The Mentor Who Changed My Life—And Could Probably Change Yours

I was a disheveled 24-year-old journalist sporting six inches of vertical jew fro when I first met Shane Snow.

He was standing on stage at a New York tech event, eloquently talking about the future of content, and how his new company, Contently, was revolutionizing the way brands worked with journalists and told stories. As Shane glided across the stage, I felt defeated. Not just because Shane had discovered some secret hair product that let his signature curls outshine my frizz nest. Mostly, it was because I was running a news site that made most of its money from custom branded content, and as the Contently buzz built, our clients were suddenly threatening to leave us for Shane.

Shane Snow, Coppertone Cover Model

I had no idea what I was doing from a business perspective. But I knew that we weren’t going to beat Contently. I briefly considered following the Sampson theory and giving Shane a sneak-attack haircut, but that’d probably just end with a story in Digiday that was like, "Crazy Troll Attacks Tech Wunderkind." So instead, we decided to join them.

In late 2011, my partner and I snagged a meeting with Shane and Sam Slaughter, Contently’s Philly-slang slinging VP of Content. We offered up our services to help Contently clients with strategy and editorial management, and to bring some of our writers into Contently’s network. We spitballed crazy ideas for an hour. Shane was incredibly open about his vision for the business. We walked away beaming. “These are our people,” I raved to my partner.

A month later, we started doing work for Contently. Shane wasn’t involved in the nitty gritty client work I was doing, but I still hounded him like an orphaned cartoon bird. “Are you my mentor?” I’d ask, pecking at his head.

“Huh?” He’d respond, when he’d come for air between feverish typing marathons on his impossibly loud gaming keyboard.

“Um, I mean, wanna get lunch?”

Eventually I realized the way to Shane’s heart: Pizza. We set up a standing monthly pizza date, working our way through the top pizza spots in New York. The dairy and gluten wreaked havoc on my sensitive stomach, but I kept that to myself. We’d split a pie and feverishly debate the future of media. I’d wonder how the hell Shane was so put together despite only being three years older than me, and if there was enough lactaid in the world to maintain this relationship.

Shane generously listened to all of my troubles with my own business, and his advice, combined with the flurry of work we got through Contently, kept our business alive and allowed me to keep paying the rent on my lopsided, creaky Chinatown apartment, which somehow smelled like clam chowder year-round.

I was entranced by the business Shane was building. There was an electricity at Contently—a motley crew of unconventional, creative people that was quickly earning the reputation of a company ten times its size. Shane and his fellow co-founders—Joe Coleman and Dave Goldberg—eagerly welcomed new perspectives into the office. The door was literally open to any freelancers who wanted to stop by and work.

I abused that offer. But instead of politely asking me to go home, they invited my small team to escape our cramped co-working space to take over the communal table at Contently and guzzle the free office snacks.

By the middle of 2013, my business was floundering, and we decided to cut our losses and sell. I had no idea what I wanted to do next, and to make matters worse, a back alley sucker-punch in Tel Aviv left me with a broken jaw wired shut all summer.

Over one of our lunches—which now involved Shane eating a pizza by himself while I tried to suck down a protein shake through my wired teeth—I spilled my guts to Shane. He listened intently to my lisped grunts. And then, a few days later, Shane and Sam did something crazy.

They asked me to come on as Contently’s editor-in-chief.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a huge risk. Contently’s reputation was built on high-quality content and industry thought leadership. Contently’s own content was the key to all of that. And I was a 25-year-old who looked like this:

Me, at a work event

Once I started working at Contently, I realized Shane’s genius wasn’t just writing or speaking or pitching, but in bringing together people with diverse perspectives and crazy ideas who challenged each other to build something great.

We only had about a dozen employees at that point, stuffed into a half-floor office we shared with two other startups. It quickly became my favorite place on earth—a buzzing salon of constant debate about everything from product to pricing to Biggie vs Tupac. I’d never seen an environment where people felt so safe to offer their honest opinion, whether they were the CTO or the most junior intern.

My days were spent sparring with our VP of Product. He’d give me very blunt, very German feedback on our content while I harangued him with every minute glitch in the platform. Over lunch, I’d pick the brain of our head of sales, learning everything she’d done to build a booming branded content business at The Wall Street Journal. You think we’d get sick of each other, but every Friday found us all at the bar, drawing up plans to take over the world.

Shane constantly reminded us of our mission—that Contently could build a better media world by empowering brands to tell honest, journalistic stories that helped people do their job better or live their life better. That great stories could replace stalkery display ads. That we could help journalists, filmmakers, graphic designers, and other creatives make great money doing what they love, on their own terms. He commissioned a mural on our wall that said “Those Who Tell the Stories Rule the World”, and it never felt cheesy. Every day, it reminded us what we showed up to work to do.

There was a special vibe to the company that clients, prospects, and friends could sense. Something that was described to me over and over again as “electric.”

To use a business cliche, everyone who worked for Contently seemed to punch above their weight. They accomplished things they’d never tried before because they felt safe to fail, and because they cared. And so our growth was electric too. Within a couple of years, we transformed from a dozen dreamers in Soho to a company with 100+ employees, and a global network of 100,000+ freelancers around the globe.

Shane and the other founders had a special ability to recognize talent. He encouraged me to trust my gut and completely flip our content strategy on its head. It worked—our audience grew 30x and became one of the primary drivers of growth for our business. He trusted that I had the skills and perspective to accomplish things at Contently that I hadn’t realized were possible. It changed my life.

Over the years, Shane and I only grew closer—and even wrote a best-selling book together—and I transitioned from being a doting admirer to Shane’s toughest critic behind the scenes (at least according to him … you should see our WhatsApp thread). And that’s because Shane understands the power of feedback—and is more open to it than anyone I know.

I write all of this not to brag about what an amazing mentor I had and how he changed my life, but because (***SHAMWOW INFOMERCIAL VOICE***) starting today, you can benefit from Shane’s magic, too. Over the past four years, I’ve watched him spend damn near every second of his free time writing an incredible book called Dream Teams. It’s about the science and history of great teams, and what makes a select few have tremendous success while most fail. It’s a riveting book that I couldn’t put down, and it’s the best thing Shane’s ever written. That’s a little hard for me to admit given that we wrote a book together, but it’s true.

It opened my eyes to the secret and science of collaboration, and I can safely say will change the way I work for the rest of my life. You should read it, and if you don’t love it, I can probably guilt Shane into reimbursing you.

After all, there’s nothing more beautiful in life than finding your dream team—the people who elevate you to a higher plain that you didn’t know existed. A book won’t build your dream team for you. But it can help you spot the people that’ll change the course of your life. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll choose to embrace them, instead of charging at them on stage, desperately trying to cut off their hair.

(And here is an Amazon link to the book, in case you're feeling spunky want to take my advice.)