The Email Mafia

Thursday, November 4 - 6:30pm EST

This event reveals the secrets of running a highly profitable, highly scalable, bootstrapped media business with email as the distribution platform. Each of the four panelists has founded a profitable email-based startup and will share the secrets to his success. This event got its name from a series of blog posts (here, here, and here) profiling the pioneers of email-driven startups. Entrepreneurs who have used email to create businesses such as HARO, Startup Digest, Daily Candy, etc are known as The Email Mafia. This panel is targeted at a) founders of email-based startups and b) anyone seeking to make more effective use of email marketing.

Topics include:

• Who are these email-based media startups and why are they so profitable?
• How did panelist Peter Shankman launch HARO and sell it for (reported) $20 million in two years with no external capital?
• Why email is such an effective distribution platform for bootstrapped startups?
• What types of content are most effective in email and how to create it?
• Secrets to growing your list fast
• Maintaining reader engagement - open rates, click rates, social sharing, evangelism
• Revenue models for email startups - what is most effective?
• Technology platforms for email (composition, distribution, analytics, etc)
• And much more...

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Jason Baptiste, Founder of PadPressed Co-author of OnStartups.com
• Greg Cangialosi, CEO and Founder of Blue Sky Factory
  
• Chris McCann, CEO and Co-founder of Startup Digest
• Peter Shankman, Founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO)

This is a simulcast event in Boston.  Ultra Light Startups will be simulcasting a video of the panel from New York to a live, in-person audience gathered at WorkBar Boston. Boston attendees will participate in the startup pitches, networking, and panel discussion taking place in New York.

In Boston, we will watch a live video stream of New York on a projection screen and we'll have a local moderator in Boston. Questions asked in Boston will be fed back to New York in real-time and asked of the moderator there.  Panelists in New York will answer Boston's questions live in real-time, as if we were there in person.

It is a great opportunity to hear a fantastic panel, make new business connections with startups in New York, and network with fellow Ultra Light Startups Boston members.

Ustream: If you are cannot attend this event in person, please consider watching our live video stream on Ustream.tv. The Ustream will have full coverage of the startup pitches, interactive panel discussion, as well as interviews with Ultra Light Startups members and a live chat room to contact others watching this video stream.

New York: If you are in New York, consider joining the event there in person. Click here to register for the New York event.