Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
.`
PERSONAL
Daughter of a lawyer and a retail clerk; married Brian Sugar; (an executive); children: Katie, Juliet, Elle.
EDUCATION:George Washington University, B.A., 1998.
ADDRESS
CAREER
PopSugar, San Francisco, CA, founder and blogger, 2005–. Former account manager, Young & Rubicam, New York, NY, and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, CA.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Lisa Sugar is perhaps best known as the founder of the immensely popular blog/media site PopSugar, which she began in 2005 and turned into an online information powerhouse worth millions of dollars. The PopSugar site, stated the contributor of a blurb summarizing the online executive’s career on the Power Your Happy Web site, presents material from “across categories such as entertainment, fashion, beauty, fitness, food, home, parenting, and more.” “Today,” wrote American Express reviewer Katie Morell, “PopSugar has five offices worldwide, hundreds of employees, twenty million unique page views per month and forty-six million dollars in venture funding.” She writes about her success in her memoir/guide Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life.
Although Sugar had a background in advertising—she held jobs with the agencies Young & Rubicam in New York City and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco before entering the world of blogging full-time—she build PopSugar from scratch. The “empire started from Lisa’s personal interest in 2005,” said Morell. “She spent nights and weekends trolling websites for the latest celebrity gossip. She wanted to find a site that not only fed her celebrity addiction, but also provided her with the latest trends in fashion, fitness and culture. When she couldn’t find a site to quench all her interests, she decided to create her own.” “I created PopSugar as a solace from alt negativity on the internet,” the author stated in Adweek, “and I want our corporate culture to have the same vibe. Smiling is easy, cheap and contagious. I want everyone to know that I appreciate their hard work, and I believe a smile is a simple way to express that. I want to be surrounded by people who bring that positive energy.”
Sugar was venturing into uncharted territory by going online to communicate with readers directly. “Blogging was a relatively new concept in 2005,” Tracey Lien reported in the Los Angeles Times, and Sugar broke new ground in the way she used her online presence. “Sugar wrote on her Web site before work, during her lunch breaks and at night,” Lien continued. “`Magazines were slow to update and had no personality, and a lot of blogs were super-snarky and mean and tore people down,’ Sugar said. She made PopSugar an extension of the reviews she wrote for friends. She wrote in the first person, avoided tabloid gossip and focused on the things about the entertainment world that excited her. ‘It felt like I was talking to you,’ Sugar said.” Today, even with the corporation’s employees numbering in the hundreds, Sugar and her husband Brian actively participate in the content and the management of the business. “The one thing that stays consistent is that I oversee all editorial coverage, which includes written, video and social content,” Sugar told Elana Lyn Gross in a Forbes Online interview.
PopSugar’s relative informality and its popularity encouraged interactions between the blogger and her audience. Sugar told Gross that she “was thrilled to write Power Your Happy because I had been getting asked the same question over and over, and I felt like now I had some wisdom to share based on everything we’ve learned in the ten years of Popsugar. People wanted to know ‘How did you do it?’ and ‘How do I get a cool job like yours?’ So the book is a combination of our story and the story of how the team built Popsugar into what it is today, along with practical advice for people trying to figure out their best career and overall life goals.” It is extremely important, Sugar said in her Forbes Online interview, “that the tone of our content remains consistent across platforms and that our voice remains positive, informative and inspirational. This also extends to management–I make sure that as a company we treat employees with respect, and I ensure that our core values of ‘work hard, play nice’ are instilled throughout the culture and mission of the company.” “Let your core values govern your decisions,” Sugar advised in her Adweek article, “and don’t ever do anything that comprises those qualities.” “`Work hard, play nice,’” the author and executive said to Gross, “simply reinforces that it’s much more of a pleasure to work with people who are part of a team, lifting each other up, listening to one another, and in it together.”
