Meet Melinda Garvey: Outstanding Austin Communicator

by Kristin Johnon

At the AWC Austin Banner Brunch on April 30, Melinda Garvey, publisher and co-founder of austinwoman Magazine, will be honored with the Outstanding Austin Communicator award.

The award recognizes Austin-area communicators who have made their marks with their bodies of work, with an emphasis on achievement, community service, and promotion of the field of communications.

Since launching austinwoman Magazine in September 2002, Garvey has expanded it from 28 to 100-plus pages, increased distribution from 20,000 to 27,000 copies, and added new offerings such as specialty publications, events, and online interactivity.

Garvey also serves as a role model to Austin communicators and entrepreneurs through internships, speaking engagements, and mentoring.

She recently took time to impart words of wisdom to new entrepreneurs and to talk about the future direction of AW Media Inc., including the soon-to-be-launched Austin Man Magazine and the April 1 AW Healthy Living event.

AWC: As a successful woman entrepreneur, what three tips would you share with women who are starting or building their communications businesses?

MG: First, contrary to popular belief, the business plan is alive and well. It’s still one of the best start-up tools out there.

Understanding your idea — fleshing it out on paper, setting your goals and your vision, looking at your competition, creating a budget — helps you get clarity on your idea and see where there might be some holes.

It’s a huge motivator. After you decide to start a business, 30 days down the road, you look in the mirror and ask yourself, “What the heck am I doing?” If you pick up your business plan and read all the supporting evidence, your vision and your goals, you realize, “No, I’m not crazy. This is a good idea.”

Second, I really believe you should have fear. People always talk about the need to be fearless. You certainly do need to have courage. Fear is a really important emotion. Sometimes it’s telling you to run and run fast and you should listen to that. What it tells me is that I’ve set some big goals. If this is just the old hat to you, you’re not shooting high enough.

Third, have an exit strategy. A lot of books on business planning say you need to understand your end game. It might be a business you want to pass on to your family, and that’s a great goal.

I always have a three-to-five year exit strategy. If I wanted to retire what would it look like? I work with a financial adviser and an accountant and re-evaluate it all the time.

The worst thing that can happen is for someone to offer you $3 million to $5 million for your business and you don’t know if it’s a good deal. And it happens a lot more than you think.

AWC: How has your communications business evolved, and where do you see it heading?

MG: We started out as a magazine, austinwoman. We are becoming a media company.

Six years ago we launched our Pink Pages, a directory of women-owned businesses. A couple of years ago we started our Guide to Good Health, a standalone product that encompasses the health series we’ve done [in the magazine] throughout the year.

Then we decided to do a fifth anniversary event and it was a huge success. It’s really about keeping your eyes open and understanding what people want.

Adding Austin Man Magazine is something I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years. I’ve been blown away by the feedback. People are coming out of the woodwork. Men are craving this. There is nothing targeted at them.

Our philosophy is that we’re going to have 50 percent crossover between men and women readers. Initially we expect that women will bring it home to their men. In addition, we’re going to put it directly into the hands of men, going to every golf tournament, etc.

We were a bootstrap company. We really continue to be. One thing we‘ve done very well is that we’ve always met the needs of our readers. We’ve had a clear vision and mission and we’re doing the same thing with Austin Man and with our events.

AWC: What would you like people to know about the upcoming first AW Healthy Living event on Friday, April 1? What do you hope women will gain from attending?

MG: Part of the reason we started the Guide to Good Health was because of reader interest in health-related topics. The Healthy Living event is really an extension of that.

In putting the event together, we brainstormed with our partners, Seton, St. David’s, and Austin Regional Clinic, and our health writer. Healthy living is about a lot of different things. We wanted to do something a little bit different from you run-of-the-mill event.

We’re going to have a breakout on fertility — a really hot topic — with two top fertility doctors, one who deals with male fertility and one with female fertility.

We’re doing a breakout session on sexual health. We just did an article on that subject and it was huge for us. It’s both mental and physical so we’ll have both a psychologist and a urologist.

We’re doing a session on kids’ health with a pediatrician and a child psychologist.

Our luncheon keynote speaker is a money expert — how your financial health affects your physical health — what everybody’s been going through the last couple of years and how you change your thinking about that.

We’ll have a meet-the-doctor area for face-to-face meetings with doctors.

All day we will collect questions and at the end of the day a panel of physicians will answer both these questions and audience questions.

I would love for everybody to come out, even if they can’t come for the full day. We’ve tried to make it affordable so it’s accessible to everyone.