A time for gratitude at Yellow Scene

Regardless of your faith, the holiday season tends to spotlight all the things in our lives that we are grateful for. In the hustle of running a business it can be easy to miss being grateful. I always try to be appreciative of the self-reflection the season brings.

This year there’s a lot of extras to be grateful for. My amazing son, who taught himself to read, write, and speak Russian and Polish (and if I can brag just a teensy bit, he did it in his spare time with a $1.50 app), is living back at home while saving to go to both those places, and turned 21 this month. My significant other and I are about to celebrate 4 years, and his independent landscaping/general handyman business is taking off. And once again, I am surrounded by amazing, supportive people who insure not only that Yellow Scene publishes each month, but that we meet the standards we hold very near and dear to our hearts. After taking on immense expansion (that by the sheer nature of growth caused a few hiccups in our everyday lives), we’re seeing the calm again. Something I have now learned to relish.

We’ve always been people-powered. Even from the very beginning, way back in 2000, when we started on yellow paper and worked out of a 500 square foot apartment. Sure, I was tough as nails and willing to do the hard work to make sure this dream became a reality, but I never, ever did it alone. Through the years I’ve been blessed with incredible people who helped me persevere, who worked long deadlines and pulled an extra shift to make sure what we publish is interesting, engaging and meaningful to our readers. Because the readers are, in fact, the most important part of what we do.

Without readers we have nothing to sell our advertisers.

For as long as mankind has been communicating through medium, the message that was sent has always been of importance. Words have power. They’re mightier than the sword. Here at YS, we don’t wield ours carelessly. Instead, we believe that as a member of the media we have a Responsibility. While you might say this is a novel idea in today’s world, it isn’t. Everywhere you turn artists and creatives are defying the standards set by mainstream, and breaking out. Musicians are forming their own record labels (and succeeding), actors and directors are turning to the small screen because they get creative freedom, and a fair number of authors are self-publishing successfully.

We believe it’s for this reason that YS has endured and survived some of the best and worst of times through our 16-year history. From having nothing but a yellow piece of paper and hand-walking it to 4000 houses on the first run, to being the underdog, and then growing to being a top choice, and subsequently having competitors ramp up efforts to eliminate us, to even taking on more growth than was comfortable. Not to mention the staffing, management and financial challenges that comes with that as well. We wear our battle scars with pride.

Because we know, deep in our hearts, the reason we’re still going strong is because we never lost our readers. We know the reason we’ve captured the following we have is because we dare to break the formulaic mold. We refuse to do advertorials. We refuse to utilize aggregate content, which is unfortunately too often used to keep budgets low. YS takes the time until we find the right artists and writers so that our unique voice is never lost. We’ll never churn out something that looks good on fancy paper, but lacks content. Because, as in the words of Bill Gates, Content is King.

And we’re grateful. We’re celebrating 16 years, and with the arrival of 2017 will be changing that celebration to the big ole number of 17. So hard to believe because we started out on a little, yellow piece of paper. It doesn’t actually feel like all that long ago. It’s hard to get rid of us and don’t think other’s haven’t tried. It’s with much pride I tell you our dedication shows up in the wonderful things between our pages. From the big name interviews that only YS lands in this marketplace, to the cutting-edge, finger-on-the-pulse, reader-focused content. We are proud of our publishing model and our journalism standards. Do we get some vilification for this sometimes? Sure we do. But we persist and keep on keepin’ on. We don’t compromise for the sake of the game. And our publication is our testament to this.

But more importantly our blood, sweat and tears means being able to guarantee we deliver you something you enjoy reading each month. Which we hope makes your holiday as joyous as ours!

Celebrate our miracle with us by sharing yours with the community.