Overall, reviewers found that Power Your Happy maintained the same kind of playfulness and informal intimacy that had made Sugar’s blog so popular years before. Sugar’s audience, stated Jennifer Clifton, writing in Library Journal, “will discover substantial guidance that is easy to implement on everything from networking to interviewing to parenting.” “She knows her readership,” observed a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “and there is plenty of helpful guidance here for those just setting out on establishing themselves.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Adweek, October 3, 2016, Lisa Sugar, “The Young and the Restless: PopSugar Founder Offers up Five Themes Millennial Talent Should Keep in Mind at the Start of Their Lives and Careers,” p. 12.
Library Journal, September 1, 2016, Jennifer Clifton, review of Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life, p. 119.
Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2016, Tracey Lien, “How I Made It: Lisa Sugar Grew a Blog into a Global Media Empire.”
Publishers Weekly, June 20, 2016, review of Power Your Happy, p. 147.
ONLINE
American Express, https://www.americanexpress.com/ (March 13, 2013), Katie Morell, “Lisa and Brian Sugar of PopSugar: From Blog to Multimillion-Dollar Media Giant.”
Forbes Online, https://www.forbes.com/ (November 28, 2016), Elana Lyn Gross, “Leadership #LikeABoss.”
Power Your Happy Web site, https://www.poweryourhappy.com (March 29, 2017), author profile.*
Lisa and Brian Sugar of PopSugar: From Blog to Multimillion-Dollar Media Giant
Meet Lisa and Brian Sugar, who started the pop culture blog PopSugar in 2005. Eight years later their brand is stronger than ever.
Katie Morell
Freelance Writer and editor, Self-employed
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MARCH 13, 2013 While many businesspeople are trying to figure out how to separate work and life, Brian and Lisa Sugar of PopSugar believe they've found the secret: Instead of balancing, they blend. In fact, their decision to start a business and family simultaneously has created a fun office culture. "We brought our daughter, Katie, into the office every day for the first three years of the company," Lisa says. "At first we were worried that her presence would be distracting, but everyone really loved it and would take 'Katie breaks,' where they would cheer her on as she learned to crawl and walk."
The Sugars also include employees' spouses at events, proving that a family-friendly approach to business doesn't have to deter entrepreneurs from hitting the big time. Today, PopSugar has five offices worldwide, hundreds of employees, 20 million unique page views per month and $46 million in venture funding.
That empire started from Lisa's personal interest in 2005. Working in advertising in San Francisco, she spent nights and weekends trolling websites for the latest celebrity gossip. She wanted to find a site that not only fed her celebrity addiction, but also provided her with the latest trends in fashion, fitness and culture. When she couldn’t find a site to quench all her interests, she decided to create her own.
Brian, a serial entrepreneur who helped build and sell companies such as BlueLight and 2Media, created the first iteration of PopSugar as a blog that responded to celebrity news. Lisa says she was “obsessed with writing,” and rarely went a day without contributing something to the site. Within months, readership was in the thousands, and the Sugars quit their jobs to work on the site full time.
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Nearly eight years later, PopSugar is a media giant. Until late February, PopSugar operated more than 12 independent sites, each focused on a different vertical such as fashion and fitness. Today, the sites have been combined into one—simply PopSugar—with daily video content and a dedicated shopping arm.
There were tons of blogs back in 2005. Why do you think PopSugar attracted such a massive audience right off the bat?
Brian: Back then, most bloggers were writing with a snarky tone. They were the kids in the back of the class, so to speak, making fun of traditional media. Lisa approached her writing differently. She wrote in a simple, clean and approachable tone. I think people were attracted to that.
Did you have funding starting out?
Brian: We started PopSugar one year after doing it as a side project and, by that time, I’d been fortunate enough to sell a few of my companies. We put in $250,000 and Arthur [Cinader Jr., co-founder and son of the founder of J.Crew] put in another $250,000. Pretty soon we had interest from several VCs and decided to go with Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital. We landed our first round of financing, $5 million, in October 2006.
How to Make the Most of Your One Shot with Investors
What challenges have you faced along the way?
Lisa: It has been a challenge to stay true to our voice and expand into other categories. So much has changed in our business over the years. Whereas before we were curating stories about celebrities, for example, now we have a staff of 100 people creating original content straight from the red carpet.
