211: Contently’s Shane Snow on Building a Content Empire and Then Returning to His Writing Roots

While he always had a passion for entrepreneurship, Shane Snow started his career as a freelance journalist, and during that time noticed how many of his peers were struggling to market themselves and find work. This frustration fueled his desire to develop the global content marketing platform, Contently. Contently is a unified content marketing solution for the world’s biggest enterprise brands, and it’s also a tremendous source of income for creative freelancers. By Snow’s best estimates, Contently has paid out more than $46 million (and counting) to freelancers around the globe. As successful as his time at Contently has been, Snow never stopped being a writer at heart, and now he's back at it. He recently hired a CMO for Contently and became “founder-at-large,” relieving himself of the day-to-day management and freeing up his time to reunite with his first career love. Today, you can find Snow promoting his soon-to-be-published book, Dream Teams, and otherwise sharing his expertise on team building and storytelling for founders. In this interview, Snow shares his journey to the top of the entrepreneurial mountain and back home again, along with his best advice learned from a seven-year reign at Contently. Key Takeaways The two realizations Snow had that sparked the idea for Contently How Snow transitioned out of his role as founder and returned back to his former love of journalism Snow's counterintuitive advice on team building and how it relates to innovation One of the most important things we can do as leaders and team members to build relationships Key Resources From Our Interview With Shane Snow Find out more about Shane Snow here Follow Shane on Twitter Learn more about Contently