Beach Tomato was my first baby (and by this I mean in terms of love, not lack of sleep). It was an interesting time in the world of digital. Bloggers were all the rage, Instagram wasn’t a thing and people still used Facebook to tell people what they are doing. Magazines all had digital products, but the quality was poor and a lot of them just got interns to run them. So Beach Tomato, while niche in subject matter, showed up in a new way in the digital content space.

The content was all focused on beach life. As I said, niche. But is it? The insight was people plan their beach holiday well in advance, research their beach holiday, shop for their beach holiday, have numerous beauty preparations for their beach holiday, look forward to their beach holiday and then happily reminisce about their beach holiday. More than that, it’s a feeling. A feeling we summed up with “It’s better at the beach”.

Unlike the world of digital magazines, I commissioned renowned journalists, had a robust content strategy that delivered franchises people actively sought, captured travel, culture, fashion and beauty. But, what was more - we had a very distinct visual identity that allowed Beach Tomato to be well remembered by our visitors. We cared about how we looked and sounded in a time where this wasn’t of high consideration.

And it went well. Pretty much every publication covered us, or came to be as a talking head for quotes or recommendations, I had columns around travel and fashion in numerous different publications. We were regularly listed in the best website lists and even won some awards. Oh, and we had a quickly growing user base that simply loved what we were doing. We also launched a beach fashion e-commerce platform. But that’s another story for another time.

It was a great moment in time - especially when I could edit everything from the beach. Need to practice what I preach, after all.