How The Ken tackled Covid, devised a complete work-from-home strategy, and thrived
The pandemic made us realise it was never about the offices alone — it was about the culture, The Ken’s co-founder and CEO Rohin Dharmakumar says.
Takeaways
Launched in 2016, The Ken is a subscriber-driven service covering business and tech with teams in 6 countries and 13 cities.
During the pandemic as The Ken’s offices closed, they actually added 5,000 paid subscribers, jumped to 25,000 paid subscribers, and reported their best quarter ever.
During the launch, Team Ken decided that everyone would write, just as founders in startups code to stay connected to the product. The Ken’s co-founders would contribute stories.
Context
Launched in Bangalore in 2016, The Ken pioneered a subscription-driven model reporting on the intersection of tech and business.
With 41 staffers across 6 countries and 13 cities, The Ken developed a niche for reporting on five key verticals: business (189 stories), technology (165 stories), startups (154 stories), healthcare (82 stories), and science (20 stories).
But, like any other journalism platform, The Ken loved their offices and meetings as a way to discuss ideas, collaborate and believed it was an integral part of their culture. Leaving their offices in July 2020 as part of work-from-home has only made the teams resilient, Dharmakumar says.
Through the pandemic, The Ken launched a newsletter Beyond the First Order (BFO), started a regional Southeast Asia service, and moved to Slack, G-Suite, and other online communications for the entire journalism process of ideation, reporting, editing, and publishing.
How The Ken made the most of Covid
To keep employees happy, The Ken provides Apple MacBooks, Slack, G-suite, health insurance. It also offers company sponsored-flu vaccinations to everyone and have added Covid-19 insurance to group policies.
They created a work-from-home allowance for staffers to get ergonomic desks and chairs at home.
As the pandemic stuck, The Ken’s focus shifted to survival so new hiring was frozen as they anticipated subscription slowdown as well. They did not cut any jobs — in fact, they’re hiring.
Communication matters, either through Slack or a weekly all-hands meeting. The team recommends over-communicating but also has a peer-system to help their colleagues deal with uncertainties and anxieties.
Losing the office made The Ken stronger. In Q2 of 2020, they reported their best-ever quarter with new subscriptions, renewals, and signups. Their subscribers peaked at 25,000 paying subscribers with 150,000 registered readers.
“The pandemic took away our offsites, onsites and our offices. But what it left was a bunch of these other things that we had deliberately been making, but we never knew how they added up to something larger than that. And that really is the beauty of systems, right?” — Rohin Dharmakumar
Cultural values at The Ken
Transparency and openness Open metrics, Slack culture and all-hands meetings
Fun and camaraderie Offsite and onsite meetings, made-up rituals like fun quizzes
Collaboration Offices, Slack, G-Suite
Culture of feedback Training, feedback systems, acceptance of criticism and dogfooding.
Independence and resilience Organically evolving organization structure, zero hierarchies and everyone writes
Mild paranoia, healthy stress, constant curiosity Freedom to hypothesise and experiment with no holy cows.
The Ken’s model for hiring and finding newer writers
Structured and rigorous hiring and onboarding
Role ready in 30-45 days
No supervisor culture
Intrinsic motivation
Mentor/guide to help people hone their skills
Decentralised performance management
Access to resources, tools, processes which make it easier to get work done
Motivated colleagues offer referrals for other potential employees
Find out more about The Ken’s recent expansion in Southeast Asia on Splice
Seeing a gap in Southeast Asia, India’s The Ken plots a regional expansion with local teams
Rohin and Jon Russell were also on Splice Low-Res in March to talk about their Southeast Asia plan