Mileage Media: Erica Berger grows network of cross-city newsletters

Williamsburg journalist and entrepreneur, Erica Berger, was doing some work for Ireland’s Storyful that led her repeatedly out to Los Angeles. She wanted to go to the events in Los Angeles while she was there and maximize her time, but finding them before going was too difficult.

She expressed her frustration to one of the people she met out west, Joe Magee. He said that there was no good way to keep track of other cities, and he felt the same way as she did when he visited New York. So they decided to do something about it and they created their first email newsletter, 2462Miles.

Each issue of the newsletter (such as this one, Flight 37) comes out every two weeks, includes one profile of the a New York company, one LA company, one profile of someone who travels between the two places and three events happening over the next two weeks. Magee and Berger curate them together and found that their list grew rapidly to hundreds of subscribers with no marketing.

2462 Miles launched July 2012. In January, she launched 3460 Miles, connecting New York and London, with Courtney Boyd Myers as her British collaborator. We met Berger and Myers at the inaugural NYC Silicon Drinkabout. Myers connected 3Beards with Mileage Media, and Berger set everything up for them here in Brooklyn.

In April, she launched 2905 Miles with Connie Hwong, a San Francisco resident. For each new newsletter, Berger has worked with a cofounder located in the second city. Soon, they will launch the first newsletter where Berger is not one of the content makers, a San Francisco to LA newsletter, run by Magee and Hwong.

The beauty here is that they will be able to create this newsletter out of the San Francisco content blocks for 2905 Miles and the LA content blocks for 2462 Miles. By repurposing content blocks, the model becomes more scaleable, she said.

The heaviest lift for the creators is finding the people who frequently travel between any one of the three pairs of cities, for those personal profiles. Know someone? Connect them with Erica Berger.

Going forward, they are exploring new ways to make the model more monetizable. It’s entirely bootstrapped now and pays for itself, They have been able to run sponsored events that have helped to make it more profitable and are looking to expand into additional cities.

They have found that cities are different in terms of how people come to events. For example, L.A. events tend to be small, but people end up hugging by the end, after having meaningful conversations. New York tends to have big events with a lot of more surface conversation.

When they made it to London, their participants told them that they hadn’t been to an event with such a solid mix of high quality people in a long time. Mileage Media‘s verticals may excel here because it is probably only the decision makers who are frequently traveling between cities.

Across the network, they have about 4,000 subscribers on their various MailChimp lists. One of the best ways Berger has found to connect people to the newsletter is by talking to people on flights, especially on Virgin America, where she seems to find the most entrepreneurial, seasoned travelers, looking to make contacts and deals.