Quartz’s Innovation Business Model
Media Startups Case Studies
Quartz founded in 2012 to serve a new kind of business leader with bracingly creative and intelligent journalism that’s built for users first. Quartz covers how the global economy is organized around core obsessions — topics and questions of seismic importance to business professionals. It has grown from a single website and email into a suite of digital products and brands.
Quartz offers global news and insights for a new generation of business leaders via their website, emails, apps, social media. It also offers membership with premium features such as member-only newsletters, presentations, access to all the journalism, weekly field guides and digital events from Quartz at Work, which are virtual events that explore the challenges of a modern-day worker.
Its mission is to make business better. The team surround this slogan with other taglines such as “make cities better”, “make algorithms better”, “make capitalism better”, “make supply chains better”, “make brands better” etc. These show their values which are embracing boldness and creativity, putting users first, supporting ideas, taking ownership, having an eye on globalization changes and doing everything with a spirit of generosity.
They target in a young audience that consists of professionals who try to “conquer” the business field and bring innovative ideas and practices. Quartz’s “Obsessions” section has differentiated the publication from other media companies as they introduce an alternative type of media information by supporting their core values and making their mission come true.
Under the “Obsessions” umbrella is also the “Quartz at Work” section, where they are trying to solve the business journalism problems. Each obsession is a set of questions they’re fascinated by and hypotheses they’re testing (source: Quartz on Instagram). In their email newsletter, they have the Quartz Weekly Obsession for memebers to escape the stale news cycle with forgotten histories, surprising facts, and vital stats.
Going into a brief throwback, the company’s first sale was up to a $110 million; Atlantic Media sold it to Uzabase in July 2018 and this business move was covered by the most media (including the leaders in the field): The New York Times, Reuters, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes etc. Atlantic Media chairman and owner David Bradley said in his memo to the Quartz staff : “The sale is coming years faster than I had imagined.”
The second sale came even faster that the first one. Usabaze started seeking for new investors in November 2020 as Quartz suffered from the global COVID-19 pandemic, although they believe the publication will be profitable in 2021–2022. The solution was given from Uzabase’s CEO Yusuke Umeda who made a personal loan to Quartz, “demonstrating his continued belief in the value of the Quartz business”.
In summary, Quartz is a media company with promising vision and is trying to make the difference in the global media world. But it is trapped between a middle background to please everyone. It is very hard and demanding to be everything for everyone and when a worldwide pandemic comes in the way, the situation becomes even harder.
Despite these facts, the hope for the company stills exists by its own people, which is the most important fact to keep it going into a better future.
