How Man of Many grew into the largest men's lifestyle media outlet in Australia
Frank Arthur and Scott Purcell realized early on that content consistency was paramount.
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Like many great media brands, Man of Many grew out of a personal obsession.
Specifically, it was an obsession held by Frank Arthur and Scott Purcell, two Sydney-based roommates who lived together for about eight years. Both harbored a deep fascination with high-end luxury goods, to the point that they’d find themselves emailing each other throughout the day about new product launches. “I'm a bit of a nerd and tech head, so I focused a lot on gadgety stuff,” Purcell told me in an interview. “Frank has a background in design, so he was interested in street wear, tech products, cars, and whiskey.” They especially loved limited edition and hard-to-find products.
The two often found themselves reading US-based men’s lifestyle websites like Uncrate and Cool Material, and in the early 2010s they began to notice that there weren’t really any Australian equivalents to these sites. “Even a lot of the men's magazines like [Australian] GQ or Esquire — I don't even know if they had a website at that time,” said Purcell. “Or if they did, it was very, very basic.” The two began to sketch out an idea for a website that would cater to their interests and fill a gap in the Australian media market.
In 2012, they launched Man of Many, a website that covers men’s lifestyle interests ranging from health to consumer products to pop culture. Though neither founder had a large personal brand or connections in the industry, they stayed consistent in their content production and, without any outside investment, managed to grow Man of Many into the largest men’s lifestyle outlet in Australia. Today, the brand generates over 5.8 million pageviews a month and boasts 650,000 subscribers on social media.
How did they accomplish this? In a recent interview, Purcell walked me through their early growth strategies, their approach to monetization, and their expansion into new topic areas and content verticals.
Let’s jump into my findings…
Keeping it simple
Arthur and Purcell both had day jobs — in design and finance, respectively — and they knew that their only chance at sticking to a consistent publishing schedule was if they kept their content extremely simple. “We featured one product per day with very short descriptions,” said Purcell. He’d seen other bootstrapped media outlets churn out a large volume of content and then flame out because they couldn’t sustain their production schedule. “So one product a day was really realistic for us, and it meant that every time someone came back to the website, they had something new to look at each day.”
In those early days, Many of Many was virtually unknown to the PR firms that handled product announcements, so Arthur and Purcell had to resort to curating content they found on other websites. But eventually the companies they were covering began to take notice, and they started to receive advance notice of new product launches. The real turning point came when they stopped with the single-product posts and began compiling lists around product categories. An early article titled “Best Watches Under $1,000” shot up in the Google rankings and brought in a flood of visits. Soon, search engines became their biggest source of traffic, and, even though they had originally founded the site to fill a gap in the Australian market, most of that traffic came from the US.
As time passed, Man of Many started to feel less and less like a side hustle for its two founders. “I think the turning point was really when I was going to work and all I could think about was getting home to work on Man of Many,” said Purcell. “I loved my finance job, but I started to notice I wasn't doing exactly the best of jobs because I was completely focused on this project.” Each day, he and Arthur would get home, eat dinner, and then work from 7 p.m. til late into the night.
Originally, they’d planned to quit their day jobs once they were generating enough revenue to replace their salaries, but at some point it became apparent that they needed significant runway to work on the business full time. By 2016, they’d generated around $50,000 through Man of Many, and they’d also put away a decent amount of savings from their day jobs. “We were in our mid twenties, both single, no mortgage, no massive financial commitments, no dependents like kids,” recalled Purcell. So they decided to quit their jobs and take the plunge, giving themselves six months to replace their previous salaries.
Diversifying revenue
Spoiler alert: they did not replace their salaries in six months. In fact, it took at least three years to cross that threshold.
But quitting their jobs did allow them to scale up their revenue operations much more quickly. They immediately started scheduling meetings with the top PR and marketing firms in Sydney. “I think in the first week we were catching taxis all around the city, and we ended up spending like $400 or something on taxis on the first day, and we quickly realized that that wasn't sustainable for us, and so we needed to be a bit smarter with how we managed our time.”
It didn’t take long for the founders to establish their main revenue driver: sponsored articles. Hundreds of thousands of people were already visiting the site each month for product recommendations, so it wasn’t difficult to convince brands that the audience was primed to buy. “We've always been really consistent ever since the site’s inception that we maintain our editorial independence,” said Purcell. “So we don't let brands just tell us what to publish when it comes to our sponsored content. We make sure that it's in our own voice and that we can stand by what we say for any sponsored article that sits on the site.” It also helped that they could claim such a huge audience. “A big goal of ours was to catch up to GQ and be as big as them.” Not only did Many of Many quickly surpass GQ Australia in traffic, it now has four times the number of monthly visits, according to Similarweb.
