Clique Media Group – Media Empire 
As someone looking to specialize in entrepreneurship, this business idea and subsequent articles immediately caught my eye. Clique Media Group is the media and commerce company behind popular fashion website, Who What Wear and several other Beauty, Home Decor and Lifestyle platforms directed towards “Millennial and Generation Z females” (Linkedin). Clique Media is at the forefront of online marketing providing creative and productive ways to engage with customers, publishers, and advertisers. Earning $14.33 Million, from 14 investors across 3 years. They have obtained a prodigious audience, with 40 million followers on social media, 263 million page views per month and 583K newsletter subscribers. Essentially their goal is to inspire readers to shop with helpful and intriguing articles, but what makes them different from other lifestyle and fashion focussed companies, such as Chatelaine or even personal blogs? CEO and Co-Founder Katherine Power and Co-Founder Hillary Kerr capitalized on the increasingly digital movement, incorporating all aspects of print magazines and much more, into what is now known as Clique Media Group. Power has a background in writing, through work with ELLE, Teen Vogue and Nylon. Kerr also wrote for ELLE, later on pursuing freelance writing prior to the birth of WhoWhatWear.com with Katherine. Together they wrote two books : Who What Wear: Celebrity and Runway Style For Real Life and What To Wear, Where. Power explains that after publishing their first book, she felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. These two young entrepreneurs continue to develop and innovate, in an interview with CNN Hillary expresses that, “…. It’s still early days for the digital content and commerce world, which means that the possibilities for innovation are endless. Everyday we are creating newness — whether that’s through technology developments, content types or commerce experiences — it’s simply impossible to be anything other than excited about work”. There is no greater satisfaction than to wake up everyday and do what you love and love what you do, I sincerely hope to achieve that one day.
Everyday there are 750 social media posts between Clique Media’s three sites, composed by one of their hundreds of employees. Through research on Glassdoor, 87% of people expressed their approval and support of CEO Katherine Power and explained the work ambience to be “empowering” and “compelling”. Clique states that, “CMG is always looking for talented team members to join our highly entrepreneurial environment. Our employees are goal driven and hands-on, inspiring each other with the great work they do everyday. We believe that ideas come from anywhere and anyone….”. From reading this I feel a sense of community within the company, where the atmosphere is welcoming and people are open to suggestions, supporting one another and using teamwork as one of their key strengths to attain continual success.
From these articles, I believe Kerr and Power provide many insights that are useful to us as First-Year business students. With key takeaways being : to constantly challenge yourself to do more, and look at all aspects of the business world with a critical eye, similar to our learnings from SWOT and Business Plan assignments. On one hand Kerr explains that, “Great ideas can come from anywhere. It reminds me to always stay curious, read everything and talk to everyone, because you never know what might spark an idea.” On the other hand, Power advises, “Sometimes you just have to get it done. Rather than waiting for the perfect situation or scenario, and potentially missing an opportunity, make things work with the available resources.” Which is exactly what it took to start Clique Media group.
Word Count : 450
References
Website : http://www.cmginc.com
Articles : http://money.cnn.com/interactive/technology/15-questions-with-hillary-kerr-katherine-power/, http://www.forbes.com/sites/sboyd/2014/11/12/how-hillary-kerr-and-katherine-power-founders-of-who-what-wearclique-media-built-a-media-empire/2/#4ea05b5d1054 ,http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2016/09/27/whowhatwears-katherine-power-how-we-grew-a-fashion-site-into-a-media-empire/#72fd59c57bde
Additional Sources : https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/clique-media-3#/entity ,
https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Clique-Media-Group-Reviews-E230823.htm
