Her Campus’s co-founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief, Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, talks about building the brand (with other co-founders Windsor, Annie) and their new book: The Her Campus Guide to College Life: The Her Campus Guide to College Life: How to Manage Relationships, Stay Safe and Healthy, Handle Stress, and Have the Best Years of Your Life. From on-campus ins and outs to practical life advice, the guide transcends the college experience, making it a necessary addition to any go-getting gal’s bookshelf.
You created Her Campus while attending Harvard as undergraduates; where did the inspiration come from? The three of us met while working on a student publication at Harvard that was a lifestyle and fashion magazine for Harvard women. We took over leadership of the publication and transitioned it online, and it took off—not just with women at Harvard, but also with women at colleges across the country. Women at other colleges started contacting us asking for advice on how to start something similar at their school, and this gave us the idea to create a national media property targeted at college women, with both national and local content, all produced by student journalists.
How did you get the company get off the ground? We entered Harvard’s business plan competition during our junior year and were a winner in it. We then spent that summer living together in New York City, doing related internships while getting ready to launch Her Campus in the fall. We launched Hercampus.com September 16, 2009, with national content and one chapter at Harvard, ran the site that year while still students, and then started working on it full-time once we graduated.
How did you start out financially, spread the word, find a reliable community of writers, and build a following of readers? We have completely bootstrapped the company and have not raised any money from investors, and we have been profitable since we launched. Our start-up costs were under $1,000, and we paid ourselves back immediately with a check from our first advertiser, Juicy Couture. We recruited writers through past internships (I held editorial internships at Seventeen and SELF during college) and through Ed2010! We encouraged our writers to post their articles on social media, and in this way we got our name out there via word of mouth right away.
Why did you focus on peer-to-peer articles rather than those from an expert? A huge part of Her Campus’s mission is serving as a career-launching platform for college journalists. We realized that while most colleges had a school newspaper, very few had a fashion/lifestyle-focused publication on campus, so it was very difficult for aspiring magazine journalists to get proper clips as undergrads. We wanted Her Campus to provide a way for these students to get clips and experience that would help them land magazine jobs and internships. Her Campus has now become a feeder into positions at top magazine and media companies, with our alums working at Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Glamour, Vanity Fair, and many more.
You have just shy of 300 chapters worldwide; what about Her Campus do you think has translated to have international appeal? Whether you’re in the U.S. or abroad, college women have a unique set of needs and challenges that they face during this stage of their lives, and those items weren’t being addressed by other media. There is a lot of content out there for teen girls, and for post-grad women, but women here and internationally were looking for a resource that spoke directly to them. Her Campus also acts as a sort of professional sorority, and this sense of community is something our team members love and that has inspired college women worldwide to want to start or join a Her Campus chapter.
In The Her Campus Guide to College Life there’s a lot of advice for undergrads, but also a lot that transcends the college experience; was that a coincidence or a goal? I think many of the things that are important to you in college—e.g., eating healthy, developing healthy romantic relationships, applying for jobs—are things that matter to women (and men) after college as well, but we wanted to approach these topics from a collegiette’s perspective and frame them in the way that would be most relevant to college women. There’s certainly advice in our book that’s helpful to women and men beyond college as well though!
What, in your opinion, is the biggest issue facing college women today? I think equipping college women with the confidence and tools they need to succeed in their career is key. This generation has a shot at closing the wage gap and that starts with the first steps they take in their career, from their first internship through landing (and negotiating the terms of) their first post-grad job and beyond. Across all of our platforms, we look to empower college women to prepare for and go after their career goals, and to be ambitious and think big.
When compiling content for the book, did you feel obligated to fill a void for undergrads by not only presenting everyday topics, but the taboo subjects as well? Absolutely. One of the things we hear from readers about why they love Her Campus is that we cover topics they’re dying to know more about but are too embarrassed to talk about, even with their best friends. This applies especially to health, love, and sex topics. Our book covers everything college women actually want to know about, not just the stuff they’ll admit to asking about.
What’s next for Her Campus Media? We just launched an exciting new initiative—22 Under 22—to spotlight absolutely incredible college women across the country.
Amanda Jean Black is a guest blogger at Ed2010, sharing stories from her site onthemasthead.com. When not hunting down publishing’s elite for an interview, you can find the native New Yorker obsessing about style and culture, shopping for designer streetwear, and jamming out to 90′s alt rock.
Chatting with Jessica Pels of Marie Claire
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