Courtesy of PopSugar
What is it like to work with your spouse?
Brian: It is great. Our offices are on separate floors, but we are always instant messaging each other. We handle different sections of the business. Lisa commands the content and I’m more interested in the product, partnerships and future technology. My team thinks of her team as our client. We try to impress them as often as we can.
Lisa: I think it works because we’ve figured out the right times to check things off our lists—be it personal or business tasks. We also make sure to go to the movies every Friday night, no kids.
How do you separate your home and work life?
Brian: We don’t have separation, on purpose. We love what we do so passionately, that turning it off isn’t fun. We do go on vacations, but even then our computers are there, iPhones are there. I’d say our work/life balance is spread out over 30 hours per day [laughs].
How were you able to establish a fun office culture?
Lisa: Our culture is fast-paced. We are always "on" here. My group is about 95 percent women who are excited to write about things that they would be passionate to write about in their spare time.
In the early days, we would have happy hours and encouraged employees to bring spouses along to create a family feel. I think it is these things that have set the tone for our culture. We’ve been able to retain employees for a long time, which feels great.
Why did you decide to combine all your sites into PopSugar?
Lisa: We realized that having multiple sites was complicating our story and our brand. As the company grew, we wanted people to understand the power of one brand. It made sense.
How Dany Levy Grew DailyCandy Into a $125 Million Business
How does PopSugar make money?
Lisa: We have multiple revenue streams. Our revenue comes from on-site advertising, our shopping site and, starting last year, a curated box of products for subscribers. For $35 per month, women can get a box filled with full-size entertainment, beauty, home, food and fashion products. We already have 12,000 subscribers. This summer we plan to launch an essentials box for men, too.
What advice can you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Brian: You need to understand the dynamic range of your life and what you can handle, in terms of highs and lows. Everything you do has the potential of increasing your dynamic range. Know your capacity around that range and be willing to work within it.
Read more articles on how to grow a business.
Katie Morell is an independent journalist based in San Francisco. She regularly contributes to Hemispheres, USA Today, Consumers Digest, Destination Weddings & Honeymoons, Crain’s Chicago Business and others.
Photo: popsugar.com
How I Made It: Lisa Sugar grew a blog into a global media empire
Lisa Sugar
Lisa Sugar grew her blog, PopSugar, into a global media brand. (PopSugar)
Tracey Lien
The gig: Lisa Sugar, 40, is the founder and president of PopSugar, the global media company headquartered in San Francisco whose eponymous lifestyle website attracts more than 100 million visitors a month. Sugar oversees strategy for the business, which has expanded to include e-commerce website ShopStyle and now has offices in New York, London and Australia.
Entertainment addict: Sugar grew up outside Washington, the daughter of a lawyer and a retail clerk. She recalls being a tomboy who always loved entertainment and pop culture. “I made collages and mood boards, and collected magazines,” she said, describing herself as a huge fan of celebrities, movies and TV shows. “I would stay up late, but it wasn’t to party — I just wanted to watch Letterman and whoever was on ‘The Late Late Show.’”
Stint in New York: After graduating from George Washington University with a degree in psychology, Sugar moved to New York with her future husband, Brian Sugar, who she’d met on her first day of college. She interned at the morning talk show “Fox After Breakfast” and landed a job in advertising with Young & Rubicam, an agency where she ran the accounts for Showtime and Sony. The job brought her closer to entertainment, but it also helped her realize that it wasn’t close enough.
“I wanted to decide what’s on TV,” she said. “Why were they putting ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ up against ‘Dawson’s Creek’? They’re the same show and the same audience; why are they making us choose? That’s when I realized I wanted to get more involved.”
Another agency in San Francisco: Shortly after they married, her husband was offered a job in San Francisco and the couple moved west. “I was shattered,” Sugar said. “I felt like there wasn’t an entertainment or content company I could get excited about out here.” She ended up at local ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, where she spent the next five years.
