Domino — the shelter magazine that developed a devoted cult following before folding in 2009 — is back.
After months of news leaks, including the hiring of Lonny founder Michelle Adams as editor-in-chief, Condé Nast announced Thursday that it would resurrect the magazine, although it will be a very different kind of launch.
Condé decided to spin it off as a new company, Domino Media Group, in which it will hold roughly one-third of the equity. Three co-founders and the employees will own another third, while venture capital partners will own the rest.
Unlike past Condé launches, which would burn through $100 million or more, this one is capitalized with around $11.5 million. That includes $5 million in funding, primarily from Launch Capital and iNova, plus another $6.5 million in equivalent marketing and support from Condé.
Domino Media is headed by three digital entrepreneurs — Cliff Sirlin, Andy Appelbaum and Aaron Wallace — and won’t carry the Condé stamp on its masthead.
“We’re not part of Condé Nast. We’re independent,” said Sirlin.
While there may be additional funding down the road, “we’re hoping that the initial round is enough to get us to profitability,” he added.
Domino will sink or swim based on how well the e-commerce portion of the venture works. Consumers will go through Domino as a retailer-of-record and be pointed to as many as 30,000 different products.
A printed quarterly magazine will be distributed nationally — 200,000 copies, each with a steep $11.99 cover price. There will be no subscriptions. The magazine hit newsstands in New York Thursday, the same day that Domino.com went live.
But the printed magazine is being looked on as the secondary revenue stream.
“We’re turning the traditional publishing model on its head,” said Beth Fuchs Brenner, the original publisher of Domino, who is returning as Domino’s chief revenue officer after spending the past few years at Meredith.
Brenner was the launch publisher of Domino before its demise during the dark days of the recession in 2009.
Adams also has ties to the magazine, serving as a lowly editorial assistant under original editor Deborah Needleman, who is now the editor-in-chief of the New York Times’ T magazine.
When Adams started Lonny, a digital shelter magazine, she thought it would be a one-shot. Eventually, she and her founding photographer realized it had hit a chord and sold it to Zimbio.
Shortly thereafter, she hooked up with the people trying to revive Domino.
“The biggest surprise in all this is that Condé is acknowledging that they need these young entrepreneurs to make it work,” said Martin S. Walker, an industry consultant at Walker Communications. “There is a realization that it would have died again if they did it with the old overhead and structure.”
The most innovative portion of the deal is the way the e-commerce site is being set up. Domino will serve as vendor for consumers, making it easy for them to buy an item from its pages. Sirlin said that it will have access to items ranging from an $8 wine glass to a $15,000 couch.
“The lion’s share of items will be in the $100 to $1,000 range,” he said. “We effectively buy it on a wholesale level and sell it on a retail level.”
He worked on the deal with Andy Siegel, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Advance Finance Group. Advance Publications is the parent company of Condé.
While Advance has been spending to back other ventures, the Domino deal is the first time it has outsourced one of its own brands. And it may not be the last.
“We’re going to learn from this,” said Condé President Bob Sauerberg.