Access: Meet Laura Bartlett, Founder and Editor in Chief, House Of Coco
"If you think creating a magazine is a get rich quick scheme, think again"
Entrepreneur Laura Bartlett was just 23 when she launched her first magazine but the collapse of her first venture - a publication showcasing indie fashion labels - only made the self-taught editor more determined to learn from her mistakes. The result is luxury travel magazine House of Coco, which is celebrating its eighth birthday this September. And as Laura and the brands clamouring to work with her have proved, print is certainly not dead. Richard Dunnett finds out more...
Photo credit: Chris Spencer Payne
Laura Bartlett is founder and editor-in-chief of House of Coco. She fell in love with the media industry while working in radio before being headhunted to write for a local business and restaurant magazine in Leeds. In 2013, aged just 23, she launched Urban Coco, a magazine for independent fashion brands outside of London. Despite an unsuccessful appearance on Dragon’s Den, Bartlett took the magazine into 16 countries before the company went into liquidation. Undeterred, in 2014 Bartlett founded House of Coco, a luxury travel magazine for millennials. Staffed by 28 freelancers around the world – known as Team Coco – House of Coco has a current reader circulation of around 19,000 per issue.
I launched my first magazine, Urban Coco, from scratch. Ten years ago, I was working for a local restaurant and business magazine in Leeds but there was literally nothing original about it. I was inspired to get into the world of publishing because I saw a massive gap in the market for northern magazines – and I didn’t think I was ever going to get a job at Vogue or anywhere like that because I’d never been to university. The obvious answer was to create my own.
My idea was a magazine to provide a platform for the underdogs of the fashion industry. I would showcase the coolest independents from around the world. I taught myself everything I needed to know from writing articles, shooting editorials, working with influencers, creating content and distribution. I created so much hype that Harvey Nichols in Leeds wanted to host the launch. We had 80 guests and 300 hundred people queuing to get their hands on the first copy.
Laura Bartlett
To be a success, a business needs to be more about the team and less about the founder. That’s the most important business decision I ever made with House of Coco. When I started Urban Coco, I was young, probably narcissistic and it was all about me. I wrote the content, did the shoots, enjoyed the PR freebies. The company buckled and I was bankrupt. The second magazine thrived.
You can achieve what you want without upfront capital. I launched House of Coco with zero pounds. We've more than 350,000 readers, the magazine is growing month-on-month and it generates me over six figures every single year. But the most important thing, it gives me and my team a lifestyle that we could have only ever dreamed of. We’ve travelled the world creating epic content with the most luxurious hotel destinations in the world.
It's the vision and story, not the numbers. I’ve worked with some of the world’s biggest brands. I was the only person in the UK to have a long-term car partnership when I secured a four-year sponsorship from Land Rover to create content for the magazine. When I signed the partnership, we had around 5000 Instagram followers and we were generating 30,000 unique views on our website every single month. So it wasn't about the numbers, it was about my vision and the story behind it – and they absolutely fell in love with it.
House of Coco is more real, more honest, and more down to earth than other luxury titles. They all cover the same content, speak in the same way and have the same people writing for them. We don’t use fancy words just to make things sounds better. We make sure that the right person works on the right piece of content to get the best out of it, whether that’s luxury travel, travelling with dogs or wellness.
Deniz Yilman and Taheed Khan
We’re like a mini marketing agency as well as a magazine. Everyone who creates content for our magazine is part of the team – that’s our USP. They are a content creator in their own right, so if we're sending someone on a press trip or if we're working on a brand partnership, you know they know the audience.
Print isn’t dead. While the rise in social and video has been inevitable, PRs and brands are still crying out for beautiful content in a print magazine. It’s tangible, you can see it, feel it and there’s an actual return on investment as opposed to sending an influencer on a £5000 experience and getting one Instagram post. There’s so much noise online that people want ‘me time’ with a magazine and a cup of tea.
Our digital footprint is really strong but print is our main focus. We’re also working on a new SEO strategy to become the number one travel magazine in the world, planning events, awards and currently working on potential brand partnerships for next year’s editions. Other publishers may be pulling away from print but I’m going full steam ahead and expanding in as many places as we possibly can.
Chris Spencer Payne
Don’t believe the old saying, ‘It’s not personal, it’s only business’. This is my business and my business is my entire life. Be truthful with people when facing challenges. If I’m not feeling my best self, I’ll explain that I’m not going to be accessible for a few days and ask that my boundaries are respected. If after seven years of running your own business, you can't step away when you're at your lowest, then you need to rethink what you do.
Be true to yourself. It took a few issues of House of Coco to find our feet. I was cautious after going bankrupt and didn’t think we could be too brazen but then we realised we needed to be true to ourselves. Our writers are honest. I don’t care if people are giving us amazing experiences, at the end of the day everything comes down to integrity. That’s probably one of the reasons why, as an independent publisher, we have managed to stick around for so long.