And given that Man of Many produces much of its content around product recommendations, it’s perfectly positioned for affiliate marketing. A recent article titled “22 Best Camping Gifts and Gadgets for Outdoorsy People,” for instance, includes multiple shopping links beneath each item. It also includes a handy link list up top dividing the products into categories like “best value for the money” and “most essential.” Purcell said his team uses platforms like Skimlinks that will scan an article for products and automatically insert affiliate links.
Recently, Many of Many relaunched its own dedicated product store, which is basically a drop shipping site where you can shop for items handpicked by its team. I spent several minutes clicking through it and found mostly well-regarded brands that price their items north of $100. “We essentially own more of the sale,” explained Purcell. “It’s the difference between a commission and an affiliate model. Sometimes attribution from retail platforms can be a little bit trickier, whereas if it's coming directly from our store, the attribution is really clear, so brands are willing to pay a bit of a higher commission for that.”
Expanding into new topic areas and verticals
For its first few years, Man of Many focused almost entirely on product recommendations, but then in 2020 it brought on a journalist named Nick Hall to serve as its editor in chief. “He was really instrumental in helping us legitimize the business and grow the traffic,” said Purcell. “You can literally see the change in our Google traffic chart upon him joining the company.”
Hall did this by expanding the site’s coverage so that it became more topical, particularly when it came to pop culture news. On the homepage right now you’ll find a trailer for a new Bruce Lee animated series, a profile of a professional snowboarder, and news about an upcoming season of House of the Dragon. Since Hall’s hiring, the editorial team has scaled up to around five full-time writers and 20 freelancers, with some specializing in specific topics like liquor, cars, and watches. A recent piece detailing the specs of a new Nissan car, for instance, was written by Ben McKimm, who’s labeled on his bio page as an “automotive and tech” writer.
Man of Many has also invested recently in building out its video operations. In 2022, it hired John Guanzon, a video producer at News Corp, to head up the site’s social media, and his team now produces videos across Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube. Some of these videos feature on-the-ground reporting, like this TikTok review of a high-end Australian burger joint in which the hosts try out the burgers on camera. The YouTube channel features several red carpet celebrity interviews, including this one with Tom Cruise. And of course you can’t be a product recommendation publisher without unboxing videos, like this one of a luxury watch.
According to Purcell, Man of Many’s social engagement has increased by 1,200% since Guanzon’s hiring, and he grew the TikTok following to about 100,000 in just four months. “A really big focus for us in the next six to 12 months is building out a video series that’s episodic — content that’s evergreen in nature and people can come back for.” He pointed to Complex Media’s popular series Hot Ones as the gold standard that he’d like to emulate. “We've thought of an Australian twist on that that we could potentially do, but we've got to make sure it's authentic and in the Man of Many voice. We don’t want to be copying anyone.”
Recently, Man of Many partnered with an events management company and has hosted around eight in-person gatherings over the last year. These often feature products in some way, whether it’s a watch unboxing, a whiskey tasting, or a dinner celebrating the launch of Specsavers’ newest sunglasses line. “We actually celebrated our 10-year anniversary with a big party down on the Sydney Harbor with about 250 guests, including brands we work with, clients, readers, friends, and family.” Unsurprisingly, the event featured multiple brand activations.
Slow, steady expansion
When Arthur and Purcell quit their day jobs back in 2016, they gave themselves six months to generate enough revenue to replace their full-time salaries, a deadline that Purcell now finds funny in retrospect. “Realistically, it probably took us like three or four years.” Man of Many never took outside investment, and so it’s only expanded as its revenue allowed it to.
So where would Purcell like to invest those limited resources in the coming years? For one, he’d like to collaborate directly with brands to design products. “We've done it in the past with an Australian sunglasses brand called Pacifico Optical,” he said. “We worked with them to design two limited edition pairs of sunglasses. We produced a hundred each, and they sold out very quickly, which is fantastic.” It also teamed up with an Oregon distillery called Westward Whiskey to launch a limited-edition single malt. “ I don't think it's necessarily a huge money maker, but being into consumer products ourselves and being able to celebrate the manufacturing process and the design that goes into it is something we're really passionate about. It also gives our loyal fans and readers something that they can buy and physically enjoy.”
Purcell also wants Many of Many to launch a major expansion into podcasts. He pointed to Mamamia, another independent Australian media outlet that’s built out the world’s largest women-focused podcast network, as inspiration for what he’d like to accomplish. “They've got something close to like 50 different podcasts that they've launched, so that's definitely an area of growth and focus for us.” The first podcast in this network will be launched in the next few months and called The Countdown.
In the long term, Purcell wants to grow Man of Many from a niche media site into a mainstream brand, but do so sustainably. “There are some rare instances where things blow up quickly, but they're very far and few between or they've got a ton of [investment] money behind them,” he said. “For us, it was very slow and steady growth, where we were constantly iterating and testing and learning.” Lately, they’ve invested more in the infrastructure that will allow them to scale up from a very small team to a staff of hundreds — things like establishing HR policies and parental leave. “We’re making sure that we're setting up the business for future success as we do expand into a larger and broader media business.”