Perks to pop: One of the upsides of being at an ad agency was Sugar often got tickets to advance screenings of films and access to TV shows and beauty products before they hit the market. In her downtime, she wrote reviews for her friends, recommending upcoming shows to watch and products to buy. “Eventually I got a nudge from a friend who would listen to me talk about all these new beauty products and TV shows, and Brian built me a website called PopSugar and taught me some code, and I started publishing,” she said.
A new voice: Blogging was a relatively new concept in 2005. Gawker Media was but a few years old, and most traditional publications hadn’t yet migrated online. Sugar wrote on her website before work, during her lunch breaks and at night. “Magazines were slow to update and had no personality, and a lot of blogs were super-snarky and mean and tore people down,” Sugar said. She made PopSugar an extension of the reviews she wrote for friends. She wrote in the first person, avoided tabloid gossip and focused on the things about the entertainment world that excited her.
“It felt like I was talking to you,” Sugar said of the website’s tone. “Like you were reading something your girlfriend was telling you. PopSugar was always clean and safe, and you felt as a woman proud to read it because it wasn’t tearing people down based on weight or looks. It was important for PopSugar to be a positive place.”
Word-of-mouth: Sugar started blogging on her website in March 2005. By November of the same year, more than 1 million people were visiting PopSugar every month. The site’s audience grew via word-of-mouth, Sugar said, and before the end of the year she had quit her job to focus on it full time. Her husband quit his job too, and they incorporated the business in April 2006. Seeing its rapid growth, local venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital came knocking, and Sugar raised $5 million to hire more writers and expand the site.
Ask for more: Sugar said she believes one of the reasons she found success was because she had learned to speak up and ask for more responsibilities. She recalled being bored while folding jeans when she was working at an Urban Outfitters in D.C., and how speaking up about it landed her newer, more interesting responsibilities. “I was just folding jeans over and over again, and if I had to fold another pair of jeans I was going to go crazy,” she said. “So I asked my manager if there was anything else I can do?”
She’s applied this lesson to her media career, asking for more responsibilities and being willing to roll up her sleeves to do what needs to be done. “If people need me to write on Oscars night, I’m gonna do that,” she said. “It’s about being a team player.”
Advice: PopSugar is now a global media company and a stalwart at music and movie awards, red-carpet galas, and Fashion Week in Paris, New York and Melbourne. But it took Sugar more than 10 years to grow it. “You have to start small,” she said. “A lot of people think you’re supposed to do these things overnight and see success, but you have to be patient.”
Personal: Sugar lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughters Katie, 10, Juliet, 7, and Elle, 3. They have a dog named Lucy. Her book “Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice & Build Your Dream Life” is now on sale.
Lisa Sugar
Founder, President and Editor in Chief, POPSUGAR
POPSUGAR The George Washington University
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Publish dateSeptember 17, 2016
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Company NamePOPSUGAR
Dates EmployedMar 2005 – Present Employment Duration12 yrs 1 mo LocationSan Francisco
Education
The George Washington University
The George Washington University
Degree Name BA Field Of Study Psychology, English
Dates attended or expected graduation 1994 – 1998
Meet Lisa
Lisa Sugar has an amazing job. Her obsession with pop culture drove her to start writing POPSUGAR in 2005. A year later, she and her husband, Brian, joined forces, and they transformed her hobby into what is now the #1 independent media company for women. Lisa now manages an enormously successful, growing company with employees who love what they do. With a global reach of over 100 million uniques and more than 500 employees, POPSUGAR delivers content across categories such as entertainment, fashion, beauty, fitness, food, home, parenting, and more. She is also the creator and curator of the beloved POPSUGAR Must Have subscription boxes, bringing the best of POPSUGAR into the homes of fans everywhere. And her life is just as great at home. She and her husband have three daughters, and she’s the #1 soccer mom who loves reading bedtime stories every night.
Leadership #LikeABossNOV 28, 2016 @ 09:00 AM 2,775 VIEWS
Popsugar's Lisa Sugar On Working Hard, Playing Nice And Building A Life You Love
Elana Lyn Gross, CONTRIBUTOR
I write actionable career advice as a millennial with a side hustle.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
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"Work hard, play nice."
