Elizabeth Spiers: 'Launches Aren't Much Fun'

With Dealbreaker, Elizabeth Spiers — the founding editor of both Gawker and some of mediabistro's blogs — is at it again. This time, Spiers has her unapologetic periscope locked on the catty, sometimes-cantankerous world of Wall Street gossip. Backed by Justin Smith, president of The Week, and Logicworks CEO Carter Burden, Dealbreaker is the first in Spiers' planned blog network. (She's understandably tight-lipped on just what the focus of the forthcoming blogs might be.)

Mediabistro's managing editor Dylan Stableford caught up with Spiers via email a few hours after the opening bell to talk Gawker, pre-launch rituals and what backlash, if any, the Street and regulators have in store.

mediabistro: How did the Dealbreaker project come about? Did you approach Justin Smith? Did he approach you?

Spiers: Justin was a friend of mine socially and I offhandedly mentioned to him in September or October, that I was thinking of writing a Wall Street blog. He said he'd be interested in funding it, but at that point I thought it was going to be a one-off blog and I didn't need investors to do that. Justin then introduced me to his friend Carter Burden, who was interested in online media, and we began discussing the possibility of doing something together. The three of us eventually decided to do a network.

mb: When you're prepping a blog launch, do you do editorial test posts? Do you launch with archives of posts? Or do you have evergreen stuff ready to go?

Spiers: It depends. If I'm writing it myself, I do less editorial testing simply because I already know what's going to be on the page and it's not a matter of working with a writer to shape the content. There are a few archived posts in Dealbreaker right now, but not many. And we've got some evergreen stuff as well.

mb: Are you concerned about a backlash from the Street, in terms of potential audience and/or sources?

Spiers: Not really. Those are the people who are most interested in the site. The only backlash I've gotten has been from bloggers who don't care about Wall Street and maybe a small handful of financial reporters who think we're stepping on their territory.

mb: What do you do when someone feeds you a document that has the potential to move a market, or at least influence the price of a stock?

Spiers: Report it out, just like anything else.

mb: Has the SEC, FTC or other regulators been in touch?

Spiers: Ha. No. The SEC gets in touch if there's a problem. They don't call just to say "hi."

mb: Will you be disclosing your investments anywhere? What are they? What's your policy for you and writers/staff? What about for your investors?

Spiers: I have no investments at the moment, so there's nothing to disclose, but the internal policy is that you can't write about something if there's a conflict of interest. My investors don't direct editorial, and I don't know what their financial holdings are, so it's a non-issue.

mb: What's been the best part of your association with Gawker? What's been the worst?

Spiers: It was fun developing an editorial product from scratch and seeing it take off and get replicated elsewhere. The worst? Periods of gratuitously negative and often inaccurate coverage that wouldn't have occurred if I didn't have a history with the site and the people involved in it. But no regrets. It was fun to do.

mb: What's the secret to finding good bloggers?

Spiers: I don't think there is one. If it were easy, everyone would be doing this.

mb: When will your company go public?

Spiers: I'm not gonna touch that with a ten-foot pole wrapped in SEC-compliant disclaimers.

mb: You're very good at creating buzz. How do you do it?

Spiers: Entertaining your readers isn't strictly necessary but it helps. Beyond that, pay attention to who's reading you organically and what they want. And I think it's easier to sustain buzz when you're consistently taking small risks with your editorial formula and concepts. You don't want to overwhelm people but you want to keep showing them something different and provocative.

mb: It's last night, the night before the Dealbreaker launch — more or less your third major blog launch. Do you have any rituals (a la Wade Boggs' legendary pre-game chicken meal)? And is the excitement akin to dropping the curtain like those old 70s rock shows?

Spiers: Does not sleeping and fixing bugs until 3:00 a.m. count as a ritual? Mostly it's just work. It gets fun when you hit your stride and you're getting regular readers. Launches aren't much fun.