Brit Morin may be the next Martha Stewart. If she fails, it won’t be for lack of trying. The cooking and crafting entrepreneur launched her business in 2011 and has a growing following online.
Now Morin is ratcheting up the marketing heat. A recent announcement indicates she’s hired seasoned media vet Emily Smith (a veteran of Tribune Publishing/LA Times and Disney) as the new company president.
“I wasn’t hired to fix a problem,” says Smith, according to Fortune. “Smith says she is focused on helping Morin take Brit + Co, which has close to $8 million in funding from investors like Cowboy Venture’s Aileen Lee and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, to the next level.”
Brit+Co’s website traffic has grown 300 percent in 2014, says Morin, and now educates and entertains five million monthly unique visitors. Revenues are said to be “in the millions.”
“The bulk of revenues come from native advertising on its website, but Morin says she is also focused on growing new revenue streams,” Fortune said. “Brit + Co’s second annual ReMake conference, held in San Francisco in August, had 500 invite-only attendees who paid $299 each. The company also recently launched its own line of products (like Brit Kits), e-learning (both digital and analog) and a digital marketplace for crafters with the entrepreneurial bug.”
Morin, who found Smith via LinkedIn, wants someone who help her really grow Brit + Co’s dominance while retaining its brand identity.
The move could catapult Brit + Co to the top of the heap of companies for which updated recipes for Coq au Vin and crafty-cute home decorations have proven a route to success.
While Smith gets her feet wet in the world of the internet’s newest doyenne of the domestic, Brit + Co is waxing seasonal with, among other things, a virtual pow wow on decorating perfect Christmas cookies.