Daily Secret, the maker of popular daily emails with local tips, has a new CEO — Jacquelyn White, who was previously vice president of strategic partnerships at LearnVest and sales director at Daily Candy.
Given Daily Secret’s growth (it currently serves more than 1.5 million subscribers), White told me that it made sense to bring in a new CEO “who can focus on accelerating the growth and really kind of bring a fresh perspective on the business.” Founder and Nikolaos Kakavoulis, meanwhile, has transitioned from CEO to head of product.
White added that she was impressed by Daily Secret’s “really fantastic content” (usually created by locals) and the fact that it has built “a trusted relationship with young, influential professional taste makers in 41 markets around the world.” The company is also planning to launch in Berlin, Milan, and Paris soon.
Moving forward, White said that she sees partnership opportunities with companies in luxury goods, retail, finance, and elsewhere, and that Daily Secret could also move beyond local newsletters. For example, there could be a newsletter with content aimed at foodies around the world. The challenge, she said, will be maintaining focus. “As long as we deliver the best content experience we can, and it’s actionable, it’s insightful, it delights and surprises — if we continue to continue to focus on that, I think that we’ll be really successful.”
I subscribed to Daily Secret’s San Francisco newsletter after I wrote about the company’s Series B funding earlier this year, and I will admit that despite living in SF for five years, I learned about a number of new restaurants and other cool spots.
Unfortunately (at least for the purposes of getting Daily Secret tips), I don’t live in San Francisco anymore. And even though the company has offices in my new home of New York (as well as in Athens, Greece), it doesn’t actually offer a newsletter here. When I brought this up with White, she noted that the team may not provide a regular New York email, but it has created a list of favorite local spots, and that could provide a model, of sorts, for how the company moves beyond email.
“There are a lot of ways for us to produce really strong content that serves our audience’s needs without necessarily having a daily email product,” she said. “We’ll find the right method of content delivery to reach our member base wherever they are.”