“Do what you love.”
Lisa Sugar, founder and president of the global media and technology company, Popsugar, has created a life she loves. And she wants to help people do the same with her first book, POWER YOUR HAPPY: Work Hard, Play Nice & Build Your Dream Life. "The book is a combination of our story and the story of how the team built Popsugar into what it is today, along with practical advice for people trying to figure out their best career and overall life goals," says Sugar, "It’s to help you be happier every day, whether it’s incorporating more of a hobby you love or changing your career entirely." Founded in 2005, her company now attracts a monthly audience of over 100 million visitors worldwide, as well as 2.5 billion content views and 250 million video views. Sugar transformed her side hustle into a more than 500-person company while staying true to her personal mantra and Popsugar's core value: "Work hard, play nice."
Lisa Sugar, POPSUGAR
(Courtesy of Lisa Sugar)
Elana Lyn Gross: What inspired you to start Popsugar? What was your career path?
Lisa Sugar: I started Popsugar because I wasn’t creatively fulfilled at my job and always wanted to write. While working in advertising, I started Popsugar on the side to share things I was excited about: a new show I would review, a fun article with great quotes, a new beauty product I had just tried. I made sure it was a different voice than everything else out there. It was a fun, positive, safe community and very fan friendly.
I started my career in advertising, but in college, I had a public relations internship at a live morning show on FOX. That was when I realized I wanted to create content. Advertising was a great training ground for being an adult and learning the basic work skills I needed beyond the jobs I had in high school and college.
One of my first accounts as a media buyer was Showtime Networks, and a year later I went over to Showtime to work in-house. I was getting closer to my goal of deciding what programming would be green lit, but really I was still a media planner. I moved to San Francisco in December 1999 and stayed in the agency world for five more years. With no cool entertainment accounts to be had, starting POPSUGAR was the way to get my fix, and once I started, I became addicted and couldn’t stop! In the first year, I reached over one million people, so my husband and I knew we were ready to start something even bigger!
Gross: What has been the biggest challenge and, on the flip side, the biggest reward of starting Popsugar?
Sugar: The biggest challenge is learning when to pass on a project or task I love. As much as I like writing nonstop, it’s also a great feeling to have the team step up and run the show while I take on more responsibility. The company has grown so quickly, and it’s amazing to see how all of our original jobs have changed so much and how much we’ve grown as leaders and expanded our skills. As for the greatest reward, it’s seeing how much we are helping people each day. We get so many comments, emails, direct messages and other interactions from our audience about how our content moved them to make a change. We want to make women feel smart, confident and encouraged to do whatever they want, whether that means trying a new workout or rallying people to vote. We are constantly encouraged by our readers to keep delivering content that inspires them.
Gross: What advice do you have for other women who hope to start their own businesses?
Sugar: Start small. Even setting aside an hour each day and setting small goals lets you feel like you are accomplishing something, and that’s great! Also, try to get feedback as early and often as possible. In the case of POPSUGAR, I got feedback instantly from the fast-growing audience, which helped me realize what people wanted so I could deliver more of it.
Gross: You started Popsugar as a side hustle while you were working full-time in advertising. Is there advice that was particularly helpful when you decided to take the leap?
Sugar: The advice I would give is reinforcing the message: Start small and set realistic goals. I was also given advice that the best way to be a writer is to get yourself in the habit of writing every day. I used to keep journals, so that was one habit, but those were personal and just for me, so it was a huge change to write for others.
I originally started without telling anyone, but people found the site quickly. When I was becoming addicted to analytics and seeing how often people would visit the site or comment on stories, it only made me want to write more. So while I was still working in advertising, I found time before work, on a lunch break or at night. The key was updating a lot throughout the day, so I also learned how to be really quick. That helped too!
Gross: What is a workday as Lisa like? Please walk me through a day!
