Sarah Dubbeldam: How I became a magazine CEO
Sarah Dubbeldam is a busy lady — the former model from Los Angeles started Darling magazine after a coffee shop conversation in her 20s and now serves as both editor in chief and CEO, as well as her newest job, mom to baby Judah.
USA TODAY caught up with Dubbeldam recently to discuss her role in the magazine industry. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q. Tell me what a typical day looks like for you during magazine production.
Answer: Darling comes out quarterly, so we’re in production right now on our summer issue. Really, as the CEO and editor in chief, I have multiple catch points — we have online, social media, print, events and video, and they all tie together under a current theme.
When I come in, it’s checking with our online team — what are the articles going up? Is there anything I need to write? Are there any intros I need to write? Just keeping tabs on that. With our events, how is our theme flowing through that? What’s coming up? So I might be (organizing) a workshop or teaching some sort of activation at that event, or there might be a Darling Dinner or retreat that’s coming up.
With the print team, I’m always monitoring the production of the photo shoots and the production of the articles. So I’m reading drafts of articles, looking at photos, and going into tandem across those two elements.
I’m also checking in with social media — how are we promoting the new issue? On the video front, we have (behind the scene) videos and things that we’ve shot for the new issue, so I’m approving this, or editing that.
Q. How do you stay grounded wearing so many hats?
A: I think it’s just trying to curb anxiety and to not worry about what and how things are going to happen. I really try to set aside my work life when I’m at home — in the morning I really try to not check my phone, and read or (keep a) journal and spend time with my 1-year-old son. At the end of the day, I return to putting away my phone and go back to detoxing from work and being really mindful and present with my family.
Q. What’s the biggest career lesson that you’ve learned?
A: I work in a crowded space now in women’s empowerment. When we started, it wasn’t as crowded, and we were definitely leaders in that space. Things started to pop up where we’re seeing people not retouching (photos) and using all sizes of models, and this conversation has erupted around beauty. It’s super encouraging, but you also need to compete, right?
There’s this idea of not having a scarcity mind-set — there’s room for everyone at the table. But you also need to learn how to differentiate your ideas and not concern yourself with other people. There’s room for all of us.
Q. What does your career path look like?
A: I’ve always had a passion for creating positive media in the world. I felt from a very young age that there wasn’t a lot of positive media for women, and when I was out of college I struggled with a lot of anxiety and depression — just having a hard time finding my way, a hard time finding a job.
A friend and I had a conversation and decided that we needed to create a magazine for women that focused on real issues that had a wider idea of beauty — not just dumb, shallow topics or click bait celebrity gossip, but real, important issues that actually made women smarter and that didn’t over- sexualize women. It would be a magazine for us — right in this moment — addressing what we were struggling with.
We started a blog and started writing on it about our personal experiences, and then we wrote the mission statement of Darling — a manifesto for what we were doing, what we were personally trying to attain and to define a new kind of movement for women and femininity. We took that mission state- ment and put it on Kickstarter in 2012 and got the funding we needed in three days.
We used that money to create the first few issues and then, on issue No. 3, we began to be displayed for sale in Anthropologie stores. From there, it’s really been a journey, just scaling the business and taking on some investment to be able to grow. In the last two years, we’ve pivoted into more of a media company, pouring more into that digital space as well.
Q. What has been the biggest career hurdle you’ve faced?
A: Definitely fundraising. It’s hard. I hope this is changing, but it’s hard as a woman to get investment. It’s a very male-dominated space, especially if you’re doing something very specifically geared for women. So it can be difficult to find people who care. And it can be really difficult to navigate that business side as a creative person on that creative side. You can have ideas all day long, but if you can’t turn them into a viable business, it’s not going to last.
Q. What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps with starting a magazine or creative venture?
A: One of our strengths at Darling was starting with that mission statement. I think that as a creative person, setting up boundaries for yourself is good. A lot of the time, we’re like “I’m going to do anything and everything!” because you’re a dreamer. But saying that we’re going to do this one thing well and boiling it down to one sentence is really important.