Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Stavinoha.
Katie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
In 2013, I retired from a corporate communication leadership role that required me to hop on multiple planes each week. My initial goal was to drive swim team carpools, volunteer and freelance. I did that for a year. One day a chance lunch with my husband’s aunt resulted in me picking up a copy of the Round Top Register, which had a scary court jester on the front cover. I sat down to read it, getting newsprint all over my hands, and discovered an ad inviting me to “own my own media empire.” (Print advertising works.) I called the owners, and simultaneously reached out to a college buddy… a few weeks later we bought a quarterly tabloid with 11 subscribers in one of Texas’ tiniest towns: Round Top, Texas, pop. 90.
Fast forward five years, that business now includes three titles with more than 200,000 copies distributed — and about 2,000 subscribers from 47 states. A weekly e-newsletter is approaching 19,000 subscribers, the website continues to serve as an information source, and newly launched digital app for the Round Top Antiques Show Guide is pushing the business into the next realm.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Bumpy, bumpy, bumpy. Business ownership is a huge learning curve!
I think the biggest challenge we faced (and I became sole owner at the end of 2018) is how to manage the administrative pieces. We both knew writing, photos, publishing… but not how to make QuickBooks work. Initially, we couldn’t afford a bookkeeping service — and probably didn’t hire a pro soon enough.
Too, we inherited the business’ web host/provider … and had its importance on a back burner… til the day an editor at Texas Monthly called to say our website was down. Ugh. We hired pros after that as well.
Being able to anticipate when the business outgrows your innate capabilities is hard.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
The goal is to 1) entertain; 2) inform; and 3) introduce advertisers to new customers. I’ve found that being successful on numbers 1 and 2 makes doing number 3 easier. With unerring attention to quality words and photos — and a devout adherence to deadlines — the publications are growing. It’s very affirming when a reader tells you they learned something about a person or business or organization as a result of a story — or a mention in a newsletter.
I am most proud of the quality of the publications…and that they continue to evolve to meet readers’ and advertisers’ needs. And to offer new channels for info share via the e-newsletter, social media, the website and now the digital app.
The business has evolved as a result of a great support group — starting with my former partner Lorie Woodward. Her ability to tell a story is unparalleled. That has established a foundation that makes it easy to talk people into opening their lives for an interview. Jennifer West Pickard designed the first logos and the original magazines, giving the business its “face.” We’ve relied on freelances for the entire five years — editors, photographers, contributors, salespeople — the business has allowed others to work on their terms and timelines. That’s been an unexpected joy to experience.
What were you like growing up?
I grew up in a town smaller than Round Top, even though the population would not indicate that. As a toddler, I stayed with my grandmother and Aunt Sissy every day — they read to me, let me sew, took me fishing… I was the only grandchild around so I got lots of attention and they treated me as a little adult. I had chores and lots of love. I think from that grew my love for words — talking, writing, reading — I’m a really good speller.
There were seven people in my graduating class — and six of us started to school together. In a school that small you had to be in everything to make teams… so we were all very busy. I started off college as a petroleum engineering major. That was not a good fit… and I was lucky that Texas A&M University had an agricultural journalism degree that let me combine things I knew about into a major.
That love of words and the ability to synthesize information and get words down quickly has been important in every single role I’ve taken over my now 34-year career. I’ve done trade associations (pecans) daily newspaper reporter, alumni relations, politics, state agency, corporate communications and now entrepreneur. I have been very lucky that every job I’ve taken has positioned me to learn — and be ready for the next step. Well, except for bookkeeping and accounting…that remains a capability that I haven’t mastered.
I am still a voracious reader. I take more books on vacation than I do clothes…
Contact Info:
- Website: www.roundtop.com
- Phone: 8326529950
- Email: katie@roundtop.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/goingtoroundtop
- Facebook: facebook.com/roundtoptx
- Twitter: going2roundtop
Image Credit:
Cloud9 Photography per the watermark on the photo.
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