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Every day is different, but if I’m not traveling, it goes something like this:
6:40 a.m. Wake up and immediately check email on my phone next to my bed. I shower, get the kids up, get ready for work and make my morning POPSUGAR flat-belly smoothie. Then I walk the kids to school or walk to work with Brian if he is in town. If I’m alone, I do a walk and talk and check in with the team on the East Coast or call my mom or friends. I also crank through more email on the walk in.
8:30-10 a.m. I'm in the office, ideally with no meetings, so I can set up the day.
10 a.m.-12 p.m. I have various meetings with sales, marketing and executive teams.
12-1 p.m. I keep this hour blocked off, if possible, to crank through more emails and have quick impromptu conversations in person.
1-5 p.m. I'm in more meetings for video, Must Have merchandising, edit team brainstorms and more.
6 p.m. I have dinner with the kids and get the three girls to sleep.
9 p.m. I'm back online for a little more email and some TV time. I just finished Mr. Robot season 2. and I'm currently watching This Is Us and Younger.
11:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. It's bedtime for me, and I force myself off my phone!
Gross: What are your responsibilities as cofounder and president of Popsugar?
Sugar: Well that’s something that changes each year as our company grows, but the one thing that stays consistent is that I oversee all editorial coverage, which includes written, video and social content. Video has become a huge growth area for us: Last month we had 300 million video views. We have more than 100 content creators who generate 2.5 billion content views per month. Social media is also exploding! We have over 28 million followers, and we love the challenge to talk to our audience in various places even though each platform has its own personality.
that the tone of our content remains consistent across platforms and that our voice remains positive, informative and inspirational. This also extends to management — I make sure that as a company we treat employees with respect, and I ensure that our core values of “work hard, play nice” are instilled throughout the culture and mission of the company. I also oversee Popsugar Must Have, our subscription box business. I personally curate and vet all items in our boxes — I choose my favorite things — so it is very near and dear to me. Oh and I also represent Popsugar in the press like I am right now.
Gross: You started Popsugar with your husband and have written about the benefits of work-life blending instead of work-life balance. What are some tips for other people who want to go into business with their spouse?
Sugar: I never thought I would work with my spouse; it just sort of happened for us. In the beginning, everything was so exciting, and the ideas were endless, so every meal seemed like a great opportunity to brainstorm. Now that we have kids, we obviously want to hear about their days and have family dinners, but that doesn’t mean we shut off work talk. Now it’s more important for us to know the right and wrong times to get into certain conversations.
Gross: What are three characteristics you look for when you’re hiring a new team member?
Sugar: When we interview people, we want to see passion, curiosity and experience of some sort. I also want to know if they can adapt. Things change so quickly in our world, and every year there are new tasks to learn and incorporate, so it’s important to get people who love to continue to learn.
Gross: Congratulations on your book, Power Your Happy! How did you decide to write a book?
Sugar: I was thrilled to write Power Your Happy because I had been getting asked the same question over and over, and I felt like now I had some wisdom to share based on everything we’ve learned in the 10 years of Popsugar. People wanted to know “How did you do it?” and “How do I get a cool job like yours?” So the book is a combination of our story and the story of how the team built Popsugar into what it is today, along with practical advice for people trying to figure out their best career and overall life goals. It has lots of questions to ask yourself, which are things we ask our own employees and I ask myself. It’s to help you be happier every day, whether it’s incorporating more of a hobby you love or changing your career entirely. This book helps you figure out what you might need now at this moment in time in your life.
Gross: I love your mantra "work hard, play nice." How have you created a corporate culture that fosters kindness? How can other companies do the same?
Sugar: When we started Popsugar, we also had our first daughter. There were all sorts of emotions happening at the time. I learned firsthand how hard it is to balance work and family, but I was so excited by all that life was giving me at the time. I just made sure I was taking it all in. I also took in how I didn't want to treat my team from experiences at past job. We’ve all had bad bosses that make us feel like crap. I also had incredible bosses who were encouraging, and the feeling you get from each greatly affect how you face your day.
