Ep. 014: Rafat Ali

Polymathic Audio by 2PM Inc.

Of my favorite episodes are ones where I am the student and my guest is the teacher. This is one of them. Rafat Ali is the CEO and Founder of Skift, a B2B media company and travel intelligence startup. Founded just eight years ago, Ali and the Skift team have raised just $3 million and they now employ 66 at Skift. Ali’s expressed goal is to become the Bloomberg of travel intelligence.

Joining us from Morocco, this episode is full of actionable insights. We discuss Substack, building independent media brands, and a conversation about Amazon and air travel that combined our two worlds of niche study: travel and eCommerce.

Skift is the B2B equivalent of the B2C media brands like Barstool, Hodinkee, and Goop that receive a lot of credit for their innovate revenue and community practices. It’s about time that the average consumer sees the travel intelligence company for what it is – a generational media brand in the works. This 43 minutes is a masterclass in the “zero to one” of building a media brand.

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