Om Malik’s one-year-old media empire continues to grow: it now includes five blogs, a weekly video show and a job listing site. I imagine things are getting a little crazy around the office. Which is why I’m not at all surprised that he’s brought on a seasoned executive, Paul Walborsky, to help him manage and grow the company as its Chief Operating Officer.
Walborsky, who has both operational and deal experience, was most recently a managing director at Hercules Technology Growth Capital. He’s also held senior positions at Lehman Brothers, ING Barings and Swiss Bank Corp.
Walborsky says he will manage the non-editorial aspects of the business - sales, operations, events, etc., and Malik will oversee all editorial for the various properties (in addition to writing full time). The non-writing staff includes just two others at this point - Joanne Wan in business development and Mike Sly, the VP of Sales. The company will be hiring more people in sales and marketing in the near future, he says.
I’m not surprised at all by this move, since I went through it myself. When Om wrote about our hire of Heather Harde as CEO he mentioned how difficult it was to balance what he called “editorial tasks with chief janitorial duties.” It looks like he’s found the right guy to take over those “janitorial duties” for his business, too. Congratulations to the whole team.
In a phone call with Walborsky today, he said the company was planning on raising a new round of financing in the next 3-4 months to add to few hundred thousand they raised a year ago. Walborsky says they may do an internal round just with True Ventures, or bring in a new outside investor. No word on how much they’re going to raise, though.
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How much venture capital does a blog really need?
Uhhhohhh…Pointing people to the competition?
C’mon folks - Who (in the grand scheme/long run) really cares?
Om’s been a mentor to me for a long time. He’s not competition. As a fellow blogger, we build up each other’s businesses. It’s a key difference between blogs and big media that people still don’t seem to understand.
This is what I call “Lunch buddy blogging”
(though not denying that Om has, or is growing, a real business)
Sounds exciting - saw those pics of the om offices, look amazing - how cool must that location be!
You and Om seem like complete opposites, he is the softy, and you as the “do what i say or you dont get on tc” hardy.
I guess you made up from the earlier, “I’m now pissed off at every single person involved in this. Denton for bringing up a non issue to attack competitors, Malik for folding immediately and making it seem like someone did something wrong…” incident to get the first dibs on the story.
I am burying this story for “who cares?” wait … I’m not on Digg, damn.
But they still are not profitable.
Good stuff. Congrats to GigaOm!
Is it just me or is TC a sort of closed shop that favors startups and tech that they are connected to on some level?? and/or just the big guns blowing VC money and going down the tube or hoping to get bought out.
Also, while I’m in critical mode, the forums seem to be dumping grounds for ideas and ads, there doesn’t seem tobe any discussion going on, 99% of posts have no replies.
Maybe I’m on the wrong blog??? where’s the impartial interesting blog??
M
Max, it’s just you. Of course TC is impartial and interesting, just ask them! LOL
Of lately, I’ve felt the same way about a lot of tech sites. They seem to be aiming their glowing reports to those with the advertising dollars.
But, it could just be me..lol
Don
I missed Duncan. I was huge fan of Duncan. I like to wish him luck and success in his newest career.
Why won’t mike tell us that Duncan resign Techcrunch?
Dude, Duncan is on vacation. Chill.
“Om’s been a mentor to me for a long time. He’s not competition.”
Don’t fool yourself. Cross linking, cross posting, yada, yada, at the end business is business, it’s a zero sum game…
I’m with Mike on this one. There is room for two major Web technology blogs - I’ve been quite happy reading both TechCrunch and GigaOm for the last year. And if people are making accusations that TechCrunch is only profiling companies that they are connected to on some level - surely that justifies the need for alternative opinions.
The GigaOm offices do look awesome - I think it’s time for TC to be profiled on Office Snapshots….
Congrats Om! This is a big step for Gigaom and another score for bloggers.
still not profitable
What is the point of all this investment and head-count?
response: to grow the business of course…
Well at what point are these no longer “blogs” and just normal media companies existing as online only editions?
cnet.com has blogs too.
1MM - 2MM range?… Also, where’s the hockey-stick growth to warrant V.C. investment?
everyone knows that Om and Mike are competition. mike is being nice because he took over Om’s business in reporting and infomercials. Good luck Om. Congrats on another TC selective post.
I like Om Malik a lot. He’s a cool, cool guy. I remember him from his Business 2.0 days, great journalist. I think the expansion plans that he and both TechCrunch have (as stated in Wired article) are smart, and that you’ve both hired people to handle aspects of it is even smarter - expansion is necessary but not easy. It’s good to see people understand the need for support.
Good luck to Om!
There’s a brief mention of possibly going out to raise funds. How’s TCs (sequel/3quel?) fundraising going? Any link to mike’s quitting the board of foldera?
Great idea in hiring this successful COO…The best way to grow is to get others who have better skills in areas you lack… I also think that the secret to GigaOM’s success will be the use of their video blog as well as their video content…The next generation of the web will be video for all readers and viewers love to see digital storytelling in the making, it allows people to connect with the readers and the brand in order to ensure proper retention of the content…Bravo on all new ideas GigaOM and step up the video content even more (there must be ways to turn most content into video while keeping it entertaining).
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