At Popsugar we want you to love every day. We work together as a team. Everyone wants the same end result: to build cool products and create content that others will learn from, laugh at, be inspired by and take action on. We work together to see patterns and strategize based on that. We listen to each other. Executives sit out in the open with everyone else. There is no special treatment: We’re scrappy and we like it that way. It’s been like that since we started, and at times it’s tiring, stressful and hard, but if we surround ourselves with people who are passionate about what we are creating, then even in the darkest of days, we learn to lift each other up.
Gross: You write a lot about playing nice. What does playing nice mean to you?
Sugar: It means being a good person and having respect for co-workers and partners. We can still be fiercely competitive and not back down. It doesn’t mean being overly sweet either; you can still be badass. “Work hard, play nice” simply reinforces that it’s much more of a pleasure to work with people who are part of a team, lifting each other up, listening to one another, and in it together as opposed to egotistical, selfish rule-breakers who think they are better than everyone else.
Gross: What is the best advice you've ever received?
Sugar: My dad said, “Do what you love.” It sounds easy, but it’s not. Figuring out how to make money off of something you are passionate about when you don’t necessarily know if you are talented at it is scary.
Elana Lyn Gross is a content strategist at mllnnl, journalist and the founder of Elana Lyn. Elana Lyn is a personal and professional development website that provides millennial women with actionable job search, career and wellness advice.
The young and the restless: PopSugar founder offers up five themes millennial talent should keep in mind at the start of their lives and careers
Lisa Sugar
ADWEEK. 57.32 (Oct. 3, 2016): p12.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 e5 Global Media, LLC
http://www.adweek.com
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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
I've been doing a Lot of reflecting over the past year. I wrote my first book, Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life (out Sept, 20), which chronicles my journey toward starting PopSugar.
The process allowed me to reminisce about how much I have grown as a person--but also how much of my youth I continue to hang on to. As both an entrepreneur and an individual, staying true to my core values and my passions has been essential to my success and my happiness.
As I spent time with the Adweek editorial staff selecting this year's Young Influentials honorees, I was reminded yet again about the values and characteristics that I hang on to from my youth. They also happen to be the top qualities that I most admire in others, and that I hope none of us ever get so jaded that we let them go.
Following your passion. I started PopSugar as a way to share what I was excited about with my readers, and 10 years later, that remains the core mission of our 100 content creators: we are experts, but first we are fans. Chances are, if you are passionately consumed by something--particularly since childhood--other people will share your passion. As proof, look no further than Matt and Ross Duffer, who created the massive Netflix hit Stranger Things, inspired by their shared childhood obsessions with all things Steven Spielberg and Stephen King.
Admitting you don't have all the answers. The minute you think you have nothing more to learn is the minute you stop evolving. Kids ask questions all the time, and guess what? So do successful adults. I also have the benefit of being surrounded by talented people who allow me to be a perpetual student. Not unlike Karlie Kloss, who could have easily rested on her supermodel laurels. Instead, she decided to learn to code, then partnered with existing academic institutions to launch a coding summer camp for teenage girls.
Not being afraid to take risks. In order to be influential, you simply can't be timid. Sometimes, that means daring to disrupt an industry, the way Dollar Shave Club co-founder Michael Dubin revolutionized men's personal care. Taking risks also means not being afraid to reinvent yourself, like actor and rapper Donald Glover, who at the age of 32 is embarking on yet another career, as the creator, co-writer, executive producer and star of the new FX series Atlanta.
Looking at things with fresh eyes. As a kid, you can't help but see things with fresh eyes. But as adults, we risk viewing the world in the same way, every day. When I'm facing a tough decision, I find it helps to change my surroundings, whether that means taking a long walk or working from a different office for a week. I love what Sara Sindelar is doing as co-leader of IBM's Millennial Corps, where she and millennials from other large brands (like Pepsi and Estee Lauder) meet on a regular basis to share ideas and make sure their voices are being heard at their respective companies.
