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ep009- Building the 7-Figure Mental Floss Empire From a Dorm Room
You wouldn’t believe that a company like Mental Floss who regularly has over 20,000,000 monthly site views and plays home to over 150,000,000 subscribers could start in a college dorm room, would you?
…or maybe you would when you see the landscape and story behind so many Millennovator startups.
Will Pearson met his cofounder, Mangesh Hattikudur, at Duke university long before Mental Floss became the empire that it is today.
He and Mangesh started the idea as a micro-publication around the campus of Duke University. Neither of them had experience in magazines, newspapers or any other publication for that matter, but weren’t afraid of trying their hand at something new.
At the time (1999) software for magazine editorial layout was pricey and unavailable, the computer labs on campus, however, had what they needed.
That’s right. Computer labs.
The duo would block off hours at the time between 11pm – 3am to work through the night on the publication. They would rise early the next morning for class and hit the lab again by midnight.
The grind didn’t stop at post grad life. Will and Mangesh did everything they could to keep Mental Floss afloat by putting nearly all money back into the business.
As Will explains in the episode, he waited tables and even tutored students to get enough money just to pay the bills.
Surprisingly, he feels there was not a single “tipping point” or epiphany in which he realized Mental Floss would make it. Will believes that they were able to see true success by waking up and thinking “what do we need to do today- at this very moment- to make today successful?”.
As the days grew so did the company’s success to the point of 2017 where the business is a media empire.
Will also shares an ironic story of pitching to the CEO of a big-time, New York City based publisher with a deeper message behind it.
As Will's entrepreneurial journey would have it the publisher he and his co-founder, Mangesh, pitched to would not end up being their first publisher. Instead, his friend's mother (who he was staying with while in NYC) would open the door to a publisher in her network.
Point being? Will’s mother would have never taken interest in Mental Floss had he and Mangesh not pitched it to her with 100% passion, optimism and excitement at the dinner table.
You never know who can open what door for your business.
Hear this and more in today’s episode of The Millennovator Podcast.
View all episodes
You wouldn’t believe that a company like Mental Floss who regularly has over 20,000,000 monthly site views and plays home to over 150,000,000 subscribers could start in a college dorm room, would you?
…or maybe you would when you see the landscape and story behind so many Millennovator startups.
Will Pearson met his cofounder, Mangesh Hattikudur, at Duke university long before Mental Floss became the empire that it is today.
He and Mangesh started the idea as a micro-publication around the campus of Duke University. Neither of them had experience in magazines, newspapers or any other publication for that matter, but weren’t afraid of trying their hand at something new.
At the time (1999) software for magazine editorial layout was pricey and unavailable, the computer labs on campus, however, had what they needed.
That’s right. Computer labs.
The duo would block off hours at the time between 11pm – 3am to work through the night on the publication. They would rise early the next morning for class and hit the lab again by midnight.
The grind didn’t stop at post grad life. Will and Mangesh did everything they could to keep Mental Floss afloat by putting nearly all money back into the business.
As Will explains in the episode, he waited tables and even tutored students to get enough money just to pay the bills.
Surprisingly, he feels there was not a single “tipping point” or epiphany in which he realized Mental Floss would make it. Will believes that they were able to see true success by waking up and thinking “what do we need to do today- at this very moment- to make today successful?”.
As the days grew so did the company’s success to the point of 2017 where the business is a media empire.
Will also shares an ironic story of pitching to the CEO of a big-time, New York City based publisher with a deeper message behind it.
As Will's entrepreneurial journey would have it the publisher he and his co-founder, Mangesh, pitched to would not end up being their first publisher. Instead, his friend's mother (who he was staying with while in NYC) would open the door to a publisher in her network.
Point being? Will’s mother would have never taken interest in Mental Floss had he and Mangesh not pitched it to her with 100% passion, optimism and excitement at the dinner table.
You never know who can open what door for your business.
Hear this and more in today’s episode of The Millennovator Podcast.