Chief content officer at Forbes talks ’30 Under 30′ inception

Randall Lane, the chief content officer at Forbes, shared how he came up with and eventually monetized the publication’s notorious 30 Under 30 feature in a recent Medium Q&A.

When asked when he first came up with the idea for 30 Under 30, Lane said:

“In my first startup, the core product was P.O.V. Magazine, a men’s business magazine, in the late nineties, 1999 or 1998. We had the 50 under 35 — the nations’ up and comers — and all sorts of people became big shots like Daymond John. It worked, and I did a roundtable with a whole bunch of them, and that was kind of a test of the idea.

Then on my second startup, I actually honed that idea in a magazine called Trader Monthly. We did a lot of events, and we had 30 Under 30, and that was a big deal in Wall Street. The New York Times did a huge story on it, and we were told it got more traffic than any other story they had done; the idea of young success was very interesting. In Trader Monthly, 50 under 35 and our live events created community, but again it was still small, it was just focused on Wall Street.

With Forbes, the first thing I did when I got back here, the first thing that I put into motion was 30 Under 30. But I said, we’re going to do twenty different categories, we’re gonna bring in some outside judges in the world so it’s not just a bunch of editors coming up with a list: it’s the creme de la creme, the gods of each of these fields, and then we’re gonna take it global, so we’re gonna have a real global community of influencers. So again, the idea had been kind of tested, but to tie it in with a brand, and then with a major execution, was really the Edison moment.”

As far as turning a profit from 30 Under 30, Lane explains:

“First, when the list comes out, basically twitter melts, and it generates many millions of impressions, and we do that around the world. Then, we have giant magazine print executions, that gets sponsored every year. We have a digital community, and we have these live events, where we are creating and have created what is the definitive get-together for young leaders and game-changers and entrepreneurs in the entire world.”

“When you’re talking about monetization, it’s cross-platform but it’s also the line of events gives partners the chance to really touch them, at scale, and intimately. Part of what’s cool about this, is that because we’re very selective in the partners we’ve let in, it has to be a brand that’s consistent with this community. There’s a lot of trust with the brand. There’s a reason some of the brands come back every year, because of the community. We’re validating for these brands, and the community trusts them, so they’re kind of allowed inside the rope, in ways that wouldn’t happen at most events.”