It’s a lively trade magazine as a daily. newsletter and it’s fun to read. It has 1.5mn monthly uniques. So, with 1.3mn lawyers in the US and 200k law students, our market penetration may be as high as it could be. All our writers are lawyers or recovering lawyers, as they like to say. It’s written by lawyers for lawyers. I think that’s what makes us unique. We’ve tried to take that angle in all the markets we serve. Law is one of our two biggest markets. The other is defense which was an acquisition about 10 years ago, from AOL. These two markets account for about 80% of our business. We also bought into healthcare. It’s all been a mix of launch and acquisition. We now serve five markets and are always looking to move into other verticals.
What’s the scale of your company?
We have some $10-15mn of revenue and employ just over 50 people, mostly remotely. But we have offices in New York and Washington DC. We’re 90% ads-marketing driven with perhaps 10% of that from events. We are growing again after a tough year in 2023.
What are the ambitions for Breaking Media?
The company is owned by the founders, family and friends. We’ve done a couple of ‘friends and family’ fundraising rounds over the years, but have no institutional funds. Our ambition is now to really grow. We’ve had challenges over the years but now we have a settled model and it’s going well. We’ve gotten this push-pull model and are really good at first-party data. We want to accelerate growth. Our investors have been patient because we have always invested profits back in the business. But they deserve to be rewarded for their patience!
Can you imagine raising money and doing a bigger deal?
Nothing’s off the table. We’ve always been opportunistic. Historically, we’ve been keener on bolt-ons. But, as we get grow, there might be a good fit with a bigger business. Never say never!
What’s your own primary role?
I like to say my job is to ‘snow plow’ for the team. If we have a new opportunity, I try to clear the way and make it easier for the brains in the company to execute. If editorial has a new idea they want to do, I’ll work with the product to make sure that we can give them the tools to do so. But, at the end of the day, I need to make sure that my people have the necessary funds to do the best they can.
Do you often get approaches to sell the company?
Yeah. I get an email a day! My reply is usually “Thanks, but no thanks”. But I do feel that we’ve got something, that we’ve got a lot more gas in our tank. You never say ‘never’. If the right person approaches, you talk and have the conversation. But I haven’t seen the right fit yet. I’m sure that one day it will come along – or maybe we’ll find a merger or something. But, at this point, we think we can do well by continuing to do what we do.
Which media companies do you most admire?
From a business model standpoint, I’ve known Sean Griffey for a long time and what he has been able to do at Industry Drive is very impressive. I admire that tremendously. I’m also in awe of Puck, Semafor, Axios and Punch Bowl for all they’re doing editorially. I respect the great journalism. I also, of course, respect the New York Times. I mean, who could not? They were on the ropes 10 or 15 years ago and look what they’ve done!
What are the best lessons you’ve learned?
Don’t underestimate anyone. There’s a lot of smart people out there, and to think you’re smarter is just foolish. I’ve underestimated a lot of smaller brands over the years, and I’ve seen them really take-off. Don’t take anyone for granted, not your competitors or advertising or marketing partners. Or anyone else.
