Happy Throwback Thursday, SpinSheet readers! Here’s an excerpt from our founding editor Dave Gendell’s Editor’s Note from the July 2000 issue titled “SpinSheet Turns Five”:
It’s that time of year again. This month marks the fifth birthday of SpinSheet Magazine. It was a strange and difficult birth—far from the money-soaked and romanticized “start-ups” glamorized by the media today. We had just been laid off from Rags Magazine when the publication was shut down. There was no “revenue stream.” There was no real office. There were no paychecks. There was another magazine with a similar mission in the works across town. It was an uneasy summer.
There are flashes of memory that, to me, define that stretch. I escaped for a long weekend in early July, 1995 to sail the Marblehead to Halifax Race aboard Donnybrook. I stepped on the boat in Marblehead stressed out and unsure of myself or the project. The tremendous support of the crew on that race injected a much-needed dose of confidence and energy. Sandy Morse, Sally Coulton, and the 1995 crew of their J/35 Jake also were very supportive of our effort.
We didn’t know it, but our timing was excellent. The marine industry was about to enter a huge growth cycle. A Whitbread stopover on the Chesapeake would energize the sailing community. Emerging technology would make the process of running a small publishing business easier and more efficient. We were soon to be at the epicenter of the nation’s best sailing community.
There were something like 10 paid advertisers in that first issue. The confidence expressed by these believers and a strong vision of what the magazine should be were enough to drive us forward.
There were moments that seem funny now but were terrifying at the time. I was writing, and Mary (Ewenson) was selling ads and managing the business end of the start-up, but about 10 days before we were scheduled to print the premier issue, we looked at each other and realized that we had no plan for the final one third of the equation: the part we now call “production.” So we opened the Pagemaker, Corel Draw, and Photoshop manuals and faked our way through the lay-out and production cycle (it showed).
And somehow, through the kindness, support and patience of our families, friends, advertisers, writers, photographers, distribution points, staff, and a lengthy list of vendors, suppliers, distribution people, truck drivers, and printers, we survived...
