Fast Company, Inc. Seek Better Year After Substantial Traffic Dip

Fast Company and Inc. have seen traffic plummet by 38% and 68% each, since a peak during the pandemic in 2021. Their financial performance has slipped. There’s hope for this year, though, even as the world fears a recession and costs are expected to rise.

The reasons for the drop in readership are varied, and largely out of their control: social media algorithm changes and search platforms deemphasizing news; a strong interest in news coming out of Washington, DC, which the magazines do not cover; general news fatigue; and the end of the pandemic, a time when a lot of people had a lot of spare time to read.

That’s according to Mansueto Ventures Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Mehta, who is overseeing the efforts to bring the brands back to making good money. The company was founded by Joe Mansueto in 2005 when he bought the magazines. Mansueto also founded financial services firm Morningstar, Inc. in 1984.

How are they going to get back to making money? In a nutshell, the answer is turning away from scale and towards community, one that connects audiences, advertisers and content in diverse ways. Those include a multitude of events of all sizes, newsletters, licensing, exclusive and specialized membership programs and even recognition program application fees.

“The most loyal and the most valuable audiences are people that increasingly are parts of our communities, and so Fast Company and Inc. both have, in recent years, been increasingly moving into the creation of communities,” Mehta told AMO.

While we will never see big scale numbers, we do have the right audiences, and we have really engaged audiences… We aren’t selling volume, we are selling this precise audience, but we’re also selling a very bespoke kind of brand partnership. So the people who come to Fast Company and Inc. for advertising, they’re not just buying eyeballs, they are buying a deeply integrated relationship with our ad sales teams and ultimately with our audiences.

As an example, Mehta cited Capital One, which is a big advertiser for both brands and with which it created several programs, including a co-produced video series called “Your Next Move” and receptions open only to Capital One customers at the Inc. 5000 conference, which honors the 5,000 fastest growing privately held companies in America.

Memberships & Communities

Inc. bills itself as built for the American entrepreneur, writing stories with the aspiring and existing founder in mind. On the other hand, Fast Company’s coverage tends to focus more on both venture-backed startups and the largest tech companies in the world.

Each magazine is published four times a year with a rate base of 250,000 and a total team of 200 people, of which 82 are in editorial. In March, Inc. had 4.8 million unique monthly visitors and Fast Company had around 6.1 million, according to ComScore. That’s down from 2020 when both sites peaked: Inc.com averaged about 15 million monthly unique visitors and Fastcompany.com averaged 10 million U.S. monthly unique visitors.

Google rolled out a core update in March; Fast Company was not impacted, but Inc.’s traffic has seen declines that correlate with the update. “Our product and engineering teams have been working on some adjustments that we’ve pushed out which we hope will support the health of Inc.’s traffic,” Mehta said.

Some of the formal and exclusive communities that exist today include the Fast Company Impact Council, for c-suite executives who aren’t necessarily CEOs; Inc. Masters, for honorees of the Inc. 5000; and Fast Company Executive Board, for senior executives, founders and industry experts who apply to join.

The Impact Council has about 500 members who pay fees of $3,500 to $3,995 per year. The Inc. Masters community online has a couple thousand members at a cost of $2,495 to $2,995.

Membership numbers for the Executive Board aren’t disclosed as, unlike the aforementioned two, it’s run by a third party organization; yearly fees range from $2,800 to $6,900.

That is part of the consumer revenue bucket—which also includes subscriptions and application fees for the different programs they run—representing about one-third of total revenue.

“That has really been a big source of revenue over the course of the last several years,” Mehta said. It “has helped offset some of the softness and some of the volatility in advertising sales.”

Ad sales from all activities comprise more than 50% of revenue—the divide is roughly 10/90 between programmatic/direct sold. Revenue also comes from events, including white label content services for company events—like programming a panel for a company and being able to say it was created in partnership with Fast Company, for example. That’s not a newsroom job, but a custom content team role, Mehta said.

Finally, Mansueto runs a licensing business. If named a “most innovative company,” that organization would pay a fee to use the Fast Company logo. That comprises north of 10% of annual revenue.

Events

Mansueto Ventures has yet to see a slowdown in conversations around participation or sponsorship of events, but they are starting to see vendors talk about price increases because all the things that go into making a conference are manufactured abroad, Mehta said.

“There’s no way of getting around that, and so we try to maintain really, really strong cost discipline around the execution of our events,” Mehta said.

The events themselves attract a mix of attendees, including many entrepreneurs who are paying their own way at Inc., and a fair number of people go to Fast Company events on their own dime, seeing it as a kind of personal and professional development, Mehta said.

At the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala, with tickets at $1,995, entrepreneurs network and hear from “inspirational speakers who have achieved superstar status.” It features live entertainment, morning workouts and a gathering of Inc. Masters members who have access to an enhanced experience, including a party with Inc. Editor-in-Chief Mike Hofman, private meet-and-greets with speakers, reserved priority seating at the gala with Inc. editors and more.

Fast Company will hold its 11th annual Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York, which “convenes thousands of business leaders, makers, and innovators for four days of inspired conversations, purposeful networking, engaging activations and concrete takeaways.” Tickets range from $599 to $3,595.

Previous speakers have included actor Ryan Reynolds, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, former commissioner of the United States Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. There’s also a culinary experience held simultaneously.

There is a concern that ongoing geopolitical upheaval could affect the events. Ad agency Omnicom Group said during its first-quarter earnings call this month that the impact of tariffs is still an open question on ad sales, but it is optimistic for a positive outcome. Meanwhile, MoffettNathanson, a research firm, warned that Meta’s online advertising business could take a $7 billion hit this year alone because of tariffs, CNBC reported.

Should the global economy sour, Mansueto’s events could feel some pain.

“If consumer confidence sort of starts to wane globally and in the U.S., I could see a world in which fewer of those people decide that this is where they want to spend their disposable income,” Mehta said. “If there’s a recession, oftentimes, the things that companies pull back on is advertising spending, so we’re watching that closely as well.”