Conquista - The Cycling Quarterly Issue 2 | Page 12

W E LCO M E TO CO N Q U I S TA I S S U E 2
A Sudden Sense of Liberty
Another three months older and we hope a little wiser. We are starting to find our
own way in this magazine publishing lark.
We embarked upon our journey a little over six months ago. Whilst we had a clear
idea from the start that our style and content would be different there was a certain
temptation to retain some traditional elements in the way we tackled publishing. A
cautious approach even, given our lack of experience in this area. A reluctance to
try too many new things all at the same time. As this world starts to become more
familiar to us we feel able, and indeed obliged, to start to let our creativity express
itself not only in the design of the magazine, but in all areas of how we conduct our
business.
A tiny little independent start-up like ours, trying to keep it real. Two guys, one mag,
you might say. Publishing content purely on the basis that its interesting, engaging
and relevant rather than because someone paid us enough to say nice things
about them. That’s our commitment to our community, we won’t compromise our
principles and standards.
No venture capital or sugar daddy to underwrite our risks and give us the bandwidth
to develop rapidly. Our growth is organic and we hope sustainable.
We’ve experimented a little with our commercial model. We’ve tried to engage with
some of the big boys. Frankly, it’s not been a rewarding experience for a number of
reasons. We continue to strive to bring you the most beautiful free bike content on
the planet. In order to keep content free to you we need a commercial model that
delivers value to our partners. But fundamentally we do this because we enjoy it.
Recently life was becoming increasingly frustrating, to try and fit around rigid and
frankly oppressive processes and protocols. It’s just not us. We took a decision to
switch tack and leave the negativity behind. It’s meant things are going to be tight
for a while. But the process has been liberating. We won’t be held to ransom by
established bike brands just because they are bigger than us. In future we will only
work with brands we want to, and who value us as much as we value them. There
are some things that are simply more important than money.

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