TheSkimm Built a Massive Email Following. Now It Wants More.

If you’ve heard of theSkimm, you probably know it as a daily email newsletter that "makes it easier to be smarter."

But the founders, Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, aren’t content with a newsletter they say is opened by 1.5 million people. On the latest episode of Re/code Media with Peter Kafka, Zakin and Weisberg said they see email as just the first of many marketing tools they will use to reach their audience of predominantly young, well-educated women.

"We had a list of everyone we reached out to in fundraising," Zakin said of the company’s early days. "Most of it was in red. People couldn’t see beyond ’email.'"

But, as Weisberg explained, she and Zakin thought of email "as the best marketing tool there was." The co-founders were friends who left NBC News together and, during theSkimm’s pivotal early days of grassroots marketing and cold-emailing "The Today Show" host Hoda Kotb, also roommates.

"If you ever need inspiration, live with the person you’re supposed to start something with," Weisberg said.

You can listen to or download the episode in the player above. And make sure to subscribe to Re/code Media with Peter Kafka, which is now an independent show separate from Re/code Decode. Click here to subscribe to the new show right now on iTunes.

Peter Kafka will be back next Thursday to talk to Troy Young, who heads up the digital side of legacy media giant Hearst.

Want more podcasts? Okay! This Monday on Re/code Decode, Kara Swisher will interview Ash Carter, the United States Secretary of Defense. You can also hear Kara tomorrow on Too Embarrassed to Ask, her podcast with Lauren Goode from The Verge. Click here to subscribe to Re/code Decode and here to subscribe to Too Embarrassed to Ask on iTunes.

Finally, don’t miss Re/code Replay, where we’re posting audio from Peter’s Code/Media 2016 conference. To subscribe to that, click right here.

You can follow @Recode on Twitter for the latest on upcoming guests.

If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Peter. You can also suggest guests for the show, and we’ll do our best to nab them for an interview.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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