PopSugar. FabSugar. BellaSugar. The list goes on. With 16 million monthly unique visitors, the 16 websites housed under Sugar Inc. engage audiences with news relating to everything from celebrities to home decor. Lisa Sugar founded the company in 2006 with her husband, Brian, after he realized her hobby of writing about celebrities on her PopSugar website was gaining traction. The site was “too good to not do something with it,” she says of Brian encouraging her to start the business. From there, the couple gradually expanded the company; today it has 150 employees. Recently, the company acquired FreshGuide and launched a new Facebook game.

 

I had a background in advertising and media and was always interested in writing. A friend encouraged me to start the business and my husband, who has a great technology and retail background, taught me the technical aspects of running a website. When I first started, the focus was on celebrities and pop culture. I also wanted to write about fashion and beauty. I also became pregnant pretty soon after, so parenting was on my radar as well. I really felt like a one-stop-shop for all things of interest to women didn’t exist.

Similar to how magazines launch out of another magazine, we launched all the sites out of PopSugar. I would write a few fashion posts out of PopSugar, but I knew that writing about a new Balenciaga bag didn’t fit into the stream of Britney going to the gas station. We decided to spin off our fashion content into FabSugar, and also covered beauty on the site. There was so much beauty content, which led to BellaSugar and then CasaSugar, our home decor site. We had at least a dozen categories we wanted to cover.

 

When we started, one of the challenges was keeping the content fresh and exciting. There were a lot of sites that quickly followed suit and then, of course, there were great magazines that were moving online. We aimed to be ahead of the curve.

 

We use a very conversational, fun tone and have written in the first person. We take a positive spin on stories, compared to other outlets. We have continued to figure out ways to make things easy for our readers. For instance, early on we acquired ShopStyle, a site where people can buy clothing, shoes and accessories from leading boutiques such as Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus and Shopbop. Our editors often visited the site for products to highlight in their posts, so it made sense to make it possible for people to purchase what they were reading about.

 

The celebrity world is very different than it was 30 years ago. Back then, the reality star didn’t really exist. The Internet has created many personalities that might not have been famous even 10 years ago. People are very interested in celebrities, and we have been fortunate to work with a lot of the talent. We highlight them in a positive way, as we are their fans and appreciate all their hard work to entertain us.

 

We have continued to expand our content beyond the written word to include video. We recently acquired FreshGuide, which is all about shopping smarter. It’s a city guide that showcases offers from local salons, restaurants, spas and other categories. It’s a great next step for Sugar Inc.

 

We also launched a Facebook game called PopSugar’s Retail Therapy, where visitors can manage their own boutique. There’s a Sugar girl in the game who you can dress in items from Barneys, Gap, Diane von Furstenberg and other brands. Our target is women between 18 and 34, and the idea is to make this audience excited about this world we have created and experience it in different ways. The game is also an additional revenue stream for the company since people purchase items for the Sugar girl through Facebook’s virtual goods platform.