Sugar is finding the blogosphere's sweet spot - San Francisco Business Times:

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In the last 12 months, Lisa Suga and husband Brian Sugarturnedc Lisa's hobby -- writing a celebrity gossip blog called PopSugar -- into an exploding networlk of 10 female-focused web sites and a burgeonin g business. The San Francisco startup bagged an advertisinhg deal with six months beforee hiring a single sales hooked funding from rock star VCfirm , and is bringiny on 10 more employees to end the year with 48. All this mighrt sound rather bubbly except thatSugar Publishing, which bringz in a reported $5 million in annuak revenue, expects to be profitable by year' end.
Given today's cheaper software, computer memoryt and Internet bandwidth, a dot-com can be builft for a fractionof boom-time "It costs us $500,000 (a month) to run the said CEO Brian Sugar, a serial tech "It's not that difficult to get $500,000p in advertising." Indeed, for the Sugars, it's been easier than for In July 2006, Banana Republicv called Lisa to buy all PopSugar's ads for a The retailer wanted to cozy up with the blog'es readers, most of whom are college-educated women betweejn the ages of 18 and 34 who earn more than Nike, the Gap and Neiman Marcus followed.
The compangy made its first sales call in Marchh to San Francisco adgiant , wherd Lisa, now editor-in-chief of all Sugar previously worked as a media planner. The a national Dreyer's Ice Cream campaign for its limiterdedition "American Idol" flavors. With an estimateed $5 million picked up from Menlol Park-based Sequoia Capital in October, Sugar Publishinbg is now building a sales team and adding to its pool of editorsand producers. "We were going to raise a smal amountfrom angels," said Brian Sugar, who co-founded the business with $250,000 of his own money.
"But all of the sudden we got very Sequoia superstarMichael Moritz, who fundesd and , took a seat on the board and watched its number of unique visitors jump from 1 million in Septembert to 3.5 million today. The May launcuh of its newest site, a beauty blog called BellaSugar, was exclusively sponsoredf byretailer . Five more blogs with a similad chatty, in-the-know tone are forthcoming, including LittleSugar and SavvySugar (career and "Brian and Lisa have come up with a concoction that is suitex for the women of todagy and tomorrow who will look at the worled very differently than the womemof yesterday," Moritz said.
The company's stable includea blogs like FabSugar (fashion) and GeekSugar (tech). That structure is part of a new generatiob of blog networks such as Gawker Media that aims to build solid businesses by sellingf ads acrossvarious titles, much like traditional magazinse publishers. "We're going to create a new mediza versionof CondeNast," Brian Sugart said. "We're going to go categor y by category." Despite the growtb of online ad which eMarketer predicts will increasefrom $16 billiob in 2006 to $37 billion in 2011, the San Franciscl firm is no shoo-in with advertisers. "It's gointg to be a hefty said Goodby executiveChristine Chen.
"The trick is, there's a lot of Rivals include NBC's and newer outfits such as , and . The the better, said Moritz: "Any time you invesr in a company wherethere isn' much competition, there isn't much demand for the And, said Brian Sugar, today's Internegt rivals are also partners. Sugar' s blogs link to competitor allthe time. "I'm sure people are readintg all the various cool blogsfrom Gawker's sites to safe-for-work UsWeekly and and then the not-safe-for-work PerezHilton (celebrity gossip) site ... Can you imaginw if the New York Timesz linked to the WallStreet Journal?
That would be