Today we’d like to introduce you to Romina Ruiz-Goiriena.
Romina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I never thought I’d have the opportunity to launch a digital media outlet. I was fortunate enough to start my career as a news journalist in Israel, which catapulted me into some of the world’s most exciting newsrooms everything from Spain’s El Mundo to The Associated Press and Tel Aviv. But, as long as I’ve been in the news business. we’ve been in trouble. Plus, it takes decades–more than the one that I had at the time–before you’re invited to the strategic decision-maker table.
After a successful investigative piece I did with renown Univision journalist, Enrique Acevedo in conjunction with the ICIJ, The Huffington Post, and Fusion’s Investigative Unit he introduced me to some friends that were crushing it in the native digital scene in Mexico. They had an innovative business startup challenging traditional media. Just months before 2016, they understood as well the electoral year would be key and there was a need to speak to Latino audiences differently. So, they pursued me. I thought they were insane.
After all, Fox, CNN, NBC Universal, The Huffington Post had all started digital ventures targeting the US Hispanic market and folded. I asked them what made them think we’d be able to do it differently, especially if we had such a small budget. But after I saw the entire operation and what my co-founders Manuel Garza, Javier Razo, Santiago Fernandez and the COO Rene Zemog had built. I absolutely fell in love. So in January, we started the conceptualization process behind Barrio.
We wanted to focus on politics and pop culture in a way that hadn’t been done before. We recruited two editors from HuffPo’s Voces and in just under four weeks we were live on social media. We used it as our testing content ground. We pivoted many times, There were sleepless nights and so many things that needed to change and adapt. But when we came up with featuring everyday heroes side-by-side more known ones. We grew our team as well as our reach.
Within a few months, we were reaching 1.2 million people. We were also accepted into Babson College’s Women Innovating Now accelerator program in Miami and we got to participate alongside legacy media in getting out the vote efforts.
Has it been a smooth road?
Of course, it wasn’t. This is entrepreneurship, it’s tropical Silicon Valley! A lot of people wondered why we opened up shop in Miami when the digital media capital of the world is still New York City.
Others just didn’t (don’t) believe in the fact that the United States is a majority-minority nation. So, it was hard to build a breakout media brand, from a corner that usually you don’t hear the buzz from about a group of people that has been ignored. Despite this, my co-founders and team never stopped believing that we had a purpose and a mission.
We were going to tell stories like nobody else. In the end, you have to believe that as an entrepreneur and as a storyteller, that you are bringing something forward that no one else can in the way you believe you have to do it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Barrio by Prowell Media story. Tell us more about the business.
Barrio is a media outlet by Prowell Media, a digital media company, and agency that builds audiences through new, meaningful, and satisfying content on any platform. The business model has evolved into a multiplatform brand that, paired with our unique channels of distribution and broad reach in social media.
With a combined audience of 14 million in the U.S. and Mexico, they have become a communication and editorial powerhouse in the digital world. So we create editorial media outlets targeting different demographics and verticals, build up the audience around it and then brands come to Prowell to develop native content to distribute.
What sets the entire company apart is it’s people: developers, marketers, designers, creatives, and journalists that want to connect emotionally with people. I think what the company apart is its uncompromising loyalty to quality and to deliver content that says something and means what it says.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
As I said earlier, the media space has been in “crisis” as long as I’ve been in it. And native content is the way of the world because the traditional relationship between advertising and publishers has evolved. What people want is different.
I think one of the biggest mistakes publishers can make is to get to focused or upset by the role platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) play–so much so–that they forget that there is still a role for incredible content. Technology can evolve and so devices and distribution channels will certainly follow. But what makes up a good story, will always be universal. I always tell people that we are more human than we think.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.esbarrio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esbarrio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EsBarrio/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/esbarrio
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