How Tim Burrowes helped build Mumbrella into a $7 million media brand

The Business of Content

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Like a lot of journalists in the mid-2000s, Tim Burrowes grew frustrated with his employer’s print mentality and its tendency to treat online publishing as an afterthought. At the time, he worked for an Australian trade magazine that covered that country’s media industry.

So in 2008, he and two co-founders decided to launch Mumbrella, a competing blog that published upwards of 15 times a day. Its gossipy comments section quickly attracted an audience of bored office workers, and within a few years it was hosting multiple industry events that collectively generated millions of dollars.

In a recent interview, Tim explained how Mumbrella made such a big splash so quickly, why he and his co-founders decided to sell it, and what he’s doing differently with his newest media startup.