Choosing happy. Obviously we can't all be sunshine and rainbows all the time, but I try to choose positivity over negativity as often as I can. I created PopSugar as a solace from alt negativity on the internet, and I want our corporate culture to have the same vibe. Smiling is easy, cheap and contagious. I want everyone to know that I appreciate their hard work, and I believe a smile is a simple way to express that. I want to be surrounded by people who bring that positive energy, which is why I admire 2016 Young Influential honoree Zendaya. The 19-year-old actress and singer's fearless ability to shut down digital haters makes her a great role model and voice of her generation.
I could go on and on, because every single person on this year's YI list possesses qualities I greatly admire, and the Adweek staff does an outstanding job on the following pages outlining the accomplishments of all 30 honorees, like Snapchat's Nick Bell, Whisper CEO Michael Heyward, Laurel Hodge of Imgur, Ivanka Trump, and more.
People often ask me what I would tell my 21-year-old self, and the biggest piece of advice I'd offer is: It's OK not to have everything figured out yet. Try to keep perspective, look beyond yourself and appreciate the richness of life. Don't be so committed to a life plan that you stop evolving. Don't fear change so much that you miss out on opportunities to grow and learn. Don't work too hard that you forget to have fun.
And most important, let your core values govern your decisions, and don't ever do anything that comprises those qualities that make you who you are.
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Specs
Claim to fame
Founder & president of PopSugar; mother of three; candy aficionado; bag collector; soccer coach; chair of the Young Influentials selection committee (see page 16).
Base San Francisco
Twitter @LisaSugar
Instagram @lisaPopSugar
Sugar, Lisa. Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life
Jennifer Clifton
Library Journal. 141.14 (Sept. 1, 2016): p119.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
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Sugar, Lisa. Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life. Dutton. Sept. 2016.256p. index. ISBN 9781101985069. $25; ebk. ISBN 9781101985076. BUS
If you've perused the trendy pop culture articles on POPSUGAR.com, you may not be aware that the website is the namesake of its founder. Digital media mogul Sugar's debut book is one-part memoir, one-part guide to life, documenting her rise to success by turning her passions into an empire. Reading more like a blog than a book, the material addresses topics such as finding your passion, work, love, friendships, health, and beauty. The author supports individual lessons with examples from her childhood, college, or career. Each chapter ends with intuitive questions or a project to complete. One of Sugar's repeating motifs is that happiness can be found when a person's career and personal interests are in sync. While the advice is often lighthearted ("eating ice cream" is frequently prescribed as a quick fix), readers will discover substantial guidance that is easy to implement on everything from networking to interviewing to parenting. VERDICT Working mothers will find this an excellent companion to Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. Twenty- to thirty-somethings will savor Sugar's solid, candid wisdom. [See Prepub Alert, 3/28/16.]--Jennifer Clifton, Indiana State Lib., Indianapolis
Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life
Publishers Weekly. 263.25 (June 20, 2016): p147.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Power Your Happy: Work Hard, Play Nice, and Build Your Dream Life
Lisa Sugar. Dutton, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-1101-98506-9
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Sugar recounts the founding of her media empire, PopSugar, while also imparting advice for personal and professional fulfillment. She left a successful career in advertising to pursue writing full-time, and she encourages readers to find the "intersection of [their] passion and talent." Sugar presents tactics for networking and crafting a resume or cover letter, and describes her experience creating and leading a successful team. Her commentary on "having it all" is astute, noting that "'all' is subjective" and having a support system is vital. She discusses her relationship with her husband as a blueprint for a successful marriage and outlines her own healthy eating and exercise habits. It's difficult not to notice Sugar's limited viewpoint, however, when she counsels readers on getting over breakups despite her own lack of experience with them (she met her husband when she was 17), or concludes commentary on body image and self-acceptance with the banal statement "Learning to love my hair has been a long journey." The advice is also largely tailored to young professionals, as when she comments on the acceptability of not knowing what you want to do, "whether you are 15, 25, or even 35." That said, she knows her readership, and there is plenty of helpful guidance here for those just setting out on establishing themselves. Agent: Andy McNicol, William Morris Endeavor. (Sept.)